EFFICIENT LICENSING OF PACKAGE DESIGNS FOR FISSILE MATERIAL

International regulations for transport of fissile materials require multilateral approval of each package design. In addition, approvals by states which may become involved may be requested. Alternative routes are needed. Approval from the authority of the nationality of a ship is required. The lengthy licensing procedures in most states may require applications long before an actual shipment is prepared. The industry requests more realism and more realistic interpretations of requirements. Many proposals have been made by Sweden and other states in recent years to allow more realism in the regulations. Some progress may have been achieved, but it is very slow. Many states seem to avoid changes, even when the current requirements are clearly incorrect or unrealistic. In some cases, authorities and applicants show a similar reluctance to correct faulty and incomplete safety assessments. Realism is a prediction of the future. It must be compatible with observed reality, which is the current situation, while taking past experience into account. A separate paper on technical criticality safety issues related to realism and reality will be presented at ICNC 2007 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Examples specific to transport licensing during the last years will be presented at PATRAM 2007. The sources of information or details of the designs will not be revealed. Exchange of experience is required to allow increased realism, to improve safety reports and for licensing efficiency. During the last years, there are signs of improved cooperation at a technical level between authorities. However, unilateral approval will not be a wise option for many years. The quality of applications and authority reviews is unfortunately not indicating a reduced need for independent review. There is no single authority that with credibility can claim such quality in criticality safety licensing that no additional review is needed. On the other hand, a large number of authority approvals are no safety indication either. Increased cooperation between authorities will lead to improved consistency in interpretation of the requirements, shorter overall licensing delays and, most likely, higher overall quality of the safety review. For the industry, these are all advantages but there are also other benefits.