In the older Canadian licensing tradition, three special safety functions were designated — shut down, close the containment boundary, and cool the fuel. (These functions are universally recognized in international docu­ments and practice.) The unavailability of each system was required to be less than 10-3 per demand. Recognizing the primary importance of reactor shutdown after some abnormal occurrence, two independent shutdown systems were required after the first commercial 43-unit plant was installed at Pickering. Regular testing of each of the special safety systems was required during plant operation; test results were reported to the regulatory agency in order to ensure that each unavailability requirement was being met. (In practice they were not always met; subsequent effort then imme­diately became an action item on the part of the operating organization.)

In order to meet its second responsibility — to provide for the application of its standards — the IAEA carries out a number of safety-related activities. These include fostering information exchange, encouraging research and development, providing technical assistance to developing Member States, promoting education and training and rendering a number of safety ser­vices, such as radiological assessments of contaminated environments, the evaluation of accidents, and radiation protection appraisals carried out by international peers. In addition, any Member State may request the assis­tance of the IAEA in setting up a project involving nuclear technology and, before approving the project, the IAEA’s Board of Governors is required to give due consideration to ‘the adequacy of proposed health and safety standards. . .’. The IAEA is also responsible for international nuclear safe­guards and — with respect to any IAEA project, or other arrangement where the IAEA is requested by the parties concerned to apply safeguards — has the right and responsibility ‘to require the observance of any health and safety measure prescribed by the IAEA’ and ‘to send into the territory of the recipient State or States inspectors. . . to determine whether there is compliance with [such] health and safety measures.’

In the case of the five NPT declared NWSs, the provisions contained in Articles I, III, IV and VI of the NPT are of direct relevance to the issue of safeguards. For example, each NWS undertakes ‘. . . not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices’.[17] NWSs are also obliged not to provide any NNWS with source or special fissionable material, or equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material unless the material is subject to the safeguards.[18]

In exchange for the commitments made by the NNWS Parties to the NPT, the NWSs affirm that the NWS shall undertake negotiations on effective measures for nuclear arms reductions with the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons (i. e., nuclear disarmament).[19]

Though they are not required to have a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, each NWS has chosen to do so. A NWS’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA is referred to as a Voluntary Offer Agreement (VOA).[20] The IAEA recognizes that VOAs serve two purposes: to ‘broaden the IAEA’s safeguards experience at advanced facilities, and to demonstrate that nuclear-weapon States are not commercially advantaged by being exempt from safeguards on their peaceful nuclear activities’, as explained in IAEA (2007b), page 7. In practice, the safeguards measures implemented in accordance with VOAs are only applied with regard to declared nuclear material in selected facilities in one or more of the five States.

While capacity stagnation was the characteristic of nuclear power develop­ment in most world regions, this cannot be said about Asia (see Fig. 15.4). The surplus capacity situation did not exist really in the fast-growing industrialized countries with limited domestic energy resources (Japan or Republic of Korea) or in the even faster-growing populous developing countries of China and India. Here energy security remained a high priority policy item and, in the cases of China and India, fuelling their economic development aspirations called for the development of all supply options. Moreover, electricity market liberalization was less pronounced in these countries than in North America or Europe and government involvement in energy system investment decisions (and finance) continued.

Despite the fact that SEA has been a legal requirement since 2005, there has been relatively little commentary or practice that has emerged on what authorities are required to do with the output of the SEA process. As a result, this area is relatively untested in the context of major infrastructure development, and particularly in the area of nuclear/energy planning. The key question remains exactly how, if at all, local authorities should aim to integrate the results of the SEA process, and the conclusions of the Environmental Report, with the subsequent process of granting individual development consents for projects.

Even outside the energy sector there is surprisingly little written guidance on this and indeed very little written legal opinion on the appropriate use of SEA materials at the development consent stage (such challenges relat­ing to SEA that we have seen relating to the policies themselves, not the subsequent reliance upon them). This has the somewhat unfortunate result of potentially leaving authorities with the mistaken belief that the SEA process is an exercise with no real end. Nonetheless, this is not a safe assumption to make and does not sit at all comfortably with the express objective of the SEA Directive to ensure that environmental considerations are fully integrated in the development process. The way in which the SEA output material influences project-level development control decisions will be how, in practice, the process of SEA influences development on the ground with a view to promoting sustainable development.

In principle, the answer to this problem is relatively simple — when a developer makes a project-specific development consent application which relies upon, or perhaps more widely just bears upon, any ‘plan or pro­gramme’ which has been subject to the SEA regime, it will be important for the determining authority to at least make references to the Environmental Report, the output of the SEA regime which should have already been completed. The usual method by which this is effected is through the detailed project-level Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). There are undoubtedly some areas of overlap between the SEA process and the EIA process, but the Commission of the European Union has broadly distinguished the two on the basis that SEA applies ‘upstream’ to certain public plans and programmes, while EIA applies ‘downstream’ to certain public and private projects (European Commission, 2009, paragraph 3.5).

The IAEA requirements document divides external events into six major groups:

• Earthquakes and surface faulting

• Meteorological events

• Flooding

• Geotechnical hazards

• External human-induced events

• Other important considerations.

Earthquakes and surface faulting

The requirements clearly indicate that ‘the hazards associated with earth­quakes shall be determined by means of seismotectonic evaluation of the region with the use of the greatest possible extent of the information col­lected’, while the selected site requires an analysis of the fault capability existing there.

The earthquake and surface faulting requirements have been extended into several safety guides; there is a dedicated safety guide on seismic hazards on site evaluation (IAEA, 2010), where details on how a regional seismotectonic model and local surface faulting can be developed and how to quantify the seismic hazard by using deterministic and probabilistic approaches. These data serve to define the operating basis earthquake (OBE) and the safe shutdown earthquake (SSE) which constitute the basis of the plant’s seismic design.

The URD presents a clear and comprehensive set of utility requirements for the next generation of nuclear power plants using LWRs in the USA. It was developed in the USA with the management and coordination of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and under the leadership of a group of American nuclear utilities. Some international utilities also took part in the development effort.

The URD consists of four volumes: [106]

• Volume II presents a complete set of both top-tier and detail require­ments for evolutionary-type advanced light water reactors (ALWRs).

• Volume III provides a comprehensive set of top-tier and detail require­ments for passive-type ALWRs.

The above Volumes II (Evolutionary ALWRs) and III (Passive ALWRs) each contain 13 chapters, as follows: (1) Overall requirements, defining common requirements applicable to a number of plant systems; (2) Power generation systems; (3) Reactor coolant system and reactor non-safety auxiliary systems; (4) Reactor systems; (5) Engineered safety systems; (6) Building design and arrangement; (7) Fuelling and refuelling; (8) Plant cooling water systems; (9) Site support systems; (10) Man-machine interface systems; (11) Electric power systems; (12) Radioactive waste processing systems; and (13) Turbine-generator systems.

The IAEA has produced a considerable body of work on quality assurance (QA) that has been widely adopted by Member States with NPP pro­grammes. Quality assurance in design, construction and operation is con­sidered in detail in Chapter 21. The IAEA approach to quality programmes for NPP processes has continued to evolve to be consistent with modern approaches (Persson, 2008). Initially, quality control was established to verify the conformance of systems at the completion of a process. Then, quality assurance was implemented to focus on prevention of non-confor­mance during production, thus becoming more performance-based as opposed to compliance-based. Next, a quality management approach was developed to encompass everyone involved in the processes. This included the concept of corporate safety culture and a focus on people.

The most recent manifestation of the IAEA quality programmes is an integrated management system where safety, health, environmental, secu­rity, quality and economic elements of an organization are all considered together (IAEA, 2006d). This approach was designed to address two general aims stated in INSAG-13, Management of Operational Safety in Nuclear Power Plants (INSAG, 1999):

To improve the safety performance of the organization through the planning, control and supervision of safety-related activities in normal, transient and emergency situations, and

To foster and support a strong safety culture through the development and reinforcement of good safety attitudes and behaviour in individuals and teams so as to allow them to carry out their tasks safely.

Such a system is intended to produce a single coherent management system where all functions are integrated to achieve an organization’s objectives, and quality requirements are incorporated fully into all the daily work. The IAEA has published Safety Guides for implementing the system (IAEA, 2006e, 2009c).

A management system for construction is also covered by these Safety Guides, particularly in Appendix V of IAEA (2009c). This Guide stipulates that an organization should develop and implement a management system that includes the overall arrangements for the management, performance and assessment of the NPP during construction and that the organization should ensure the following:

• Construction work and work at the installation are carried out in accord­ance with design specifications, drawings, procedures and instructions, including the implementation of the relevant requirements.

• Construction work and work that is undertaken at the installation, including work by contractors, are coordinated, carried out and com­pleted in accordance with planned programmes.

• Access to the construction site is controlled.

• Interface arrangements exist among the construction organizations, sup­pliers and other organizational units performing the work.

During construction, QA includes all the actions necessary to provide confidence that a SSC will perform satisfactorily in service. This includes independent assessments of the effectiveness of all the processes related to design, procurement, and construction. The purpose of this is to ensure that the constructor delivers high-quality project work, taking into account both industrial and nuclear safety requirements. The QA plan verifies each of the processes using the hierarchy of prevention, detection, and correction. Suppliers of products and services also have to comply with the licensee’s QA requirements, which could cover all the important operational areas such as procurement, materials, manufacturing, handling and storage, and shipping.

The licensee must demonstrate to the RB that the QA requirements for the construction license are being met. The RB would normally review and inspect the licensee’s QA programme as well as the programmes for other involved organizations, such as suppliers of safety-related products and services, testing and calibration laboratories, nuclear steam system suppli­ers, and architect-engineering companies.

The licensee must also ensure that the constructor supplies all the docu­mentation needed to define the design basis for the plant in support of operations. This involves the implementation of a comprehensive document management system that enables all records, including QA records, equip­ment, materials, manuals, and drawings to be controlled and maintained.

There are many shift patterns employed in the conduct of operations, from four shift cycles to seven or eight. The important considerations are that they afford some continuity between shifts and provide ample opportunity for training. It is also recognised that alertness levels can vary throughout any given 24-hour period and so such factors should be taken into consid­eration when designing shift patterns.

In most cases shift ‘teams’ are kept together in the interest of promoting teamwork and effectiveness. The airline industry, however, is more con­cerned that familiarity between flight crews could have an adverse effect on performance, so they promote regular refreshment in their flight crews. There is considerable evidence to support the airline industry view. Shift teams that work together form group norms and habits, together with a reluctance to challenge each other’s standards.

It is also true that shift teams are not exposed to the same operational experience. Normally attempts are made to cross-fertilise experience across the shifts through training scenarios, but much experience is not covered in this way and one of the few ways where it can be promoted is through regular interchange of personnel between shifts.

5.9.2 Simulator training

When managing fault situations there is no substitute for the fundamental training that operators receive to qualify them for their roles. Such training enables them to make discerning decisions based on their knowledge and experience. Simulator training (see Appendix 4) can demonstrate to the operators the relevance of such knowledge and the effectiveness of deci­sions they make in transient and fault situations. Much more than that, it enables the operators to practise and perfect their actions and responses to both frequently and infrequently performed plant evolutions.

In addition to improving the man-machine interfaces, simulator training is an important platform for improving human performance at both the individual and group levels. Simulator scenarios that do not cover this are missing important opportunities to enhance performance.

Regular training on simulators can be clearly demonstrated to improve both safety and reliability. Most experience suggests that simulators are most effectively utilised when they are close to the nuclear power plant sites. Although practices differ in this respect, the trend is towards site — based simulators.

The activities undertaken during decommissioning, following any routine programmes of defuelling or facility system flushing, generally comprise a formal sequence of non-routine tasks. To ensure that these tasks are com­pleted with respect to safety, programme, quality and cost considerations, it is important to identify the change of emphasis in the training requirements as the transition from operations to decommissioning occurs.

The risk of losing knowledge, both explicit and tacit, increases with the time passed. The problem is compounded by the fact that efforts to identify the information requirements for decommissioning are not usually an organized and consolidated activity and may not be appreciated by organi­zations operating the nuclear facility. For these reasons, it is important to

Table 6.4 Specialization requirements during construction, commissioning and plant operation

Tasks and activities during the Requirements of education

different stages of the NPP

lifecycle

M. Sc. in engineering (civil or mechanical)

B. Sc. in engineering (mechanical, electrical, electronics, civil)

B. Sc./B. A. in business administration, accounting

B. Sc. in engineering (mechanical, electrical, electronics, civil) and technicians (mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, civil construction, accountants, draftsmen, computer) and craftsmen (boilermakers, carpenters, concrete workers, electricians, insulators, iron workers, millwrights, operators of heavy equipment, painters, pipe fitters, sheet-metal workers, welders)

Table 6.4 Continued

Tasks and activities during the Requirements of education

different stages of the NPP

lifecycle

M. Sc. in engineering, preferably mechanical

B. Sc. in engineering (mechanical, electrical, nuclear, chemical)

B. Sc. in engineering (mainly mechanical, electrical, nuclear, also electronics, chemical, civil); physicist; chemist; metallurgist and technicians and craftsmen in specific field of activities

M. Sc. in engineering

B. Sc. in engineering, preferably electrical or mechanical

Technicians (might be B. Sc. in engineering), electrical or mechanical

Technicians (electrical, mechanical)

B. Sc. in engineering (preferably mechanical)

B. Sc. in engineering

Mechanical, electrical and instrumentation and control technicians and mechanical crafts, electricians, electronics and civil crafts

M. Sc. in engineering

B. Sc. in engineering

M. Sc. in engineering or physicist

Technicians

B. Sc. in engineering, physicists, chemist and technicians (mechanical, electrical, radiological protection)

B. Sc. or M. Sc. in engineering (nuclear, mechanical, electrical, electronics, chemical); physicists, chemists and technicians (mechanical, electrical, electronics, chemical, computer, draftsmen)

B. Sc. in engineering (preferably mechanical) and technicians (mechanical, electrical, civil, welding)

Adapted with permission from IAEA (1980), Table 1.12-1 to Table 1.12-10 Manpower Requirements and Technical Qualifications, on pp. 133-184 of the Technical Reports Series No. 200, Manpower Development for Nuclear Power: A Guidebook, IAEA, Vienna.

consider decommissioning as a phase in the lifecycle of a nuclear facility and to preserve during operation the records and information that might be useful after shutdown.

Training has an important role during the transition to decommissioning, when the detailed design of the decommissioning project and its organiza­tion are being developed. Training can be an effective tool to transmit information stored during the operation of the facility to the decommis­sioning organization and its personnel. In the same way, training is also essential during the planning and performance of specific decommissioning tasks, particularly during the detailed planning of each work package, which usually relies on a sound knowledge of the configuration and the operational history of the systems to be dismantled. Thus, in this phase, the training of work supervisors, health physics personnel, ALARA technicians and industrial safety personnel, and other personnel, can be accomplished.

According to IAEA (2008b), typical subject matter for generic safety and other training is as follows:

• General employee training in radiation safety, industrial safety, fire safety and emergency planning

• Radiation worker safety training

• Respirator (full-face, half-face, self-contained breathing apparatus) training

• Airline suit training

• Electrical safety training

• Confined space training

• Crane, hoisting, and rigging training

• Lockout and tagout training (safe system of work)

• Fire watch training

• Forklift safety training

• Human performance awareness fundamentals training

• Peer and self-checking

• Project reviews and pre-job briefings

• Use of power tools

• Manual handling

• Basic first aid

• Working at height

• Chemical/hazardous material handling.

Finally, contractors are used more in the ‘worker’ group to provide spe­cialist support and to satisfy peak labour demands. The training for contrac­tors is no less onerous than that for the client organization workers, and in many cases may be greater due to the non-familiarity of the contractor worker with the working environment.

In accordance with the tasks to be performed during decommissioning, different positions could be found such as operators, technicians (radiologi­cal protection technicians and chemistry technicians), maintenance person­nel (electrical, mechanical and instrumentation and control technicians), craft personnel (welders, pipefitters, carpenters) and supervisors of the above categories, with an academic profile similar to those described in the preceding paragraphs.