Nuclear Energy Agency Online Bulletin

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Nuclear safety
Radiological protection
Nuclear science
Data Bank

The NEA and the Russian Federation sign a Joint Declaration on Co-operation

A joint declaration on co-operation was signed on 21 March 2007 in Moscow during a ceremony attended by officials from the NEA and the Russian Federation agencies involved in its implementation. Konstantin Pulikovsky, Chairman of the Federal Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service (Rostechnadzor), signed on behalf of the Russian Federation and Director-General Luis Echávarri signed on behalf of the NEA.

Rostechnadzor Chairman K. Pulikovsky (left) and NEA Director-General L. Echávarri

NEA publications

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

Vient de paraître en français :
Ressources, production et demande de l'uranium : Un bilan de quarante ans
« Rétrospective du Livre rouge »
ISBN 978-92-64-02808-0. Prix : €90, US$121, £64, ¥12 500. 271 pages.

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.

Benchmarking of CFD Codes for Application to Nuclear Reactor Safety (CFD4NRS)
Workshop Proceedings, Garching (Munich), Germany, 5-7 September 2006
CD-ROM or website download.

Evaluation of Uncertainties in Relation to Severe Accident and Level-2 Probabilistic Safety Analysis
Workshop Proceedings, Aix-en-Provence, France, 7-9 November 2005
CD-ROM or website download.

Nuclear Safety Research in OECD Countries
Support Facilities for Existing and Advanced Reactors (SFEAR)
ISBN 978-92-64-99005-0. 107 pages (1.3 mb).

Nuclear safety

The NEA Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) has released its latest operating plan. Identified in the plan are the safety issues and topics on which CSNI activities should focus. CSNI working groups will now prepare their own integrated plans identifying the safety issues they will address and the schedule for accomplishing the operating plan's objectives and technical goals. The plan is available at www.nea.fr/html/nsd/docs/2007/csni-r2007-7.pdf.

The CSNI has just issued a state-of-the-art report on iodine chemistry, examining the physical-chemical behaviour of iodine in the case of a severe accident in a light water reactor. In this scenario iodine is released from the reactor's fuel and travels through the coolant system into the containment, where during the gas phase it is likely to interact with aerosols and the structure's walls, or in the liquid phase with the reactor sump. This study provides the basis for a comprehensive assessment of the value of the possible iodine source term to the environment, despite some uncertainties that merit further research. The full report is available at www.nea.fr/html/nsd/docs/2007/csni-r2007-1.pdf.

Related links

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

Radiological protection

The NEA Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health (CRPPH) agreed in 2006 to study how the concept of best available techniques (BAT) for controlling radioactive discharges might be understood in the context of a new reactor design. An ad hoc expert group established to examine this subject met for the second time on 6-7 March 2007 in Paris, France. During the meeting the group finalised a report that outlines the current status of the concept and makes a series of proposals to further this work, notably through the study of discharge databases.

In 1997 the Information System on Occupational Exposure (ISOE) programme published a study on work management at nuclear power plants, examining how time and money could be saved and radiological exposure reduced through the better selection and management of maintenance tasks. ISOE programme participants agreed in 2006 that this work should be updated and formed an expert group to write a new report. The group held its first meeting on 22-23 March 2007 in Paris, France, adopting an updated report outline and an ambitious drafting schedule. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/jointproj/isoe.html.

As part of the revision of the International Basic Safety Standards (BSS) the NEA hosted a drafting meeting to revise the BSS section on emergency management on 27-28 March 2007 in Paris, France. Chaired by a member of the CRPPH bureau, the meeting was attended by the chair of International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Committee Four, who reported on the new ICRP general recommendations. These recommendations will have a significant impact on the new BSS. The meeting participants developed an outline of the text on emergency management to be revised; they also agreed on the issues that need further discussion.

The CRPPH Expert Group on the Implications of Radiological Protection Science (EGIS) has completed a report on the challenges emerging from radiological protection science. As a result of this report, as well as the publication of a related report on the emerging challenges in radiological protection decision making, the CRPPH has decided to hold a workshop to explore the relationship between radiological protection science, its uncertainties and social values. The aim of this workshop is to examine how both of these "ingredients" are assessed when making radiological protection decisions. The programme committee for this workshop, which will take place in Finland in January 2008, met for the first time on 28 March 2007 in Paris, France. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/rp/egis.html.

Nuclear science

The NEA Expert Group on Chemical Partitioning met on 20-21 March 2007 at NEA headquarters to discuss progress to date in the group's programme of work. The group is currently tasked with the following three activities:

• drafting a state-of-the-art report on national programmes in chemical partitioning;
• reviewing flowsheets of different nuclear fuel cycle recycle scenarios, including the nature and quantities of the resulting products. Separation processes for oxide, coated-particle, metallic and nitride fuels will be categorised according to their technological maturity;
• establishing a methodology for evaluating the impact of repositories on various existing and advanced fuel cycle scenarios.

Data Bank

The second edition of the Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments (IRPhE) is now available. The handbook includes experiments covering pressurised water reactors, Russian-designed pressurised water reactors (VVER), pressurised heavy water reactors, high-temperature reactors and liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors, as well as some 15 000 pages of text, tables and graphs. The first edition of the handbook, published in March 2006, attracted considerable interest from research institutes, the nuclear industry and universities. The qualification and validation of modelling tools, necessary for the next generation of nuclear reactors, will benefit from this data. More information is available at www.nea.fr/html/dbprog/IRPhE-latest.htm.

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.

Instructions on retrieving material from the NEA may be found at www.nea.fr. Please note that scientific database access is only available to residents of OECD/NEA Data Bank member countries.