The regulatory body has to establish and implement a management system that will enable it to achieve its safety goals; all processes within the management system must be open and transparent. The management system should also be continuously assessed and improved.

The management system of the regulatory body has three purposes. The first purpose is to ensure that the responsibilities assigned to the regulatory body are properly discharged. The second purpose is to maintain and improve the performance of the regulatory body by means of the planning, control and supervision of its safety-related activities. The third purpose is to foster and support a safety culture in the regulatory body through the development and reinforcement of leadership and good attitudes and behaviour in relation to safety on the part of individuals and teams.

The management system maintains the efficiency and effectiveness of the regulatory body in discharging its responsibilities and performing its func­tions. This includes the promotion of enhancements in safety, and the fulfil­ment of its obligations in an appropriate, timely and cost-effective manner so as to build confidence.

The management system also describes, in a coherent manner, the planned and systematic actions necessary to provide confidence that the statutory obligations placed on the regulatory body are being fulfilled. Furthermore, regulatory requirements should be considered in conjunction with the more general requirements under the management system of the regulatory body, and this helps to prevent safety from being compromised.

The regulatory process is a formal process based on specified policies, principles and associated criteria and follows specified procedures as estab­lished in the management system. The process should ensure the stability and consistency of regulatory control and should prevent subjectivity in decision making by the individual staff members of the regulatory body. The regulatory body should be able to justify its decisions if they are chal­lenged. In connection with its reviews and assessments and its inspections, the regulatory body should inform applicants of the objectives, principles and associated criteria for safety on which its requirements, judgements and decisions are based, as described in the IAEA general safety requirements (IAEA, 2006b).

Once the design criteria have been established, the next phase is to put the structure in place. Building an organisation is much like building a power plant. First the design has to be developed and approved; then the compo­nents, which must be suitably qualified for their application, must be acquired. The parts then have to be assembled and commissioned.

For each of the functions that have to be fulfilled in a nuclear power plant, specific jobs and tasks will have to be performed. These can be determined by conducting an analysis of each of the functions. The job and task analysis would define the knowledge and skills required for each position in the organisation.

Normally a utility would be expected to recruit personnel with generic academic qualifications and maybe a number with relevant skills and expe­rience. A gap analysis of the skills acquired through recruitment against those determined through the job and task analysis will identify the knowl­edge and skills that have to be addressed through training.

When the resources needed to populate the organisation are in place, they must be put to work in a manner that tests their suitability for their assigned roles and the organisation within which they will work, in the same manner that plant and equipment is tested during commissioning.

Throughout the lifetime of the plant these skills will need to be regularly refreshed through repeat training. They will also need to be reviewed and revised from time to time on the basis of plant and personnel performance.

The different steps of the fuel cycle are as follows:

1. Mining and milling to extract the ore.

2. Conversion factories to extract the uranium-235 (U235) from the ore and transform it into the well-known yellowcake.

3. Enrichment facilities to transform the yellowcake into UO2 enriched to 3-4% for later production of the fuel for nuclear power plants.

4. Fuel fabrication factories.

5. Irradiation of the fuel in nuclear power plants up to the burn-up desired.

6. Irradiated fuel intermediate storage waiting for a certain decay before being sent to irradiated fuel treatment.

7. Irradiated fuel treatment with a choice between two options: either direct storage of the irradiated fuel in special packages for intermediate

37

and later final storage in deep geological storage, or reprocessing for separating the plutonium and used uranium in order to reuse them in mixed oxide fuel (called MOX), and the rest being compacted and vitri­fied into wastes containers for final storage.

8. Final storage in deep geological formations.

These are shown together with their interconnections in Fig. 2.1. The steps up to loading the fuel in a nuclear power plant are called the front end of the fuel cycle, and the steps after unloading the fuel from the reactor are called the back end.

For accomplishing all these steps transportation of radioactive materials and fuel is necessary. The main challenges in the whole fuel cycle are pro­liferation resistance, security and safety as well as ensuring the sustainability of uranium and fuel supply, site remediation after closure of the factories and final siting for disposal of wastes.

The total reported uranium resources in the world in 2009 were 5400/6300 th. tU (reasonably assured resources/inferred resources). These would last for 100 years at recent demand level (source: IAEA). The fuel cost is an advantage for the industry. The price fluctuates depending on the market but recently prices have increased with the expectation of nuclear rebirth. Nuclear power is still economically viable even with increased prices. Since 2003, which was the year of the maximum price, the price has slowly fallen to now some 50 US dollars per pound. The remaining problem is security of supply for all countries engaging in nuclear energy. Some projects are

advancing for creating an international fuel bank under the auspices of IAEA.

Another sensitive area for the front end of the fuel cycle is the enrich­ment process. The key issue is the risk of proliferation: by successive itera­tion, highly enriched uranium, for example, can be diverted to usage in nuclear weapons. The cost of enrichment is around 160 US dollars per SWU (separative work unit). Techniques mostly used for enrichment are gaseous diffusion and centrifuges.

The fuel itself, once in the reactor, has to be highly reliable since it con­stitutes the first physical barrier between the radioactive material and the primary system coolant. It is also needed to reach a high burn-up, which means it can stay in the reactor core for five or six years, thus authorizing longer periods of time between refuelling.

Coming to the back end of the fuel cycle, after the fuel has been unloaded from the reactor core, the main problem is the used fuel management. At this stage the fuel contains 1% Pu and 92.5% U. The total radiotoxicity decreases with time and depends on the material considered.

If the choice has been made of reprocessing the used fuel, the process will separate the nuclear materials reusable from the wastes. 99.9% of the nuclear materials are recovered after reprocessing and the volumes of wastes have been extensively reduced. The high-level wastes are then treated by vitrification into containers for storage.

Nuclear wastes have been categorized in terms of their activity. Table 2.1 the lists terms used together with their siting recommendations. Nuclear wastes are also produced by medical applications, industrial radioactive sources, research and research reactors and accelerators. These too are also stored according to their radioactivity in the same way and with the same precautions as the reactor wastes coming from nuclear power operation or used fuel and wastes from other nuclear activities such as reprocessing and dismantling.

Storage of HLW is considered as an interim solution and final HLW repositories must be found, which means that, from the beginning and throughout the lifetime of the nuclear power plant, solutions should be considered and found for countries coming to develop a nuclear programme. Final repositories are in deep geological disposal sites. The challenges are the social acceptability and the interdisciplinary tasks for safe repository siting and operation.

The regulatory body should conduct reviews, assessments and inspections to evaluate the commissioning test programme and the operational limits; test acceptance criteria, conditions and procedures; as-built design of the nuclear installation; non-nuclear commissioning tests; the management system; and the programme for operation. Commissioning activities are considered in detail in Chapter 22.

The results of commissioning tests should address adequately the ability of the self-assessment procedures and internal audits of the licensee to deal with deviations from design parameters. The reviews, assessments and inspections of the regulatory body assess whether the commissioning test results are adequate to confirm the adequacy of all safety-related features of the nuclear installation.

116 Infrastructure and methodologies for justification of NPPs Operation

Operation is authorized only when regulatory requirements are met and the final safety analysis report has been approved, including completion of commissioning tests, recording of the results and their submission to the regulatory body for approval. Before operation, the regulator inspects, reviews and assesses the following: the results of commissioning tests; oper­ational limits and conditions; operating instructions and procedures; and adequacy of staffing to implement these properly. Operation is considered in detail in Chapter 23.

Before and during operation the regulator has to verify the safety expec­tations, the management system, the operators’ competence and the appli­cation of the operating experience. Any design or operational changes require significant regulatory attention.

Safety reviews should be performed on a periodic basis as requested by the regulatory body to determine the effects of ageing and to assess any plant modifications necessary to maintain safety. In general, a periodic safety review is carried out to assess the cumulative effects of plant ageing and plant modifications, operating experience, technical developments and siting aspects. The reviews include an assessment of plant design and opera­tion against current safety standards and practices, and have the objective of ensuring a high level of safety throughout the plant’s operating lifetime. They are complementary to the routine and special safety reviews and do not replace them.

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is a specialized agency within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries, based in Paris, France. The mission of the NEA is to assist its member countries in main­taining and further developing, through international cooperation, the sci­entific, technological and legal bases required for the safe, environmentally friendly and economical use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. To achieve this, the NEA works as a forum for sharing information and experi­ence and promoting international co-operation, a centre of excellence which helps member countries to pool and maintain their technical exper­tise, and a vehicle for facilitating policy analyses and developing consensus based on its technical work. The NEA’s current membership consists of 29 countries, in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. Together they account for approximately 85% of the world’s installed nuclear capac­ity. Nuclear power accounts for almost a quarter of the electricity produced in NEA member countries. The NEA works closely with the International

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna — a specialized agency of the United Nations — and with the European Commission in Brussels. Within the OECD, there is close coordination with the International Energy Agency and the Environment Directorate, as well as contacts with other directorates, as appropriate. NEA areas of work are nuclear safety and regulation, nuclear energy development, radioactive waste management, radiological protection and public health, nuclear law and liability, nuclear science, the Data Bank, information and communication. For details see www. oecd-nea. org.

All things that happen in industrial societies are a result of people’s efforts. The bigger and more complex the task the greater number of people that will be involved and the more diverse the skill sets required. Nuclear power stations require, in their design, construction, commissioning and operation, large numbers of people with diverse skills. In order for them to be success­ful in what they do, they must be organised into a cohesive workforce with a clear vision of what they are seeking to achieve. The role of the leader in any organisation is to define that vision and create an organisation capable of delivering the vision.

Successful leaders are characterised by their behaviours, their honesty, integrity and competence that enable them to command respect and engen­der trust. The way they treat people will influence the sustainability of the organisation.

Leaders will exhibit their characteristics in both conscious and uncon­scious ways. The people who work for them will be looking for signs of their values, standards and expectations in everything they do and they will interpret them into their own actions and behaviours. Thus the corporate culture and in particular the safety culture in an organisation is promul­gated. The culture of successful organisations will be characterised as one in which people want to do things right, want to work together to achieve shared objectives. The choice of leaders is probably the most critical deci­sion of any organisation.

A formal definition of a regulatory framework may be considered as a system of regulations and the means to enforce them, usually established by a government, to regulate an activity. A framework may also be consid­ered as a skeleton or a work platform that is used as the basis for construct­ing the regulatory system; the framework considers a set of assumptions, concepts, criteria and practices that constitute the means of implementing the regulatory functions.

The legal system, regulations and the regulatory structure and approach constitute the regulatory framework. This may vary significantly from one State to another in its complexity, arrangements, criteria, culture and prac­tices. The approaches used in States with large nuclear power programmes may differ from those in States with small nuclear power programmes. Also, the approaches in States with a nuclear power plant vendor may differ from those in States that import nuclear power plants.

The regulatory framework needs to be based on the chosen approach and there should also be the scope for development or further adjustment as the knowledge, experience and needs of the regulatory body change. The regulatory approach is used to provide the basis for the nuclear safety regu­lations; to provide the regulatory actions and safety decisions; and to estab­lish the safety rationale that is clearly understood by the regulator, the licensee and other stakeholders.

Regardless of the approach chosen, the framework needs to be devel­oped so that there are enough staff to cover all core competences necessary to understand all the relevant safety issues of the nuclear power programme. The regulatory approach also has implications for the need for external expert support for the regulatory body.

In order to select and plan the regulatory approach, the regulatory body considers the various regulatory approaches that are applied for nuclear power programmes elsewhere, taking into account the nuclear power plant size, the State’s legal and industrial practices and the guidance provided in the IAEA Safety Standards.

The regulatory approach has an impact on the licensee and also indirectly on the safety of the nuclear facilities. Regardless of the approach selected, the regulator needs to provide clear requirements to the licensees, including its safety expectations; the regulator needs to be able to identify safety significant issues, the areas of expertise needed by the regulator and licen­sees respectively, the resources used by the regulators and the licensees, and the level of flexibility given to the licensee to fulfil requirements; the regula­tor also needs to achieve public credibility for the way in which safety is regulated.

The development of the regulatory framework involves maintaining a balance between prescriptive approaches and performance-oriented approaches. This balance might also depend upon the State’s legal system and regulatory approach. The approach chosen will have a major influence on the resources needed by the regulatory body, therefore the various applicable approaches need to be considered in good time, and before start­ing the recruitment of staff due to the impact of the approach chosen on the number and qualifications of the regulatory staff required. Before the State decides which reactor technology is going to be deployed, the regula­tory body has to be aware of these two main alternative regulatory approaches: a prescriptive approach with a large number of regulations, or a performance-, function — and outcome-oriented approach. Each regulatory approach has advantages and disadvantages associated with it, and there are also approaches that combine features of these two main alternatives. When a decision to construct a nuclear power plant is made, and the par­ticular reactor technology is chosen, the regulatory body needs to select and adopt a regulatory approach that best suits the State’s needs. The regulatory body should have its chosen approach approved by the government since there will be resource implications.

A prescriptive regulatory approach places a great deal of importance on the adequacy of the regulations for safety and requires detailed develop­ment. The regulations establish clear requirements and expectations for the regulatory body as well as for the operating organization, and thus can be used to promote systematic interaction between the regulatory body and other parties. The regulations could set detailed technical requirements, or could identify issues that the operating organization and its suppliers should address and present for assessment by the regulatory body. Specific techni­cal requirements can then be taken from relevant international industrial standards (including nuclear specific standards) or industrial standards of other States, as agreed by the regulatory body in an early stage of the licens­ing process for nuclear power plants. Issuing detailed regulations places a high demand on the regulatory body’s resources for their development and updating, which adds to the administrative burden.

A performance-based regulatory approach allows the operating organi­zation more flexibility in determining how to meet the established safety goals and may require fewer, less detailed regulations. However, this approach requires the establishment of specific safety goals and targets. Verifying that appropriate measures to ensure safety have been identified by the operating organization may be difficult unless the regulatory body’s staff, the staff of its external support organization and the staff of the oper­ating organization all have a high level of professional competence and are able to interact to determine whether established safety objectives for each topic are met.

Besides the general alternatives just described, the approaches in differ­ent States vary with respect to the scope and depth of safety assessment and inspection. The scope of issues that are under regulatory control may include all structures, systems and components classified as safety-relevant or may be limited to the most safety-relevant parts only. The targets of the comprehensive and systematic regulatory control and inspections are specified in a deterministic manner, on the basis of a safety classification, or they can be chosen on the basis of a probabilistic assessment of risks. As to the depth of the review, in some States the regulatory body puts the main emphasis on the assessment and auditing of the management system
and the operations of the operating organizations and their suppliers. In other States the regulatory body prefers to make comprehensive inde­pendent analyses and inspections of its own. INSAG has developed the nuclear safety infrastructure necessary for a national nuclear power programme supported by the IAEA Fundamental Safety Principles (INSAG, 2008).

The different phases in the life of a nuclear power plant can be summarized by the following:

• Decision to build a nuclear power plant and choice of the type of plant after the bidding process

• Site selection

• Design, construction and commissioning

• Operation including periodic safety reassessment up to the end of the lifetime

• Decommissioning and dismantling

• Spent fuel management and waste storage/repository.

In parallel the availability of fuel supply should be addressed and perma­nent training and retraining should be a concern for the whole duration of the life (currently 60 years) with preservation and transmission of knowledge.

Documentation should also be maintained during the life of the installa­tion in a manner easy to refer to and especially including the regulatory decisions or licence conditions. The IAEA document INSAG-19 (IAEA, 2003b) is concerned with maintaining the design integrity of nuclear instal­lations throughout their operating lifetime and further recommends the creation of a design authority within the licensee:

‘The need to maintain design integrity and to preserve the necessary detailed and specialized design knowledge poses a significant challenge for the organi­zation that has overall responsibility for the safety of a plant over its operating lifetime. This organization, namely the operating organization, will therefore need to take specific and vigorous steps to assure itself that the design knowl­edge is maintained appropriately. The operating organization must also assure itself that a formal and rigorous design change process exists so that the actual configuration of the plant throughout its life is consistent with changes to the design, that changes can be made with full knowledge of the original design intent, the design philosophy and of all the details of implementation of the design, and that this knowledge is maintained or improved throughout the lifetime of the plant. For the process of controlling design change, the acces­sibility of design knowledge is not a trivial matter. The amount of data is huge, as it includes, for example, original design calculations, research results, math­ematical models, commissioning test results and inspection history. Further, many design change issues can be complex.’

Safety culture, which is translated into the expression ‘safety first’, should be implemented during the whole lifecycle of a nuclear power plant from design to decommissioning and waste management. The concept of safety culture applies to organizations, including all levels of management, and to the individuals who should always demonstrate in their attitudes and behaviours their dedication to safety. Appendix 2 of the present book gives definitions, assessment and enhancement of safety culture in nuclear installations.

The regulatory body verifies compliance with the regulatory requirements of the waste management programme, spent fuel management procedures and the decommissioning programme. The regulatory body reviews, assesses, and approves, if appropriate, the final decommissioning plan and its supporting safety assessment, the management of waste and the updating of all existing safety-related documents prior to commencement of dismantling activities. Decommissioning is considered in detail in Chapter 24.

Release from regulatory control

The release of a nuclear power plant or a site from regulatory control requires, among other things, completion of decontamination and disman­tling and removal of radioactive material, radioactive waste and contami­nated components and structures. The regulatory body provides guidance

on the radiological criteria for the removal of regulatory controls over the decommissioned nuclear installation and the site.

The Euratom Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) was initially created to coordinate the Member States’ research programmes for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The Euratom Treaty today helps to pool knowledge, infrastructure, and funding of nuclear energy. It ensures the security of atomic energy supply within the frame­work of a centralized monitoring system. Euratom acts in several areas connected with atomic energy, including research, the drawing-up of safety standards, and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. One of the fundamental objectives of the Euratom Treaty is to ensure that all users in the European Union (EU) enjoy a regular and equitable supply of ores and nuclear fuels (source materials and special fissile materials). To this end, the Euratom Treaty created the Euratom Supply Agency, which has been operational since 1 June 1960. The Agency has the task of ensuring a regular and equi­table supply of ores, source materials and special fissile materials in the EU. The Nuclear Illustrative Programme describes the status of the nuclear sector in the EU in 2006 and the possible developments in this sector, taking into account economic and environmental issues. ENSREG is the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group. It is an independent authoritative expert body composed of senior officials from national regulatory or nuclear safety authorities from all 27 member states in the EU. ENSREG was established as the High Level Group on Nuclear Safety and Waste Management. The European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF) is a unique platform for a broad discussion, free of any taboos, on transparency issues as well as the oppor­tunities and risks of nuclear energy. Founded in 2007, ENEF gathers all relevant stakeholders in the nuclear field: governments of the 27 EU Member States, European institutions including the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee, nuclear industry, elec­tricity consumers and the civil society. EU heads of state and government adopted an energy policy for Europe which does not simply aim to boost competitiveness and secure energy supply, but also aspires to save energy and promote climate-friendly energy sources. Taking into account the sub­stantial contribution of nuclear energy to meeting these challenges, they endorsed the Commission proposal to organize a broad discussion among all relevant stakeholders on the opportunities and risks of nuclear energy.

WENRA

WENRA is a network of Chief Regulators of EU countries with nuclear power plants and Switzerland as well as of other interested European coun­tries which have been granted observer status. The main objectives of WENRA are to develop a common approach to nuclear safety, to provide an independent capability to examine nuclear safety in applicant countries and to be a network of chief nuclear safety regulators in Europe exchanging experience and discussing significant safety issues. For details, contact: info@ wenra. org.

In addition to all these organizations and institutions it is worth mentioning all the websites of national regulators and vendors which include a lot of useful information on nuclear energy.