David Mosey (Mosey, 2006) has examined several cases from the short history of nuclear energy. In the second edition this author cites four inter­related types of management error under four general headings:

1. Misperception of hazard. Lack of accurate and consistent understanding of the specific demands/vulnerabilities of the technology.

2. Dominating production imperative. Production considerations override safety. Safety is under-resourced.

3. Unassigned/undefined safety responsibility/authority. Failure to assign, define or assume safety responsibility and/or authority completely or clearly.

4. Failure to recognize, acknowledge or respond effectively to an unsatis­factory or deteriorating safety situation. ‘Denial’ or ‘unawareness’, or the failure to learn from experience, is included here.

Error number 4 includes, of course, the category of ‘normalization of devia­tion’ discussed earlier.

David Mosey clearly illustrates the importance of safety culture to the successful long-term operation of complex technologies. Quite obviously, senior management has a powerful influence on the performance of the whole organization within their authority. Less obvious, and often a neglected factor, is the influence that should be exerted ‘from the bottom up’. To say this in another way, the knowledge flow from junior to senior ranks must be fostered and encouraged. Senior management must be knowledgeable of the details of the organization they manage. This require­ment is opposite to the older notion, promulgated by some business schools, that the quality of a manager could be considered independent of the spe­cific activities of the managed organization.

Three main categories of exposures can be distinguished (ICRP, 2007a):

1. Occupational exposures, which are all exposures incurred by workers in the course of their work, with the exception of

— excluded exposures and exposures from exempt activities involving radiation or exempt sources

— any medical exposures

— the normal local natural background radiation.

2. Public exposures, which are exposures incurred by members of the public from radiation sources, excluding any occupational or medical exposure and the normal local natural background radiation.

3. Medical exposures of patients.

Exposures of comforters and carers, and exposures of volunteers in research, are treated separately in radiation protection. From the above categories, the only ones relevant for NPPs are occupational and public exposures.

It is to be noted that while the categorization of exposure does not rec­ognize gender distinctions, if a female worker at the NPP has declared that she is pregnant or nursing, additional controls have to be considered in order to attain a level of protection for the embryo/fetus broadly similar to that provided for members of the public.

The regulatory bodies usually have coordination centres that are highly specialized to respond to nuclear and radiological emergencies. The main mission of these centres in the case of a nuclear emergency is to provide national authorities with timely and accurate technical information and give recommendations for managing the emergency situation. To do that, these centres are usually designed to process information received from every nuclear power plant, from national meteorological services, from environ­mental surveillance networks, and from other technical sources, to assess the evolution of the consequences of the emergency situation in terms of dose rate existing or predicted in the affected areas. The result of these assessments is used to recommend emergency measures to national, regional and local authorities depending on projected dose in accordance with the evolution of the accident and the meteorological conditions around the plant and the affected areas. These centres are usually equipped with sophis­ticated devices and systems able to catch and transmit large amounts of technical data on the operational situation of the facility originating the emergency, the radiological situation within and outside the facility, the meteorological situation and forecast, and other technical and environmental data, and to process them and give recommendations to the national authorities concerning the implementation of emergency countermeasures.

The emergency centres of regulatory bodies are usually equipped with access to automatic radiological environmental surveillance networks. These networks cover all of the national territory and are denser in the vicinity of the nuclear facilities. They are designed to detect and give an urgent and independent warning on atmospheric releases above certain threshold levels set up as a function of intervention levels.

In many countries the emergency centres of regulatory bodies also have a very important role regarding public information in the case of a nuclear emergency, since they are able to provide accurate and independent techni­cal information. In this regard, they are responsible for classifying the nuclear emergency in accordance with the International Nuclear Event Scale (IAEA, 2009) issued by the IAEA as a simple and common tool to communicate the severity of nuclear events all over the world. It is also very common that the emergency centre owned by the regulatory body acts as the national contact point regarding the international conventions on early notification and mutual assistance in the case of nuclear and radiological events. Figure 12.4 shows the emergency operational centre (Sala de Emergencias, Salem) of the Spanish nuclear regulatory body (Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear, CSN).

Core components normally have a longer operational life than the nuclear fuel and are only removed when the structural integrity is reduced by crack­ing, corrosion or ageing phenomena or, in the case of control rods, when their neutron absorption capacity has been reduced. The radioactivity in the core components is mainly activation products, the most important from a handling point of view being cobalt-60. From a disposal point of view there are also some long-lived nickel and niobium isotopes and the core components are generally considered to be ILW.

The radiation level from the most exposed core components is similar to or higher than from the spent nuclear fuel, but the heat generation is lower and it decays more rapidly.[85] For practical reasons the core components are initially handled in a similar way to the spent nuclear fuel and stored in the reactor spent fuel pool.

Governments in developed and developing countries alike have increas­ingly found available budgets insufficient to meet all competing demands, and increasingly must turn to capital markets for financing specific projects or programmes; construction of new nuclear power plants would most likely fall into this category.

Even if a government does not build and own a new nuclear power plant, it can still take an equity share. If national budget resources are unavailable for this purpose, a government can create and dedicate government equity.

There are many ways in which a government can create equity. It can, for example, pledge receivables from creditable government-owned industries (or from industrial customers in the case of a government-owned utility); dedicate a portion of a government revenue stream (e. g. from mineral exports or taxes); pledge an asset like uranium reserves; barter (e. g. trade financing for agricultural exports); or pledge a service (like waste manage­ment). To the extent that a government uses this equity for, or otherwise assists in the financing of, a nuclear power plant, this might be considered as a subsidy or an unfair advantage for nuclear power under competition or trade rules in some jurisdictions. Other types of incentives or penalties to achieve desirable results, for example through contracting, might be structured to avoid this complication. However, to the extent that govern­ment participation involves government procurement, project costs will escalate: one World Bank estimate suggests that public procurement can add up to 40% to the cost of a project.

Other examples of possible government funding mechanisms include earmarked surcharges on all electricity sales, use of the national funds (for example, infrastructure funds or postal savings), creation of a government — run private bank to help finance ‘clean energy projects’ (including nuclear), banks to finance infrastructure, asset pooling (in countries or by utilities with other significant power generation assets), and (in developing coun­tries) use of remittances from expatriates. Regional approaches, involving more than one government or utility, may also be used for financing nuclear power plants. Clearly, innovation and government financing are not mutu­ally exclusive, nor are government and commercial financing.

Initial financing arrangements for a new nuclear plant might include some government funding for energy assessments and pre-construction studies or nuclear regulatory and legal infrastructures as well as research and human resource development; and capital market issues of financial instruments (securities, stocks, bonds). For plants in developing countries, additional resources could include directly allocated development funds from international aid organizations and development banks, or other government-sponsored aid programmes, Export Credit Agency (ECA) insurance schemes or institutions like the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) (although these only ensure that the suppliers of the equipment but not the project sponsors get paid in case of delays or default), and equity investments and commercial loans. Many within the nuclear community assert that multilateral banks should become directly involved in financing nuclear plants. However, multilateral banks are required to balance the views of their Member States, which have strong and diverse views on nuclear power. Moreover, as banks, their investment criteria include dem­onstrating that a proposed nuclear plant will be the least-cost alternative for electricity generating capacity expansion, and/or cost efficient for solving environmental, security and other social problems, if these are included in a government’s project proposal.

Government support for debt has consisted primarily and traditionally of providing loan or other types of guarantees to facilitate financing of large infrastructure projects. If structured to the benefit of the government as well as the recipient, loan guarantees can be a source of revenue rather than a subsidy/cost to the government. Using an insurance scheme or export credit approach, governments could, for example, charge interest on the size of the loan as the price of the guarantee. Guarantees can also include guar­anteed power purchases (take-or-pay contracts), or even agreements to cover costs of delay arising from government action or inaction. Each of these guarantees carries its own risks for the government, which then becomes liable for non-performance, perhaps as the result of something over which it has no control. Governments in Asia readily entered into highly optimistic purchase power agreements to secure project financing for needed power plants, only to find that slower economic growth after the Asian economic crisis of 1997 made fulfilment of these obligations impos­sible. Some Latin American countries in the 1980s secured loans in hard currency for projects whose revenues were in local currency, only to have exchange rates shift dramatically, forcing default on large loans. Such guar­antees are not unique to government — they can also be, and variously have been, provided by utilities, other large corporations or consortia of compa­nies. The risks would be the same, but the losses would accrue to private investors and not to the government.

The draft nuclear NPS identifies certain nuclear-specific environmental impacts which will need to be appropriately addressed in the EIAs which will accompany applications.

One contracting approach that is currently gaining acceptance in technol­ogy holder countries and in countries with nuclear experience planning to build new nuclear units is direct negotiation of the contract between the owner and a preselected bidder or a reduced group of prospective vendors. These direct negotiations may first take place with two (or three at the most) short-listed bidders to keep competition going at the onset of the vendor selection process and provide sufficient time to evaluate their bids and select one successful bidder as the prospective vendor with whom negotiations will be pursued up to contract signature.

The main objective of this direct, collaborative, ‘open book’ negotiating approach is to simplify the bid evaluation and vendor selection process, to minimise contingencies taken by the bidder, and to achieve a reasonable share of the economic risks between owner and vendor.

Under this direct negotiation approach, the owner selects one or more technologies and the corresponding prospective vendors, either according to his own preferences as an electric utility or following a technology assess­ment process. The owner prepares a complete set of BIS documents and invites bids from one or two preselected bidders. If bids are requested and received from more than one bidder, the owner undertakes a preliminary technical and economic bid evaluation, and then starts direct negotiations with the bidders, to agree on the technical aspects, scope of supply, terms and conditions, price, and other commercial conditions.

Following a period of time sufficient to establish which of the short-listed bidders has submitted the bid that is most advantageous to the owner, a prospective successful bidder is retained and full negotiations are under­taken with him until contract signature. Under this approach, the reduced number of preferred bidders are aware that they have to submit a competi­tive bid and that the competition remains valid during the first stage of the negotiations (during the owner’s evaluation of the bids).

To reduce contingencies for the bidder and set the framework of the col­laborative, ‘open book’ negotiation approach, the BIS requests bidders to identify in their bid which scope of supply packages or items are quoted as firm price subject to escalation under a lump sum offer, and which packages or items are quoted as non-firm prices (e. g. unit prices, costs with multipliers to be applied to the costs, time and material prices, etc.). These are prices to be converted into firm prices through a negotiation process initiated after a first bid evaluation. The owner then launches a direct, collaborative nego­tiation process, first with the reduced number of preselected bidders, and later on with the bidder finally selected, eventually to conclude a price agreement on the highest possible number of packages and/or items initially quoted in the bid as non-firm prices to convert them to firm prices subject to escalation, or to target prices subject to a ‘gain and pain’ scheme of incen­tives, to incorporate them into the lump sum portion of the contract.

If the price for a certain scope item could not be converted into a firm price and, therefore, is still open by the time of issuing the Final Notice To Proceed (FNTP), the negotiating parties will try to agree on rules of appli­cation of scope items quoted, for example, as unit prices to actual and reli­able bills of quantities when they become available during the detail design completion process. Agreements may also be concluded on rules for items that were quoted at an estimated cost with an associated multiplier (or multipliers) at the time of bid submittal, which will be applicable when the time comes to purchase that specific scope item according to the project procurement schedule. These multipliers shall also be negotiated prior to contract signature, as they could typically cover contingencies, risk reserves, and margins to be applied to the actual cost of the scope item when this is determined.

Once a total price structure (lump sum fixed/firm price and non-fixed/ firm price portion) has been agreed by both parties, as well as any other open points regarding technical requirements, scope of supply, schedule, and terms and conditions, the vendor is requested by the owner to convert the original bid completed with all the agreements reached during the col­laborative ‘open book’ negotiation process into a final engineering, procure­ment and construction (EPC) proposal with the agreed price, scope, schedule and contract terms and conditions. The corresponding EPC turnkey con­tract is then established with as many of the scope packages as possible quoted as a fixed or firm price subject to escalation.

The direct collaborative ‘open book’ owner-vendor negotiation approach may be greatly facilitated by the existence of a standard plant design that is prelicensed in the country of origin of the technology, and counting on a high percentage of completed detail design. This approach also enables limiting the bidder’s contingencies and the sharing of financial risks between owner and vendor, which corresponds to today’s demand from the industry for the new and future nuclear power plant projects.

Finally, it should be noted that the owner requires a solid bid evaluation and negotiating team to implement this type of approach. This team may feature experts from the owner’s organisation, with external support from an architect-engineering company with experience in the engineering, design, procurement and construction of NPPs.

A. ALONSO, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain, S. K. SHARMA, formerly of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, India and D. F. TORGERSON, Atomic Energy of

Canada Ltd, Canada

Abstract: This chapter addresses the need for licensing of nuclear power plants, and how such licenses can be requested by an applicant and granted by a regulatory authority. The licensing process is country dependent, although based on the common principle that the applicant must demonstrate that the proposed nuclear power plant will comply with the established regulations, and that it will operate safely without undue risks to the health and safety of plant personnel, the population and the environment. During the construction and operational phases the regulatory authority ensures compliance with the the license conditions through evaluation, monitoring and inspection. The license may be a single document covering all the phases in the life of the plant, or a set of consecutive documents requested and issued for different phases, which may include design certification, site approval, design and construction, commissioning and operation, design changes during operation, life extension and, finally, decommissioning.

Key words: site license, construction license, commissioning license, operating license, decommissioning license, design certification, license renewal.

20.1 Introduction

Nuclear power plants and related fuel cycle installations and activities are built and put into operation because they offer advantages for the global need for electricity generation. However, these installations and activities have a potential to create radiation risks to the health and safety of the population, and to cause radioactive contamination of the environment. The need then arises to keep such risks under control and reduce them to acceptable levels, while maintaining the economic, environmental, and social advantages from such installations and activities. That goal can be reached by scientific understanding of the phenomena behind such risks and implementation of technical measures to overcome them. Although much knowledge has already been obtained and relevant technical progress has been made and put into practice, as in other similar cases, it has been considered necessary to establish a strict independent licensing system. This chapter discusses the meaning and purpose of licensing, and looks at the implementation of the licensing process for nuclear power plants.

Licensing of nuclear power plants is a well-regulated activity by which the potential licensee submits a proposal in accordance with specified requirements. A competent body of experts then verifies that safety provi­sions fully comply with the previously established safety requirements. A licensing authority makes its decision based on the safety assessment pro­vided, as well as on other national requirements. There is a large variety of national organizational setups dependent on individual countries’ legal infrastructures and practices; nevertheless, the licensing principles are equivalent. In some cases the expert body and the licensing authority are within a single organization, whereas in other cases the licensing authority, generally a government authority, is separated from the body of experts. Whatever the system, within this chapter, the body of experts and the licens­ing authority together are referred to as the Regulatory Body (RB).

There are some countries in which a single license, although divided into parts, covers all phases in the life of the plant, while others license each phase independently. In both cases, well-established steps or parts have been defined that include the siting, design and construction, commissioning, operation and dismantling of a plant. Some countries include design approval as a first step of licensing, as well as plant modifica­tions during construction and operation. Some RBs also license several types of reactor operating personnel. This chapter includes examples of such approaches.

Both the applicants for a license and those who carry out the safety review need to have a good knowledge of the nuclear power plant (NPP) design and experience of relevant legal, scientific and technological issues. The applicants need to have a deep knowledge of the safety requirements and the technologies to demonstrate compliance with them. Safety review­ers have to be able to verify that compliance with the regulations has been adequately demonstrated. For the first units in new entrant countries, appli­cants may obtain help from reactor suppliers, while the safety reviewers should acquire the needed expertise from the RB of the country of origin of the NPP supplier, or from an experienced regulator that has licensed one or more NPPs employing the selected technology. In any case, adherence to well-proven designs is highly recommended. When new designs are employed, they should be thoroughly checked by analysis and testing. This chapter also describes the areas in which help from an experienced regula­tor can be gainfully used by new RBs of new entrant countries.

Safety should not only be achieved in design, siting and construction but also be maintained and improved during all modes of operation, including commissioning and decommissioning. To achieve this goal, there should be a strong safety culture and positive safety attitude on the part of the licen­see, and an efficient and effective nuclear safety overview process by the RB with the capability of enforcement in case of deviations from the estab­lished requirements. Periodic self-evaluations, as well as peer reviews by national and international experts, like those conducted under the systems in practice by the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), are also helpful in achieving and maintaining a high level of safety. The responsibilities and major functions and activities to be performed by the licensees and the RB are addressed in this chapter.

The safety evaluation of a reference NPP, carried out at the time of its licensing, can prove very useful during the licensing of a first NPP in a new entrant country. However, it is important that the operating organization clearly understands the design of the NPP and is able to own it and defend it during the design safety review. Use of the safety evaluation of the refer­ence NPP is not just for the purpose of speeding up the licensing process but should also lead to an enhancement of the quality of the licensing work, and the achievement of a high level of safety of the new entrant country’s NPP, in an overall sense.

Some design differences between the two NPPs are, however, likely to exist on account of site specificities and plant layout. The design might also have been updated based on information from research and operating experience after the earlier licensing of the reference NPP. These differ­ences should be clearly identified and judiciously dealt with during the design safety review. It is, however, important that the entire PSAR is sub­jected to a detailed review as it helps in improving the understanding of the design in the operating organization, as also in the RB.

Self-assessment programmes are a means by which practitioners of various programmes or functions take time out from their normal day-to-day activi­ties to objectively assess the way in which they are conducting their activi­ties against a set of internationally recognised criteria. Normally, WANO peer review or OSART performance objectives and criteria are used in such processes. The assessments are conducted with in-house personnel and can follow a similar format, but with limited scope, to a peer review exercise.

5.1.7 Corrective action programmes

Corrective action programmes (CAPs) are designed to enable the reporting of any conditions adverse to quality by any member of staff working at an NPP. The CAP programmes are also used to classify and trend issues, to record and monitor progress against actions raised in response to reported issues.

Corrective action programmes are also used to record and trend actions arising from other forms of evaluation such as peer reviews, Op Ex, QA audits and self-assessments. Having the corrective actions from all sources of evaluation enables the operator to ensure that common causes and con­tributors to issues raised are treated more efficiently and effectively.