The aim of nuclear safety is to protect the individual, the company and the environment by creating and maintaining effective protection against radiation hazards in a nuclear power plant (NPP). Achieving this objective means reducing the risks associated with the NPP below the risk level of other ways of producing energy.
The development of nuclear power requires adherence to strict safety rules and technical, environmental and public health standards.
Therefore, the safety of nuclear power plants is subject to the strictest possible controls at all stages (design, approval, construction, operation and final decommissioning) using procedures developed exclusively according to the needs of this specific sector.
In addition, the construction of a nuclear power plant is subject to a particularly complex approval process consisting of two different components: nuclear safety approval, which is the responsibility of the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic, and an environmental impact assessment (EIA), which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic.
To ensure safety, the power plant’s safety system is designed to perform three fundamental safety functions:
continuous control of reactor output;
ensuring the cooling of fuel even after the termination of the chain reaction using redundant systems (3 x 100%);
preventing radioactive material from escaping the reactor by ensuring it is in all cases contained by a series of safety barriers.
Technical progress involves the continuous modernisation of safety systems, in which human intervention is kept to a minimum and safety is ensured automatically, including exploitation of the laws of physics – gravity, the thermodynamics of the cooling medium etc.
