News Date

The Pre­si­dent of the Natio­nal Ato­mic Energy Agency (PAA), as the regu­la­tory body, appro­ved the Perio­dic Safety Review report of the MARIA rese­arch reac­tor.

The Perio­dic Safety Review (PSR) is com­pre­hen­sive safety review of all impor­tant safety aspects, car­ried out at regu­lar inte­rvals. The first PSR of MARIA Rese­arch Reac­tor took place in 2018-2019 and indi­ca­ted that the reac­tor meets safety stan­dards. The PSR report recom­mends the fur­ther ope­ra­tion of Poland’s sole nuc­lear reac­tor and justi­fies efforts to extend its ope­ra­tion.

The objec­tive of PSR is a veri­fi­ca­tion of the reac­tor safety thro­ugh a deta­iled ana­ly­sis of safety fac­tors rele­vant to its ope­ra­tion, inc­lu­ding:

  • sys­tems, struc­tu­res, and com­po­nents will ensure the safe ope­ra­tion of the faci­lity in the fol­lo­wing years,
  • reac­tor con­forms to the law and good inter­na­tio­nal prac­ti­ces,
  • safety docu­men­ta­tion is up-to-date and ade­qu­ate for the con­duc­ted acti­vity.

Accor­ding to the amend­ment to the regu­la­tions from 2011, nuc­lear faci­li­ties are obli­ged to per­form PRS at least every ten years. PSR focu­ses on chan­ges in the faci­lity since the pre­vious review or the start of the ope­ra­tion. The first MARIA PSR had to assess the impact of moder­ni­za­tions and chan­ges made since the cri­ti­ca­lity in 1974 on nuc­lear and radio­lo­gi­cal safety. That is why the recent asses­sment covers 45 years of ope­ra­tion of the reac­tor, sho­wing its failure-free ope­ra­tion from the begin­ning.

The PAA Pre­si­dent’s appro­val of the report pro­ves that the MARIA reac­tor is ope­ra­ted in a safe man­ner and in accor­dance with the law, which paves the way for its fur­ther ope­ra­tion. The MARIA reac­tor is used not only to con­duct mate­rial and tech­no­lo­gi­cal rese­arch but also to irra­diate target mate­rials for the pro­duc­tion of radio­iso­to­pes. Fur­ther­more, the reac­tor pro­vi­des capa­bi­li­ties for the rese­arch of new medi­cal pro­ce­du­res, inc­lu­ding boron-neu­tron the­rapy or brachythe­rapy.