Licensing Approach Applicable to Land Facilities Supporting Nuclear-Powered Submarines

Abstract

The nuclear licensing process is a fundamental stage for the design and deployment of a nuclear facility. In Brazil, the licensing process of Central Nuclear Almirante Álvaro Alberto (CNAAA) nuclear power plants, in Angra dos Reis - RJ, was established mainly based on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S.NRC) guidelines. However, for each purpose specific requirements are established which promote a standardisation appropriate to the type of installation in question. Thus, not every nuclear installation can be adequately framed in the standards and requirements established for the licensing of a nuclear power plant, especially when considering nuclear facilities for strategic and defense purposes. For instance, the Specialized Maintenance Complex (CME) project that is being developed by the Brazilian Navy and aims to offer all the structure and systems for support on land to the first Brazilian nuclear-powered submarine. Therefore, when considering the interfaces between maritime/naval systems and operations, the purpose and specificity of installations such as CME extrapolate the commonly established nuclear normative framework. Due to the innovation of this type of installation in Brazil, there is no specific regulation for its licensing, constituting a unique situation for both the Brazilian Navy (applicant) and the National Nuclear Energy Commission - CNEN (Brazilian Nuclear Licensing Agency, which, in the near future, will have its function incorporated into the National Nuclear Safety Authority, ANSN). Even when researching standards and other guides in ostensible sources of nations that holds nuclear reactor technology for naval propulsion (and land support facilities), no normative guidance dealing specifically with the safety analysis and licensing of this type of installation has been identified. Thus, this paper proposes a first approach and analysis of the standards used by the U.S. Department of Defense (U.S.DOE) comparing them to the standards of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S.NRC) aiming to compose a specific normative proposition to carry out the safety analysis and licensing of a nuclear-powered submarines land support facility.