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On Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection

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On Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection The Inspector General’s report on Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection 2008 1 FOREWORD 2 3 This report to the EDF President is intended to provide him with my judgement on the state of nuclear 4 safety and radiation protection in the company. It will also be my last report, and therefore gives an overview of how nuclear safety has evolved in my seven years at EDF. 5 This report is also for all those who, directly or indirectly, contribute to nuclear safety and radiation protection as a result of their daily acts and decisions. It will have achieved its goal if it provides food for thought on the performance levels achieved in these areas and ways of improving them, particularly in 6 the present context of the current major projects and the developments of the nuclear activities of the Group outside France. 7 Emphasis is therefore placed more on difficulties and weaknesses than strengths and progress, which may appear unfair to those working hard at running our indispensable and demanding nuclear power generating facilities on a daily basis. 8 The present assessment is based on the information gathered and the observations made over the year among the field teams, during my visits to the plants and also during meetings with the main 9 stakeholders, including managers, staff representatives and, of course, medical practitioners and their teams, not to mention subcontractors. It also reflects the results of comparisons made during visits to players in the nuclear field outside France. 10 I would like to thank all those who I met, within and outside EDF, in France and abroad. I would like to thank them for their willingness to discuss matters, and for the frankness and richness in our exchanges 11 of views. Their openness, which is vital to the relevance of this report, continues to reflect a spirit of safety culture. 12 I would also like to thank my staff, Christian Thézée, Gérard Petit and Jacques Dusserre who, once again this year, have provided their unstinting support, particularly during the drafting of this report. I would also like to address a special mention to Professor Kalifa who has just left IGSN after nine years 13 of excellent service. Finally, although this document has not been written for the purpose of public relations, as in previous 14 years, it will be available to the general public on the EDF internet site in both English and French (www.edf.fr). 15 The Inspector General for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection, Pierre Wiroth 16 17 18 Paris, 20 January 2009 19 1 20 21 1 CONTENTS 2 3 1 My analysis and conclusions at the end of 2008 5 4 2 Nuclear safety management 19 5 3 Radiation protection 25 4 A changing relationship with the nuclear safety authority 31 6 5 Support for the nuclear plants in service 37 6 Succeeding with the EPR 43 7 7 Operating the installations for longer 49 8 Further opening up to the outside world 53 8 9 Renewal of skills 59 9 10 Labour relations 65 11 The driving forces of cultural change 71 10 12 Promote change and regulate its pace 77 13 The contribution of the medical staff 81 11 14 Relations with contractors 85 15 The fire hazard 91 12 16 Nuclear fuel 97 13 17 Decommissioning 101 18 Emergency response management 107 14 19 Events at EDF 113 19.1 The Tricastin nuclear power plant fuel assemblies 113 19.2 Steam generator behaviour 114 15 19.3 Reactor building evacuation 118 20 Visits abroad 121 16 20.1 JAPAN: Kashiwasaki-Kariwa and Hamaoka power plants, the JSW casting and forging facilities at Muroran 121 20.2 SLOVAKIA: Slovenske Elektrarne, Bohunice and Mochovce 17 nuclear power plants 125 20.3 THE USA: Constellation Energy, Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant and Unistar Nuclear Energy 130 18 21 Appendices 139 19 3 20 21 1 MY ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS AT THE END OF 2008 The year 2008 confirmed a widespread regain in interest in nuclear power. A total of 440 reactors in some thirty countries are supplying about 16% of the power generated throughout the world. Major programmes have been launched, and more that 30 reactors are under construction, mainly in South- East Asia, India and Russia. Other substantial programmes are in hand in the USA and the UK. For EDF, 2008 was another turning point, with the build-up of work on the Flamanville 3 EPR worksite and the preparation of international projects and major investments in China, the UK and the USA, alongside continued operation of its 58 pressurized water reactors. As the largest nuclear operator in the world, and major driving force behind the return to nuclear power throughout the world, EDF has to be exemplary in terms of nuclear safety, while maintaining a high standard of quality in plant operation and reinforcing its cooperation with the other operators and international organisations involved. This means both increasing its performance in terms of nuclear safety and working with the other operators. It is true that each operator depends on all the others, as a nuclear incident will affect them all, wherever it occurs in the world. In 2008, the overall nuclear safety and radiation protection results for the EDF plants were generally satisfactory. A number of very promising methodical campaigns were launched. These are expected to eventually produce substantial gains in nuclear safety. I would like to emphasise that although the media reported a number of incidents during the summer no major safety-related events occurred in the EDF facilities in 2008, and there were no cases of exposure exceeding the legal limits or radioactive discharges releases outside the regulatory specifications. In particular, I note that, once again in 2008, no event was graded as high as Level 2 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) which has seven levels. Contrasting indicators Most of the safety indicator results are similar to those of 2007, with two exceptions. Firstly, there was a very sharp drop in the number of reactor scrams, which decreased by 42% in one year making it a bigger drop than what has been seen over the last ten years. Secondly, the number of events ranked above Level 1 on the International Nuclear Event Scale has increased back up to the 2006 value. Meanwhile, the radiation protection indicators have remained stable at excellent levels, even though the collective dose rose slowly as a result of the greater volume of work involving exposure to radiation, partly as a result of handling the numerous technical contingencies. The historic drop in the number of reactor scrams results from a methodical campaign consistently pursued by the management for a number of years. The campaign was designed to ensure analysis and correction of all causes of scrams, whether equipment- or behaviour-related. I would like to emphasise the importance of this achievement, as it is an indicator of overall operation. It is also a multidisciplinary result, as many professions were involved and can share the credit for it. Emblematic of safety culture, the willpower to progress, careful use of operating experience feedback and regularly calling ourselves into question, the campaign serves a model to be followed. As regards the other safety indicators, the number of events declared to the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) remained high. This situation is, of course, the result of a desire for openness and is very creditworthy. I do however regret that, all too often, the same causes produce the same effects and same types of events, particularly failure to comply with the technical specifications for operation (the operator’s “highway code”). 5 1 This recurrent difficulty in drawing lessons from past events and correcting them is castigated by the ASN and the operator itself when they upgrade the classification of incidents that reveal lack of safety culture. This partly explains the number of events graded at Level 1 on the International Nuclear Event Safety Scale, which is very strictly applied in France. While making allowance for the large number of contingencies, which had a negative effect on some indicators, I feel that the world’s leading nuclear operator cannot be content when their results appear to be stagnating, even if they are good compared with international standards. The progress made by determined efforts in certain areas has not yet lead to comparable progress in others. As in the past, considerable disparity remains between the results of the different plants. Disproportionate numbers of events occurred at certain plants. We must remember that the weakest link determines overall strength. I observed that a coherent set of measures has been set in place to assists the plants in need. Although these may have stopped the differences becoming greater, these measures have not yet eliminated the differences between the plants, which remain substantial. This disparity of results and their variability are food for thought. How can the organisation of the nuclear units, which are technically identical, be brought up to the standard of the best ones, since their strengths are still not sufficiently encouraging to be emulated? How can mutual assistance between the plants be fostered? In the current climate of industrial relations and corporate culture, I would have thought this would be easier to achieve, but the necessary resources are still not available. Availability of the nuclear plants The regular increase observed in the availability of the nuclear plants ended two years ago. The result for 2008 was lower than for 2007, mainly due to the technical contingencies of human and hardware origins. The drop in availability is not, in itself, a sign of deterioration in nuclear safety.
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