Wenra Chairman Tackles The Complexities Of Harmonisation
Written by NucNet
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Security & Safety
Jukka Laaksonen, chairman of the Western European Nuclear Regulators’ Association (Wenra) and chairman of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), talks to NucNet about the his plans for the harmonisation of regulatory inspections and defence in depth* (DiD) levels for new reactors.
NucNet – In December 2009 the Wenra reactor harmonisation working group published its study ‘Safety Objectives for New Power Reactors’. You are expecting comments on this until June 2010. What developments can we expect?
Laaksonen: We had a meeting to discuss our plans. I am making a new proposal – and I don’t how others will react – that we start the harmonisation of inspection practises. During construction and plant modernisation you are buying equipment from manufacturers and construction is being done. The issue is how the inspections are done to verify the quality of this equipment and how construction is organised. Today it seems to me that every country has organised it in a different way.
My proposal is to put together a working group of real experts who are dealing with inspections, who know their national practise. And these people should get together and write a common paper on how this is being organised in each country. We should first paint a full picture of what happens in Europe, and then we can find some commonalities and find out whether we have room for harmonisation. The vendors have trouble facing different arrangements in each customer state. In some countries regulators are very involved, but in other countries regulators are not at all involved, and there are differences. We are trying to understand these differences.
NucNet – For manufactured equipment, would this involve a quality assurance certificate of some kind?
Laaksonen: Yes, we have to take a very broad view on that. What kinds of certificates are issued? What kind of inspection organisations do you have and for whom are they working? Are they working for the licensee or are they working for the regulator? Who is giving them the orders and who is guiding the expert organisations who are carrying out quality assurance? We have to better understand this, because nobody seems to understand it today. Even when I talk to my fellow regulators, they don’t know how things are running in their own country.
NucNet – Your proposal will therefore be for the harmonisation of regulatory inspections?
Laaksonen: Yes – the harmonisation of regulatory inspections to verify the quality of systems, transfers and components. This is something I will propose at Wenra’s next meeting and I hope to see some reaction because this is an area which should be addressed properly. It is a very big part of regulatory work, and regulatory inspections need to be harmonised.
NucNet – What about the public in all this, and the challenges of convincing the public that harmonisation of inspection procedures will be done properly?
Laaksonen: We are still at an early stage. First we have to find out if there is an interest in starting this type of harmonisation project, then we can go forward. This is just a first proposal which I have distributed for comments and feedback for the next meeting. But we will certainly continue with these safety objectives.
I know that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is not happy with this safety objectives paper. They feel that we are going too far and they don’t like it… they are not ready to follow this same approach. The big difference is that we want to provide further specifications. But there is a traditional difference in principle with three main layers or levels of DiD for reactors and we want to add a fourth. We want a very clear fourth layer, which is protecting the containment or rather preventing large radioactive release in the event of a core meltdown accident.
So we would have one extra layer of protection, something which would be decided in advance. We want to have a very systematic approach. We are investigating the actual threats to the containment and those physical phenomena that could break the containment. For each of these phenomena there must be something which is designed for that purpose – not just something from the existing plant system which would be of help.
NucNet – Have you had any discussions with the NRC?
Laaksonen: We haven’t had any discussions so far. We are due to start discussions with the NRC. So we are looking for their comments on this, and we are looking to start an open debate.
NucNet – Do you see problems with any other parties or countries?
Laaksonen: The European regulators are quite consistent and there is a good consensus inside Europe. Maybe the Russians are going to go along with the European approach. But when we take the other countries such as Japan, South Korea and China… we will see.
NucNet – Surely this must become an issue of, or concern for, competitiveness at some stage?
Laaksonen: Well we really should have common lines… and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safety standards must be agreed, by everybody.
NucNet – You previously told NucNet that Wenra would seek increased engagement with Armenian, Russian and Ukrainian regulatory heads. What kind of contact are you planning?
Laaksonen: They will be coming to our Wenra plenary meeting on 25 and 26 March, where discussions will include the two quasi-permanent working groups on harmonisation: the reactor harmonisation working group (RHWG) and the working group on waste and decommissioning.
Story Background
* Wenra’s reactor harmonisation working group has been discussing the evolution of the DiD approach for new nuclear power plants. For operating reactors, this has traditionally combined both prevention of a wide range of incidents and the mitigation of their consequences.
In the earlier stages of plant operating lifetimes, the concept of DiD included three levels, which increased to five following the IAEA’s International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) report of 1996.
Proposals made by the Reactor Harmonisation Working Group now hold that core melt accidents should be treated as a specific level of DiD (level four).
The Wenra Reactor Harmonisation Working Group Report ‘Safety Objectives for New Power Reactors’ (December 2009) is online here
