A Renewed Focus on Nuclear Energy and Standards

Guest blog post from ASME

ASME, a not-for-profit professional organisation that enables global collaboration across all engineering disciplines, examines the changing attitudes of the public towards nuclear energy and explores how nuclear plants can once again be integrated in to our daily lives.

We are in the early stages of a global nuclear renaissance. In 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it had received 17 applications to build 26 new nuclear reactors in the country and expects to receive five applications for another seven reactors by the end of 2010.

But the proposed expansion of nuclear power certainly is not limited to the United States. With concerns over global climate change, energy independence and meeting growing energy demand, organisations have announced plans for the construction of more than 70 new plants around the world.

Looking forward, members of the ASME Nuclear Codes and Standards Committees have already started to work on developing new codes and standards and updating existing ones.

“There’s a lot of interest in building new plants, and this generates the need to make sure that the code meets the needs of the users,” says Bryan Erler, Vice President, ASME Nuclear Codes and Standards.

ASME is also involved in the Multinational Design Evaluation Programme (MDEP), whose goal is to help bring greater consistency to various regulatory agencies’ regulations among countries using nuclear power.

One of the main beneficiaries of this effort will be suppliers, who will be able to build components for nuclear facilities that can be used in more than one country without having to make changes to the design or construction of the components.

ASME is also working on a new verification and validation standard for computer modelling, specifically designed for the nuclear industry, which is set to be released in late 2010. This will allow software to be standardised and will result in better estimates being calculated for new reactor scenarios.

With such a widespread change in attitude towards a previously contentious source of energy it seems that ASME’s work on improving the nuclear industry will further add to its resurgence. However, the viability of nuclear power is still under discussion to a certain extent and this, along with all other aspects of nuclear power, will be explored in great depth at Nuclear Power Europe 2010.

ASME is a supporter of Nuclear Power Europe 2010 and will be attending the show in June. For more information, visit: www.asme.org, www.powergrideurope.com or send an email to info-europe@asme.org.