Summary of Working Paper No. 104-1998
II.6.7
St. Petersburg, Russia
The Reports (Parts I and II) dealing with environmental safety of nuclear
icebreakers in the Arctic present results of a conservative assessment of the
impact produced by radiation components of an icebreaker nuclear accident on the
personnel, population and environment.
The Reports show that in case of an accident contemplated in the technical
documentation the radiological situation on board the icebreaker and in the
nearest surroundings is within the sanitary standards. In case of an accident not
contemplated in the technical documentation radiation impact on the ecological
systems differs from the normative values. In this case a package of
organisational, engineering and managerial decisions is needed to mitigate that impact on
the personnel, population and environment to an acceptable low level.
The aim of this work is to investigate environmental safety of using the
Russian nuclear icebreaker in the Arctic shipping under the International Northern
Sea Route Program.
Practical experience gained in safe operation of the "Rossia" and "Taimyr"
type of nuclear icebreakers verifies high quality of the nuclear power plants used
in the icebreakers as well as high qualification and professional training of
the personnel which makes it possible to operate the plants trouble free.
Proper technical condition of the nuclear powered ships and personnel safety
on board them is ensured in compliance not only with the requirements of the
national but also with those of the international documents, such as:
The icebreakers are operated in accordance with the fundamental safeguarding
principles:
In compliance with the requirements of the service and technical documentation
and requirements set forth below, Russian legislation relating to use of
atomic energy in Russia, the Operating Organisation (Shipowner`s Administration)
plans and puts into effect a package of precautionary measures to ensure safe
operation of the Fleet and maintain appropriate readiness to mitigate negative
consequences of an accidence the likelihood of which is low but can not be
completely precluded.
As the result of an analysis made to assess possible after-effects of the
icebreaker nuclear accident proposals have been worked out to establish
informational support to the accident control process and to design organisational and
technical measures to minimise radiation impact produced by the accident.
However, for the purpose of the international shipping in compliance with the
INSROP program use of the informational support of the existing Marine due to
linguistic differences in the software, routing of information flows and lack of
the used program adaptation protocols.
With the aim of informational support to the international navigation in the
Arctic, assisted by the Russian icebreakers, work shall be performed within the
INSROP framework to eliminate the above differences, which hinder integration
of the information systems. The requirements of the Federal Law as applied to
the international exchange of information on the nuclear accidents shall be taken
into account.
The list of top priority works on integration of the Russian and INSROP
information systems is given In Appendix 3, Part II.
IMO Resolution A.491(12). Code of Safety for Nuclear Merchant Ships.
19.11.1981.
A Report by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group of the IAEA (No.75
- INSAG-3).
IMO Resolution A.741(18). International Management Code for the Safe Operation
of Ships and For Pollution Prevention (ISM Code). 04.11.1993.
IMO Resolution A.788(19). Guidelines on Implementation of the International
Safety Management (ISM) Code of the Administrations. 23.11.1995.
Safety Management Manual. SMS - 001. Safety Management System, Murmansk
Shipping Company. 1997.
managerial principles including establishment of safety culture,
responsibility of operating organisation, checking of the fleet operational activity
involving safeguarding;
principles of structural defence in depth including organisational and
technical measures to prevent nuclear - and radiohazardous accidents and mitigate
their after-effects on the personnel and environment;
technical principles including tried engineering activity, good marine
practice, proper training and qualification of personnel, crew members, continuous
evaluation of the NPP technical condition, radiation protection, generalisation
and use of operating experience.