Page 24 - Nuclear Plant Journal Digital Edition: January - February 2013
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24
Nuclear Plant Journal, January-February 2013
which has not been done properly, at least
so far.
We were able to include into the
IAEA system a feature permitting to
report not only the experiences but also
lessons learned from experience and
actions taken. When one country has
certain incident, which it reports to the
IAEA’s Incident Reporting System, then
the other countries should review and
assess the information and report back
to the IAEA, if some actions have been
taken on that basis. Unfortunately, such
feedback reports are not coming from
the countries. Only Finland has reported
back about some measures, which were
based on lessons learned from some
internationally reported events.
The first step to improve the
international
experience
feedback
through the IAEA should be that IAEA is
given enough resources to run its system
even if the incidents would be reported
efficiently today we should ask what
happens to those reports in the member
states. Are they really being investigated?
I’m afraid that in many countries they
don’t have any systematic approach to
go through all IAEA incident reports. At
least, we don’t see the feedback to the
agency from countries, whether they have
taken any actions based on the reports.
7.
How have the United States and the
European countries handled the IAEA’s
incident reporting system?
I must say that in the USA after many
years and different approaches attempted,
they have been able to make an effective
system for reporting and using operating
experience. Inside the US NRC, they
have what they call clearinghouse. That
is a group of people who are responsible
for information flow on operating
experiences, and this group can ask
from any expert groups inside the NRC
to have a look at the issues and to report
their views. So, this operating experience
feedback system functions very well
within the U.S NRC in the United States,
and they are also reporting well to the
IAEA. I tried for many years in Europe to
establish such a system. Initially there was
so much resistance among the regulators.
This was because my proposal was to
put this clearinghouse group inside one
of the research centers of the European
Union, where they had the resources,
capacity, and interest to work on this,
and to establish a good system inside
Europe. But the national regulators were
very much afraid that this would be the
first step that European Union grabs all
regulatory powers from them. The nations
inside Europe and the regulators are very
careful in that sense, and with good
reason. The member states don’t want to
have the European Union’s involvement
in any way into their regulatory decision
making because all countries have very
different attitudes towards use of nuclear
power. Nevertheless, the European
clearinghouse was established a couple
of years ago and it has started to function
quite well.
8.
Concluding remarks.
In Europe we have good experiences
from regulatory cooperation in WENRA
and it has been able to harmonize the
regulatory practices. WENRA members
have implemented about 300 different
safety reference levels for the operating
plants, written to be in compliance with
the IAEA safety standards. It was just a
mutual decision by this voluntary body
that gets together twice a year, and has
good working groups to do preparatory
work between the meetings. The
reference levels have been incorporated
separately into the regulations of each
country. As an entity, WENRA has no
formal power but it is an informal body,
which was established by a common
decision by the regulators. It was the
French regulator, Mr. Andre
-
Claude
LACOSTE, who pulled it all together. All
the European Union nuclear power plant
regulators, plus Switzerland are members
of this organization. Thanks to WENRA,
regulation in Europe has become more
effective, and an important achievement
is a consensus on the need for continuous
enhancement of safety also at the
operating plants.After Fukushima Daiichi
accident there are indications that similar
philosophy of continuous improvement is
coming also to the USA.
Contact: Jukka Laaksonen, Rusatom
Overseas, 121151, Moscow, nab. Tarasa
Schevchenko, 23A, floor 21, Russia;
telephone: 7 495 730 0873, fax: 7 495
J
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