The safety objective is to protect individuals and society as a whole against the harmful effects of ionizing radiation during normal operation and also under accident conditions. To accomplish that goal, population inventory and population distribution is required, as well as the local and regional uses of land and water. The atmospheric, surface water and ground water radioactive contaminant pathway models, together with water and land uses, serve to identify the most exposed population groups, the so-called critical groups, as a reference for normal operation. Such models could also serve to establish an efficient emergency plan covering the whole affected population in case of accident.

As in previous cases, the IAEA site requirements establish that data should be obtained on existing and projected population distribution, both resident and transient; such data is updated along the operating time of the power plant, at least every 10 years. Likewise, the present and future uses of land and water must be determined and updated along the lifetime of the plant. The area of interest is country dependent. In general, large popu­lation centres should not exist within a radius of 5 km and population distribution should cover at least a radius of 10 km from the plant. Proximity to schools, hospitals and prisons should be avoided.

Details on how to collect and gather the required information can be obtained from the IAEA safety guide (IAEA, 2002b).

As seen above, the contract is made up of several ‘contract documents’ that should ideally be listed and defined in the DC document. A typical structure and contents of plant contract documents is given below:

Contract agreement.

Terms and conditions, as well as the following appendices:

Price

Price escalation formula Payment schedule Contract guarantees Contractual project schedule Advance payment guarantee Contract performance guarantee Warranty period guarantee Parent company guarantee List of approved subcontractors Supplier’s consortium/JV agreement (if applicable). Owner’s specifications, comprising:

— Scope of supply (SS) document

— Technical requirements (TR) document

— Project implementation (PI) document

— Technical data sheets.

Other complementary documentation agreed by the parties to form part of the contract.

In case of discrepancy between any of the contract documents, the following order of precedence shall prevail:

1. Contract agreement

2. Terms and conditions with their appendices

3. Owner’s specifications

4. Supplier’s technical bid

5. Supplier’s information and qualification documents.

In principle, the preparation of terms and conditions for contracting a nuclear power plant bears a certain similarity to their preparation for pur­chasing a conventional fossil-fired or combined cycle power plant. The structure and contents are similar, although there are a number of issues that are specific to nuclear power and thus require special attention and treatment.

A typical table of contents for the terms and conditions to be prepared and presented to the bidder in the DC document of the BIS is shown below:

1. Introduction

2. Definitions and interpretation

3. General contract provisions

4. Mandatory law, requirements of the authorities, and codes and standards

5. Purpose of contract and scope of supply

6. Licensing

7. Quality and environmental management

8. Project documents

9. Contract price

10. Revision of contract price

11. Terms and schedule of payments

12. Payment execution

13. Contract variations

14. Confidentiality and intellectual property

15. Risk and title

16. Liabilities

17. Insurance

18. Project schedule and delays

19. Testing, commissioning and provisional takeover

20. Warranties and performance guarantees

21. Owner’s acceptance and final takeover

22. Force majeure

23. Owner’s personnel training

24. Rejection and termination of contract

25. Governing law

26. Settlement of disputes

27. Notices

28. Joint and several liabilities (when the supplier is a consortium or JV)

29. Contract assignment and subcontracting

30. Spare parts

31. Other miscellaneous conditions

32. Severability

33. Survival of obligations

34. Relationship of the parties

35. Entire agreement and contract amendments Appendices:

I. Price

II. Price escalation formula

III. Payment schedule

IV. Contract guarantees

V. Contractual project schedule

VI. Advance payment guarantee

VII. Contract performance guarantee

VIII. Warranty period guarantee

IX. Parent company guarantee (if applicable)

X. List of approved subcontractors

XI. Supplier’s consortium/JV agreement (if applicable)

The bidder shall be requested in the BIS to specifically declare compli­ance with the proposed draft contract or to submit a list of exceptions and comments to it, to be discussed during contract negotiation and presumably leading to an agreement between the owner and the bidder regarding the final version of the contract.

A large number of reports on the various aspects of NPP operation are generated by the licensee on a regular basis. These include reports on day- to-day operation and maintenance activities, radiological status in the plant, results of in-service inspections and surveillance checks, management of radioactive waste generated from NPP operation, chemistry parameters, and radiological surveys carried out around the NPP site. The RB should have a formal mechanism in place for an in-depth review of these reports. Initial review of the reports could be made by the RB staff and thereafter these are subjected to further review by standing safety committees consti­tuted by the RB. Specific aspects may be referred to specialist groups for further detailed examination.

Actions identified based on the recommendations arising from these reviews should be implemented according to an agreed time schedule between the operating organization and the RB. The RB staff should follow up on the implementation of the actions meticulously. Any proposal for a change in the operating configuration of the plant must be formally submit­ted to the RB and should be supported by a detailed analysis which clearly establishes that the proposed change does not compromise safety in any manner. The implementation of any such change in plant configuration should be made only after a detailed review and approval by the RB.

The RB must ensure that a formal mechanism exists in the operating organization for collecting and analyzing information from the interna­tional operating experience that is relevant to the NPP for improving safety. A similar mechanism must also exist in the RB. This operating experience feedback should cover safety-related incidents at other NPPs, good safety practices adopted at other plants, and new information from research and development activities. Experience feedback from nuclear facilities other than NPPs and from conventional industries should also be considered as applicable.

While the main thrust of operating experience feedback is to prevent recurrence of safety-related events at an NPP of a nature similar to those that have occurred elsewhere, it should also be used to improve operational safety in general. In addition to actual incidents, information on ‘near misses’ and ‘low-level events’ should also be collected and analyzed for its appropriate utilization to make safety improvements in hardware and procedures.

The IAEA (2009a) suggests that the existing national educational institu­tions can enhance the support they provide for the development of human resources for the nuclear industry in different ways, such as by:

• Developing new, or realigning existing, nuclear engineering and science — related degree curricula jointly with nuclear responsible organizations to ensure alignment with future needs.

• Establishing working ‘councils’ with academic, government and industry representation to oversee the development of nuclear sciences training and development programmes nationally.

• Developing partnerships with appropriate programmes in countries with mature nuclear power programmes, and then using these relation­ships to develop new programmes or gain accreditation of existing programmes.

• Developing ‘fellowship’ programmes, whereby national undergraduates get the opportunity to pursue a portion of their study in a country with a well-developed nuclear power programme.

• Providing ‘work placement’ opportunities whereby students can work in the various organizations (operating organization, regulatory body or support organizations) for a period from a few weeks up to a year, to gain insight and experience in the organizations.

• Providing support funding for an appropriate ‘chair’ or Head of Faculty position (e. g. engineering, physics, nuclear sciences) at one of the better engineering universities.

• Funding relevant research, such as material studies, fatigue mechanisms or diagnostic techniques, among others; this will be of real benefit to the nuclear industry while at the same time attracting and encouraging high — quality academic staff.

Additional recommendations selected from the Nuclear Energy Agency, NEA (2000) are:

• Create a pre-interest in the nuclear domain: include steps such as adver­tisements aimed at undergraduate candidates; high school ‘open days’ at campuses or research facilities; regular reactor visits for students; newsletters, posters and web pages; summer programmes; preparation of a resource manual on nuclear energy for teachers; recruiting trips and nuclear introduction courses for freshmen; and conferences given by industry and research institutes.

• Add content to courses and activities in general engineering studies: increase emphasis on nuclear physics and applied physics courses; organize seminars on nuclear in parallel with the existing curriculum using speakers external to the university; discuss employment potential and professional activities and call attention to the environmental ben­efits of nuclear power.

• Increase pre-professional contacts. Encourage the participation of stu­dents in the activities of the local nuclear society and its ‘young genera­tion’ network.

• Provide opportunities for high school students and undergraduates to work with faculty and other senior individuals in research situations.

Finally, a very useful strategy is to organize postgraduate nuclear courses (university specialization courses or Masters) in cooperation with the uni­versity and the nuclear industry. This can get the best of both worlds: theory and academic rigour at the high scientific level from the university teachers, and the practical application to the industry from the company experts.

If there are not enough students and/or teachers in the country to organ­ize an independent training programme, cooperation between different countries is encouraged, utilizing available international assistance, e. g. Appendix 3 on IAEA programmes gives information on IAEA training materials. The World Nuclear University or Regional Networks, described in Section 6.5, should also be considered.

Information on the US accreditation process is detailed in National Academy for Nuclear Training (2003), The objectives and criteria for accred­itation of training in the nuclear power industry, ACAD 02-001; National Academy for Nuclear Training (2003), The process for accreditation of train­ing in the nuclear power industry, ACAD 02-002; and for new plants, National Academy for Nuclear Training (2008), The process for initial accreditation of training in the nuclear power industry, ACAD 08-001.

The National Academy for Nuclear Training (2002), Guidelines for the conduct of training and qualification activities, ACAD 02-004, contains exhaustive information about the organization, responsibilities and opera­tion of training centres.

The broader meaning given in the IAEA Fundamental Safety Principles (IAEA, 2006) to the original ICRP-defined justification principle, and par­ticularly its application to justification of nuclear energy development, leads easily to the conclusion that such an application is based on ancient so — called teleological ethics which can be expressed in the sentence ‘the ends justify the means’. The application of this ethical principle was the basis of the utilitarian ethics developed by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), which considered things moral and therefore acceptable if they achieved ‘the greatest good for the greatest number of people’.

Utilitarians hold that an action is moral when the good consequences of an action outweigh the bad. Utilitarianism was further developed by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), another British thinker. Utilitarian ideas are alive in the justification principle in the sense that the benefits of any decision should be a determining factor in judging its morality. The decision process within utilitarian ethics is presented in Fig. 8.1. Any potential action should be analysed to determine its benefits and detriments: if the former dominate the latter, the action is moral and it should be taken; if the opposite is true, taking the action would be immoral.

Despite its global acceptance, utilitarianism has some inherent difficulties:

• Achieving an acceptable end does not justify the means: the benefits from nuclear power may be well recognized but the means to achieve them are still not acceptable to many.

• There is no equity in the distribution of benefits and detriments: the benefits of nuclear energy may affect the whole world, as in the case of carbon abatement, or an individual country, in the case of having secu­rity of service and lower electricity prices, but most of the inconve­niences go to the immediate neighbouring population.

• It is not always possible to predict the benefits and the detriments with certainty, as in the case of avoiding the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the expected frequency of potentially catastrophic accidents.

• The results of a justification analysis (quantifying benefits and detri­ments) should also be judged when they are compared. Benefits and detriments from nuclear power cannot always be measured with the same metrics: it is possible to assess risk quantitatively but it is not pos­sible to quantify perceived risk.

The means to obtain a benefit constitute a major ethical issue and a dif­ficulty in the acceptance of the justification analysis. In most countries, the development of a nuclear energy programme is mainly a political decision; such a programme includes provisions for the construction of nuclear units, the selection of a nuclear fuel cycle, the management of used fuel, and the management of radioactive wastes. When the justification process is under­taken rationally, by independent groups of experts using the best tools available, and considering all the benefits, risks and detriments on their own merits, the most probable outcome is a decision to develop the programme, because the benefits outweigh the detriments.

Such an exercise should be transparent and formally presented for public consideration. When such an exercise is analysed by other institutions, those dominated by radiation fear and with an exaggerated perception of the risks will conclude that the means used, i. e. nuclear reactors and fuel cycle facili­ties and related activities, do not justify the decision and will stick to the use of other sources of electricity. This problem can be addressed by closely analysing the safety of the nuclear plants and fuel cycle facilities to be built, and the activities to be conducted there. Proving that such installations and activities will be constructed and operated in accordance with the IAEA Fundamental Safety Principles and related standards should guarantee an acceptance of the means used in the justification process.

The intrinsic lack of equity in the distribution of benefits and detriments is another impediment in the development of nuclear energy. Utilitarianism does not protect the rights of everybody equally, although the benefits should go to the greatest number; the benefit of enjoying lower electricity prices is a national and collective asset, but the individual benefit is propor­tional to the amount of electricity each person consumes. By contrast, radiological risks and potential detriments are larger for those closer to the installations. This issue is addressed by compensating detriments with taxa­tion and subsidies, in addition to the rather positive direct and indirect advantages derived from the installations within local, county, provincial and state territories.

Uncertainties about the basic data and the tools available to determine benefits and detriments, and difficulties in using the same metrics, are also serious impediments in any final comparison exercise. Some of the tools available, mainly those used for economic analysis and risk estimation, are well developed but the data used may be uncertain. To cope with those problems, analysts make projections by varying key parameters. Ensuring the use of the same metrics is more complicated: to allow it, a so-called alpha value has been developed to assign a monetary value to the radiation dose received or averted, but this technique is not globally accepted.

The results of any decisions taken should be analysed to determine if any predictions made have been achieved, and to introduce corrections if neces­sary. Intermittent natural energies, mainly wind and solar, are being pro­moted by supranational organizations, such as the European Union, and by individual countries, while other countries have developed ambitious nuclear development programmes; the impact of the Fukushima event will cancel or retard the execution of some of these programmes while others will continue as originally established. There will be countries where nuclear energy will be promoted, while in others nuclear energy may be banned completely, and there could also be countries using a diversity of energy sources. In the coming decades, each country will have an opportunity to check the soundness of the decisions they have taken, and in each case the public has the right to be informed.

India has developed its own indigenous Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) design that consists of 220 MWe, 540 MWe and 700 MWe units. India is currently operating 16 units of 220 MWe and two units of 540 MWe. Construction of two 700 MWe units is underway. The Indian PHWR was developed from the experience in the operation of earlier units and from indigenous R&D efforts. The important features introduced in these units include two diverse and fast-acting shutdown systems, double containment of the reactor building, water-filled calandria vault, integral calandria end shield assembly, and calandria tube filled and purged with carbon dioxide to monitor pressure tube leak by monitoring the dew point of carbon dioxide. These units also include a valve-less primary heat transport system and a simplified control room concept, as well as advanced control and instrumentation systems that incorporate computer-based systems to match with the advancement in technology.

The regulatory staff is assigned the auditor’s role by the safety standards authority. They review design features, operating procedures, and training to determine the acceptability of the plant for initial and continued opera­tion. They have no role in design or operation. Furthermore, they cannot take any such role without compromising their position as impartial auditor. The auditor’s role involves a great deal of questioning of the operating company and designer/builder on details of design and operation. This role is never a popular one, particularly when approval to proceed with some action is held up, apparently to satisfy curiosity. There is, no doubt, some unnecessary holdup caused by lack of understanding or by personal factors. One the whole, the process is useful to the operating company because this is the only external and independent (not to say hostile) review of propos­als. Internal reviews are valuable but sometimes miss important issues due also to lack of understanding or to personal factors.

One of the most valuable early decisions of the Canadian AECB was to assign staff at each station site. These people get to know a particular plant as well as the operating company supervisory staff, and often much better than the designer/builder or central office staff. They are therefore able to make reasoned judgments of the quality of safety-related aspects of plant operation on a regular basis. Knowing both the equipment and the people, they are better able than are central office staff to evaluate special situa­tions that arise in the field. Central office staff are useful as technical backup, but the site staff must carry the main regulatory responsibility. The operating company has an obligation to report matters of safety interest to the regulatory staff on a regular basis as well as to report any unusual occurrences.

It has been found strongly beneficial to plant operational safety to assign a small staff of regulatory personnel to each operating station. This practice keeps the regulatory agency abreast of the latest technical and managerial information, and provides plant operations staff with immediate feedback of the opinion of the regulator to any continuing or novel situation at the plant. This field staff is, of course, supported by the central technical groups, usually posted to the headquarters of the regulatory agency.

The epistemological basis provided by UNSCEAR and the radiation pro­tection paradigm recommended by ICRP are converted into international radiation safety standards, for NPPs and other practices, under the aegis of the IAEA.

In performing its safety functions, the IAEA is contributing to what has been termed a de facto international radiation safety regime (Gonzalez, 2004b, 2004c), which includes three key elements: [8]

11.7.1 International conventions

The legally binding international undertakings by States are, in legal lan­guage, international conventions. Under the auspices of the IAEA, four major radiation-safety related international conventions have been adopted in recent years, namely:

1. The Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (IAEA, 1986b)

2. The Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (IAEA, 1986c)

3. The Convention on Nuclear Safety (IAEA, 1994)

4. The Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (the so-called ‘Joint Convention’) (IAEA, 1997).

The obligations undertaken by signatory States of these Conventions apply inter alia to radiation protection of NPPs.

Another relevant undertaking for NPP operation is the Radiation Protection Convention, 1960 (No. 115) of the International Labour Organization (ILO, 1960). This Convention applies to all activities involving exposure of workers to ionizing radiations in the course of their work, including work at NPPs.