[cdn-nucl-l] RE: Ottawa Citizen letter on CNSC anti-nuclear bias (Stewart Peterson)

["WILLIAMS Brent\(B\) - BRUCE POWER" <Brent.Williams@brucepower.com>]

I seem to recall that a number of years ago, a Mars probe was lost
because a programming team mixed up imperial and metric units.

Another challenge with automated design analysis is that each design
would have to have its own analysis software.

As we move towards standardization, this issue dilutes; however, each
station will still have incremental design improvements that would have
to be dealt with. In addition, substantive automation could have the
outcome of stifling designs in various polities.

One nice thing about people is that we have the potential to understand
context and the limits of rules.

Brent Williams
Vice President
North American Young Generation in Nuclear


>Message: 2
>From: "Stewart Peterson" <issues@niof.org>
>To: "Canadian Nuclear Discussion List"
<CDN-NUCL-@mailman1.cis.mcmaster.ca>
>Subject: Re: [cdn-nucl-l] Ottawa Citizen letter on CNSC anti-nuclear
bias
>Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 06:48:42 -0600
>
>I don't know about not having any sort of a regulatory agency, but if
most 
>of the effort is in ensuring that a system has certain attributes
within a 
>known range, couldn't a significant amount of it be computerized? Is it
>more complex than replacing someone looking at a screen or piece of
paper >and verifying that a number is within a range with a computer
that can do >the same thing 10,000x faster and more reliably?
>
>I guess I don't understand why potential reactor designs couldn't be 
>evaluated by a computer program if the issue is a given low probability
of 
>radioactive release over a given limit, and if nuclear power plants are

>already extensively instrumented, why couldn't the systems be connected
to >a computer that has been programmed with the acceptable ranges for
each 
>instrument and corrective actions to take if each instrument goes out
of 
>range which way and to what degree, and what to do if a particular
event is 
>combined with other events? Are the new plants being designed like
this? If 
>so, is the CNSC making the changes to their procedures necessary to
>regulate 
>them?
>
>-Stewart Peterson
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