The security of nuclear facilities and nuclear material is meant to prevent the compromise of nuclear safety through unauthorised actions, the intentional release of radioactive materials into the environment and the theft of nuclear materials. To this end, all Swiss nuclear power plants have a special security dispositive. As with safety, the principle of security is based on profound protection through structural, technical, organisatorial, personal and administrative measures.
The first review conference of the Amended Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material took place from 28 March to 1 April 2022. Switzerland lobbied for a repeated review of the implementation of the Amended Convention, to be carried out in five years time as part of an IAEA conference. The Amended Convention on […]
Alongside safety in its narrowest sense, safety culture also includes the security of nuclear installations together with other aspects that are important for ensuring nuclear safety. This is demonstrated by the revised second edition of the Oversight Report on the safety culture in nuclear installations of the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (ENSI).
The fuel pellets are filled into metal tubes. Together with the nuclear fuel matrix, the cladding tubes are the first barrier for trapping radioactive substances in nuclear power plants.
The nuclear fuel is pressed into pellets and compacted using the sintering process before use in nuclear power plants. This process transforms the nuclear fuel into a ceramic material, which is able to retain the fission products that arise during operation in the nuclear fuel matrix.
The barrier concept aims to trap sources of radiation in nuclear facilities across several levels. Similar to the layers of an onion, independent barriers ensure that the risk from sources of radiation are minimised for people and the environment.
