Any disposal of non-radioactive waste (including excavation materials arising from construction) on a nuclear site will require an environmental permit issued by the EA under the Permitting Regulations 2010 and Part 2 of the EPA 1990 (see Section 33(1)(a)). Operators are prohibited from treating, keeping or disposing of controlled waste or extractive waste in a manner likely to cause pollution of the environmental or harm to human health. A duty of care is imposed on those in possession of waste requiring them to take all reasonable measures to, among other things, prevent the escape of waste from their control and secure that waste is only transferred to authorised persons. Like the other environmental permits issued under the Permitting Regulations 2010, the EA will be able to control the waste disposals through the conditions imposed, and to take enforcement action under Part 4.

Recognising the unique and hazardous characteristics of nuclear waste, the UK operates a separate regulatory regime which is much more stringent than in other areas of environmental regulation. The accumulation and disposal of radioactive waste requires an authorisation granted by the EA under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA 1993). A disposal includes those directly into the environment, for example discharges to air, water and land, as well as transfers to other sites for disposal (which includes treatment). The EA is obliged to consult with a number of bodies before granting an authorisation, including the HSE and ‘such local authorities, relevant water bodies or other public or local authorities as appear. . . to be proper to be consulted’ (Section 16(5); see also Section 18). Under the RSA 1993, the Secretary of State has retained key powers and can direct the EA to grant (with or without conditions), refuse, vary, cancel or revoke applications, and can require certain applications to be determined by him or her. The RSA 1993 regime offers different levels of regulatory control, from local authorities through to the Secretary of State, to ensure that environmental impacts are adequately reflected in radioactive waste man­agement decisions. In order to ensure compliance, the EA has the power to issue enforcement and prohibition notices, and operators in breach of their authorisations could face an unlimited fine. There is also the possibility of up to five years’ imprisonment where it can be proved that an offence has been committed, with the consent, or by the neglect, of an officer of a corporate body.

As regards the turnkey approach, no matter how detailed the description of the bidder’s scope of supply in the SS document, it is highly advisable for the owner to protect himself with a ‘completeness clause’ clearly stating that the bidder is requested and shall therefore be committed to delivering a licensable and functionally complete plant, including all the services, structures, systems and components required for the plant to operate safely in accordance with the applicable codes, standards and regulatory require­ments of the country and in compliance with the owner’s technical require­ments as laid out in the BIS.

When the owner has opted for the split-package or multi-package approach, redacting the SS document becomes a more complex undertak­ing to ensure that each plant scope item is clearly assigned either to the owner or to one of the package suppliers. Following are some practical recommendations:

1. A SS document should be prepared specifically for each individual large package (e. g. NI, TI, BOP, civil works) making up the complete plant. This SS document shall describe the scope of supply of the owner, that of the supplier and that of other participants for each specific large package.

2. As there will be several package suppliers, the overall responsibility of defining the scope limits (terminal points) for each package, of integrat­ing all packages, of coordinating the various suppliers, and of managing and resolving interfaces among project participants remains with the owner.

3. In addition to the establishing the scope of supply and services of the owner, the SS document for each package shall clearly specify who is responsible for the performance of the following tasks referring to the overall project, which are not included in the scope of any of the indi­vidual packages:

• Overall project management

• Overall project schedule management

• Overall site management

• Overall plant commissioning management

• Licensing support coordination of the entire plant

• Management of interfaces between package suppliers

• Overall plant performance guarantee.

It is understood that each package supplier will be responsible for the project management, scheduling, construction and commissioning of his own package. Different package suppliers, as well as all other partici­pants in the project, should be given a clear understanding of who will take overall responsibility for the management and integration of the various packages that make up the complete plant. The owner may decide to keep for himself the performance of these tasks for the entire project or he may hire an architect-engineering firm to perform these services. The latter, acting as the owner’s engineer, will be responsible for overall management and integration of all packages on behalf of the owner.

4. Here again, the IAEA account system (IAEA, 2000) (or any other equivalent account system) provides guidance for the systematic check­ing of proper assignment to the owner, supplier or other project partici­pant of all items that should be included in the scope of each package, and to ensure that no item has been overlooked.

5. It is good practice for the SS document to include a requirement of ‘functional completeness’ for the structures, systems and components constituting the package, that is, all piping and cables installed, all con­nections completed, and all fluids (oil, water, air, gases) delivered to the terminal points at the interfacing conditions agreed, which means that all systems and components should be fully operational.

The overall objective of commissioning is to prepare the SSCs for opera­tion. This involves verifying that the SSCs meet their design requirements for safety and performance, for both individual structures and components and integrated systems. These requirements cover normal operation, antici­pated operational occurrences, and design basis accidents. Verifying the design provisions for management of accidents beyond the design basis can also be done at this stage, as far as it is feasible. There is some overlap between construction and commissioning since some SSCs may be commis­sioned before completion of the entire plant. (The various aspects of com­missioning and related activities are considered at length in Chapter 22).

There are several steps during commissioning that may require regula­tory approval. The introduction of fissile material into the plant is an impor­tant event and is considered in some cases to be the first point where regulatory decisions are required. Since commissioning is performed typi­cally over a few months, the licensee and the RB must both be prepared for an intensive period of activity. Besides planning and organizing its own activities, the licensee should ensure that the RB establishes and commu­nicates a detailed plan outlining how it will review the commissioning work, the nature of the required approvals and hold-points, and what information is required to be submitted by the licensee at each hold point. For example, the licensee should understand the clearances that the on-site regulatory staff can issue at the various stages of commissioning, and the submissions that are required to ensure such clearances. The licensee must also be sensi­tive to the fact that results of commissioning could lead to further refining of the regulatory requirements for plant operation, for example in its oper­ating procedures and in-service inspections requirements.

An operating license requires the submission of FSAR based on the PSAR previously submitted for the construction license, as summarized in Table 20.3. However, it includes more information from both the construc­tion and commissioning programmes and may also be impacted by new R&D information and international safety developments that have arisen during the construction period. Obviously, the satisfactory completion of the training and certification of operating staff is an essential milestone for the operating license, and is considered further in Section 20.5.4.

Operational procedures are developed before a plant is transferred from construction to operations. These include procedures that cover normal and off-normal operations, surveillance, maintenance, and emer­gency operations. Emergency operations procedures normally have to be approved by the regulator before issuing the operating license and prior to initial fuel loading. Several other submissions could be required depending on the national licensing processes and FSAR content, as indicated in Table 20.3.

During operation, there will be ongoing requirements to submit various operational reports to the regulator depending on licensing requirements and on the occurrence of any events that impact or have the potential to impact safety. Some of these requirements are discussed in Section 20.5.

Over time, organisations will experience changes to personnel and perform­ance; if these changes go undetected they could have an adverse effect on nuclear safety and plant performance. Similarly, circumstances change and organisational needs will change as a result. It is important therefore that the effectiveness of organisations is regularly reviewed to ensure they are compliant with nuclear site licence conditions and company arrangements described in QA programmes and to identify areas for improvement.

The nuclear industry has developed many programmes for the evaluation of organisational effectiveness, some of which are described below.

5.1.6 Quality assurance audits

Typically, quality assurance audits determine whether organisations are compliant with company arrangements. Chapter 21 addresses QA in detail.

Some countries are carrying out national education initiatives to promote nuclear knowledge, such as the examples in the USA, the UK, Japan and France described below.

USA: NEUP (2009)

The US Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE) created Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) in 2009 to consolidate its university support under one programme. NEUP funds nuclear energy research and equipment upgrades at US colleges and universities, and pro­vides scholarships and fellowships to students. DOE personnel in Washington DC oversee the programme and the Idaho-based NEUP Integration Office administers the awards. NEUP’s goals and objectives are to support out­standing, cutting-edge and innovative research at US universities by:

• Attracting the brightest students to the nuclear profession and support­ing the nation’s intellectual capital in nuclear engineering and relevant nuclear science, such as health physics, radiochemistry and applied nuclear physics

• Integrating research and development (R&D) at universities, national laboratories and industry to revitalize nuclear education

• Improving university and college infrastructures for conducting R&D and educating students

• Facilitating the transfer of knowledge from the aging nuclear workforce to the next generation of workers.

A large number of personnel trained in a variety of fields are required to support a nuclear power programme in the long term. An initial training programme is necessary to orient the newly inducted persons in nuclear science and technology where after they can receive advanced training. This initial training can be imparted through undergraduate nuclear engineering courses. However, after enrolment of students in such courses it would typi­cally take four to five years before they become available for deployment in the nuclear power programme. An alternative could be to design capsule courses of about one year’s duration where graduates or postgraduates in science and engineering could be taught nuclear subjects. Such courses are available in a few countries and arrangements may be made for getting personnel trained in these centres. However, subsequently it would be advantageous to establish such a course within the country to be able to train a larger number of personnel on a regular basis and at low cost. For personnel who are going to be engaged in the operation and maintenance (O&M) functions of the NPP, further on-the-job training should be arranged in an operating NPP or a research reactor such that they can be readily inducted into the detailed O&M training for the NPP to be constructed to become licensed operators at the earliest opportunity.

The costs of electricity generated by different sources should include the cost of the plant, the cost of the fuel, and the cost of operation and main­tenance (the economics of nuclear power are considered in detail in Chapter 15 of this book). The cost of the nuclear plant is the most relevant of the three component costs which, all considered, make nuclear power the cheapest producer of base load electricity (though only if discount rates are reasonable and the plant can be put into operation as designed). Long delays caused by licensing requirements, equipment supplies or other causes can change that situation, this being the reason why utilities insist on reli­able licensing processes and government guarantees.

Prices (quoted here in US dollars per kilowatt of electric power) vary considerably. The cost of plants built recently in Japan and South Korea has been quoted as close to $3000 per kW, while the Olkiluoto and Flamanville plants under construction in Finland and France, respectively, may cost more because of delays in construction.

Many national and international institutions constantly estimate the costs of electricity from various sources. The NEA/OECD, in cooperation with the International Energy Agency, estimates costs on a regular basis and provides updates (OECD, 2011). Likewise, industry institutions such as the World Nuclear Association (WNA) also provide updates on nuclear power plant economics (WNA, 2011). In all cases, electricity costs from nuclear power are comparable with those from coal, and are cheaper than those for gas and renewable sources. When a carbon tax is imposed on coal and gas, nuclear power becomes the most competitive source.

Economic studies generally indicate that district heating costs from nuclear power are in the same range as costs associated with fossil-fueled plants. In the past, the low prices of fossil fuels have stunted the introduction of single-purpose nuclear district heating plants. Although many concepts of small-scale heat-producing nuclear plants have been presented during the years, very few have been built. However, as environmental concerns mount over the use of fossil fuels, nuclear-based district heating systems have potential. As will be shown, there is indeed a very large market for district heating. Nuclear district heating is in use in several countries and is techni­cally a mature industry. District heating accounts for 11% of total final energy consumption in Central Europe and Ukraine and over 30% in Russia and Belarus. District heating accounts for almost half of the heat market in Iceland (95%), Estonia, Poland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Its future expansion will be determined by a combination of several factors, such as the size and growth of the demand for space and water heating, competition between heat and non-heat energy carriers for space and water heating, and competition between nuclear and non-nuclear heating. The availability of a heat distribution network is an important factor for nuclear district heating. In technical perspectives, district heating requires a heat distribution network for transporting steam or hot water with a typical temperature range of 80-150°C, a heat source in a range of 20 km close to the customer, a small capacity of 600-1200 MW(th) depending on the size of the customer, an annual load factor of less than 50%, and the required backup capacity.

9.5.1 Innovative applications

Another potential future application of nuclear process heat is the use of nuclear energy for fuel synthesis (including hydrogen production), coal gasification, and oil extraction including oil sand open-pit mining and deep — deposit extraction in Canada. Alberta’s oil sand deposits are the second largest oil reserves in the world, and have emerged as the fastest growing, soon to be dominant, source of crude oil in Canada. Coal gasification/liq — uefaction as a relatively cleaner fossil fuel source are an area of active interest. Production of synfuels and other hydrocarbons using nuclear heat is another area of greater promise. CO2 can be used as feedstock together with water, nuclear heat and electricity for producing synthetic hydrocar­bons, which may be a better energy carrier than hydrogen. This can also act as a CO2 sink, reducing its emission to the environment. Preliminary esti­mates indicate that synfuels could be produced at prices comparable to or even lower than those of fossil fuels. Further work on integrated nuclear — chemical complexes is desirable to gain vital experience in this area. Hydrogen may be applied to all types of transportation including aircraft, ships and trains (all could be powered by liquefied hydrogen). Future wide­spread use of gaseous hydrogen for fuel road vehicles is already widely acknowledged.

As already described, in some reactor safety and licensing regimes the probabilistic nature of this problem was recognized from the very begin­ning. In those jurisdictions the method developed naturally in parallel with the deterministic method — there was no need for a separate category. For example, the original formulation of the Canadian Siting Guide (Hurst and Boyd, 1972) was augmented with a series of so-called ‘safety design guides’ (Snell, 2001) that included limited scope probabilistic analysis of each safety-related system (shutdown, containment, fuel cooling) to establish a proof that each of these systems and their support systems (e. g. instrumen­tation, power, heat removal) could meet the reliability requirement already specified for the particular safety function. In the course of time these PSA components were combined into a single plant-wide safety assessment.

The original regulatory system in the US was closely associated with the so-called ‘design basis accident’, defined as the set of conditions, needs, and requirements taken into account in designing a facility or product. In nuclear plant design this approach led to simplistic concepts such as ‘maximum credible accident’, and ‘single failure’. Little consideration was given to the many possible sequences of minor events that might combine to result in a major consequence — for example, it took many years before the importance of small breaks in piping was recognized. This early phase of US regulation was superseded by the publication in 1974 of WASH-1400, the Reactor Safety Study, known as the Rasmussen report (Rasmussen et al., 1975). The older requirements for licensing were retained, but much more attention since then has been given to the full scope of potential abnormal events. From this time on, a full probabilistic analysis became an integral part of reactor licensing applications in the US. The associated analytical methods were adopted broadly within the interna­tional community.

At high levels of radiation doses, the cell-killing properties of radiation exposure will cause tissue-reaction effects that are usually termed ‘deter­ministic’ effects, because they are determined to occur above a certain dose. In fact, the induction of tissue reactions is generally characterized by a threshold dose. The reason for the presence of this threshold dose is that radiation damage (serious malfunction or death) of a critical population of cells in a given tissue needs to be sustained before injury is expressed in a clinically relevant form. Above the threshold dose the severity of the injury, including impairment of the capacity for tissue recovery, increases with dose. These effects can be clinically diagnosed in the exposed individual.

Table 11.6 presents the projected threshold estimates of the acute absorbed doses for 1% incidences of morbidity and mortality involving adult human organs and tissues after whole-body exposures to gamma rays similar to those encountered in NPPs. It is to be noted that these levels of acute absorbed doses can be reached in NPPs only if a serious accident occurs. These levels are inconceivable in normal operations.