Publications on sale can be ordered at the OECD bookshop: www.oecd.org/scripts/publications/bookshop/redirect.asp.

Engineered Barrier Systems (EBS) in the Context of the Entire Safety Case
Process Issues - Workshop Proceedings, Las Vegas, USA, 14-17 September 2004
ISBN 92-64-01313-X. Price: €40, $50, £27, ¥5 500.

Free publications are available at www.nea.fr/html/pub/webpubs/. Paper copies may be requested by sending an e-mail to neapub@nea.fr.

Nuclear safety

A new OECD/NEA nuclear safety joint project has been launched. The ROSA project aims to resolve issues in thermal-hydraulics analyses relevant to light water reactor safety using the Japanese ROSA/LSTF facility. In particular, it intends to focus on the validation of simulation models and methods for complex phenomena that may occur during design basis events (DBE) and beyond-DBE transients. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/jointproj/rosa.html.

Related links

Documents from the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI)
Documents from the Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA)
Forthcoming workshops and seminars

Radioactive waste management

The NEA AMIGO project (Approaches and Methods for Integrating Geologic Information in the Safety Case) aims to enhance geoscience contributions to the safety case for geological disposal of radioactive waste through the exchange of information and ideas on the collection of geologic information and its integration in repository siting and design, safety assessment models and other studies that could contribute to overall arguments for safety. An AMIGO workshop on the Linkage of Geoscientific Arguments and the Line of Evidence Supporting the Safety Case was held on 20-22 September 2005 in Toronto, Canada. During the workshop participants discussed the following issues:

The workshop's proceedings will be published by the NEA.

Radiological protection

The NEA Expert Group on Radiological Protection Science at the Service of Stakeholders (EGSS) met on 3-5 September in Paris, France. During the meeting, the group completed its draft report on the lessons learnt during 20 years of work on the contaminated areas around Chernobyl. The focus of the group's draft report is how radiological protection experts have contributed to addressing local, regional, national and international concerns. The way this experience reflects on the roles and responsibilities of radiological protection experts at all levels will also be explored in the published report, scheduled for release in 2006. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/rp/egss.html.

Members of the Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) Steering Group met on 20-21 September in Paris, France. Their aim was to prepare a list of development options for the ISOE Steering Group to consider at its November 2005 meeting. Key among these is the idea of creating a "one-stop shop" ISOE website from which users could:

Other considerations discussed involved the value of replicating the "ISOE  approach" for other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle and/or for research reactors. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/jointproj/isoe.html.

Nuclear science

The international topical meeting M&C 2005: Mathematics and Computation - Supercomputing, Reactor Physics and Nuclear and Biological Applications was held on 12-15 September 2005 in Avignon, France. Advances in computational methods relative to new challenging problems for innovative reactors, multi-scale and multi-physics approaches were the main focus of discussions during the meeting, which was attended by 370 participants from 27 countries. Over the course of the 49 technical sessions held during the meeting, 310 papers were presented. The meeting was co-sponsored by the NEA. More information is available at mcavignon2005.cea.fr.

During the meeting which explored Perspectives on Nuclear Data for the Next Decade, held on 26-28 September 2005 in Bruyères-le-Châtel, France, participants agreed on a roadmap of the physics required for future nuclear data evaluations. The meeting was convened to examine current nuclear data evaluation issues and seek to identify the evaluation processes that might be adopted in the next 10-15 years. Organised by the French Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA) the meeting was co-sponsored by the NEA, which will publish the proceedings. 

The NEA Expert Group on Very High Burn-up Fuels in Light Water Reactors met at NEA headquarters on 29-30 September 2005. The group is writing a report to outline the current state of the art in the use of very high nuclear fuel burn-ups (60–100 GWd/t) in these types of reactors, assessing their potential technical and economic benefits. At the meeting the expert group reviewed the latest draft of the report with the aim of having a final version ready for publication in the first half of 2006. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/science/fuel/vhbf.html.

Data Bank

Nuclear data

Participants in the Joint Evaluated Fission and Fusion File (JEFF) project will meet on 28-30 November 2005 in Paris, France. Delegates at the meeting will evaluate the progress of the JEFF, European Fusion File (EFF) and European Activation File (EAF) projects. The current status of ongoing nuclear data benchmarks, processing initiatives and decay data and fission yield libraries will also be discussed. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/science/meetings/index.html.

Computer program services

A page listing all new programs in the last 12 months can be found at: www.nea.fr/html/dbprog/cpsnew.html. Detailed news concerning the computer program service is available at: www.nea.fr/html/dbprog/Newsletter/Whatsnew.htm.