IAEA-NRC-21ST Nuclear Research Centres in the 21st Century Final report of a meeting held in Vienna, 13-15 December 1999 INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY 33/05 November 2001 — 21VT Nuclear Research Centres in the 21st Century Final report of a meeting held in Vienna, 13-15 December 1999 INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY ^ November 2001 The originator of this publication in the IAEA was: Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences International Atomic Energy Agency Wagramer Strasse 5 P.O. Box 100 A-1400 Vienna, Austria NUCLEAR RESEARCH CENTRES IN THE 21st CENTURY IAEA, VIENNA, 2001 IAEA-NRC-21ST © IAEA, 2001 Printed by the IAEA in Austria November 2001 FOREWORD During the last fifty years, a large number of countries have established nuclear research centres (NRCs) with the mission of (1) developing indigenous expertise in nuclear science and technology, (2) training scientists/engineers for research and development on nuclear power reactors and applications of radioisotopes and radiation, and (3) facilitating commercial exploitation of nuclear technology. Many research centres have developed nuclear expertise on all aspects of nuclear science and technology through setting up and operating large nuclear facilities like research reactors, accelerators, fuel cycle facilities and the like. NRCs have been the cradle for a host of industries dealing with peaceful uses of nuclear energy. By virtue of their multidisciplinary nature, nuclear research centres have also been strategic elements of technology development in many countries and a number of industries have benefited by association with NRCs. For technologies which have already been deployed, there is a belief that less R&D from NRCs is required. Further, incidents like the Chernobyl accident have prompted many countries to re-evaluate the need for nuclear power. With increasing pressure on resources, the NRCs are facing a difficult situation in many countries, particularly in the developed countries. Government support and funding are dwindling and the infrastructure for nuclear R&D has aged as have the personnel. There is an apprehension that nuclear expertise itself may dwindle with time and the benefits of the nuclear science and technology may not be available in the future. The technology is less than 50 years old and there are many new avenues demanding R&D input. Co-operation among NRCs is one route to meet these challenges. Research and development in nuclear science and engineering has an international outlook. The IAEA has been active in promoting international co-operation ever since its formation more than 40 years ago. The Director General of the IAEA therefore felt that it would be useful to bring senior managers from NRCs together. Towards the end of the last millennium attention was focused, in many areas, on changing times. In the field of nuclear technology, there were a number of major conferences addressing this issue (IAEA Conference on Nuclear Power in the 21st century — Challenges and Opportunities, Mumbai, India, in October 1998, and American Nuclear Society Conference Global 99 on Nuclear Technology Bridging the Millennia, held at Jackson Hole, USA, in September 1999. While the technology issue was discussed in these conferences, the general issues relating to NRCs were not the subject of discussion at any forum. To focus on these issues senior managers of nuclear research centres from 25 Member States were invited for an exchange of ideas regarding: • Orientation of the programmes of NRCs in the current environment, • Challenges faced by NRCs, • Interaction of NRCs with their governments, industry, academia and public, • Ways in which mutual collaboration could be used to enhance the technology, • The possible role of the IAEA in this respect. Accordingly, the scope of the meeting was defined as follows: 1. Past and present situation of NRCs • R&D programmes and the related finances, manpower and infrastructure • Strengths and limitations. 2. Challenges faced by NRCs • New directions • Examples of successful orientation • preservation of expertise. 3. Interaction of NRCs with their environment • Social and economic sector • Academia • Public. 4. Collaboration and co-operation • North-South and South-South • IAEA role. 5. Other issues considered relevant All participants gave their country's views on these and related topics. There was extensive discussion on the subjects. The sections of the report giving highlights of presentations, summaries of discussions and recommendations were finalized at the meeting. D.D. Sood of the Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences was the Scientific Secretary of the meeting and was the IAEA officer responsible for this publication. The 44th General Conference of the IAEA passed a resolution (GC(44)/RES/23) which calls for strengthening co-operation between nuclear research centres in the area of the peaceful applications of nuclear technology. This resolution reaffirms the recommendations of the meeting. The Member States and the IAEA will now explore ways in which this co-operation can be strengthened. In the 2002-2003 Programme and Budget cycle the IAEA has also initiated a subprogramme on Management and Preservation of Knowledge in Nuclear Science and Technology, in which facilitating close co-operation between NRCs and the academic institutions is an important element. EDITORIAL NOTE This publication has been prepared from the original material as submitted by the authors. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the IAEA, the governments of the nominating Member States or the nominating organizations. The use of particular designations of countries or territories does not imply any judgement by the publisher, the IAEA, as to the legal status of such countries or territories, of their authorities and institutions or of the delimitation of their boundaries. The mention of names of specific companies or products (whether or not indicated as registered) does not imply any intention to infringe proprietary rights, nor should it be construed as an endorsement or recommendation on the part of the IAEA. The authors are responsible for having obtained the necessary permission for the IAEA to reproduce, translate or use material from sources already protected by copyrights. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ALL OF THE MISSING PAGES IN THIS DOCUMENT WERE ORIGINALLY BLANK CONTENTS HIGHLIGHTS 1 Opening session 1 Session I: Past and present situation of nuclear research centres (NRCs) 2 Session II: Challenges faced by NRCs 5 Session III: Interaction of NRCs with their environment 7 Session IV: Collaboration and co-operation between NRCs 10 RECOMMENDATIONS 16 ANNEX I: SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS FOR COLLABORATION AMONG NRCs 18 The nuclear research centre at Bariloche, Argentina 19 J.P. Abriata Nuclear research centres in the 21st century: The Australian experience 31 C. Tuniz The Belgian nuclear research centre 35 F. Moons The experience of CDTN/CNEN, Centra de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear: a medium size nuclear research centre in Brazil 39 P. Sobrinho Nuclear research centres in the 21st century: An AECL perspective 51 P.J. Fehrenbach The Canadian neutron facility for materials research (CNF) 55 I. J. Hastings The China Institute of Atomic Energy 59 Mingwu Fan Nuclear Research Institute Rez: Its past and present and future challenges 65 F. Pazdera The Ris0 National Laboratory, Denmark 73 B. Majborn Nuclear research centres — the Egyptian experiment 79 ID. Abdelrazek Nuclear research centres in the 21st century: The French perspective 85 M. de la Graviere Past and present situation of nuclear research at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe 89 W. Scholtyssek Nuclear research centres — their evolution in the Indian context 93 A. Kakodkar, R.B. Grover Challenges faced by nuclear research centres in Indonesia 99 I.R. Subki, S. Soentono Nuclear research centres in the Islamic Republic of Iran Ill H. Afarideh Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute in the 21st century 117 Y. Sato Korea Atomic Energy Research Institue (KAERI) in the 21st century 125 In Soon Chang, Mun-Ki Lee Interaction of NRCs with their environment — KAERI's experience 131 In Soon Chang Making R&D at MINT relevant to national development 137 Nahrul Khair Alang Md. Rashid Challenges faced by NRCs 145 L.C. Longoria Moroccan experience in nuclear sciences and technology: Present status 151 K. El Mediouri Nuclear research centres in Pakistan: Status and prospects 155 KM. Akhtar, H.A. Khan Nuclear research centre's co-operation and the IAEA's role 165 G. Nefedov Evolution of the Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa 169 K.F. Fouche Thailand's nuclear research centre 179 P. Yamkate Some thoughts from the United Kingdom 185 N.M. Lynn Argonne National Laboratory: An example of a US nuclear research centre 189 S. Bhattacharyya A proposed new mechanism for research and development co-operation 199 T. Dolan Demonstration of high-level waste disposal technologies in an underground research laboratory 203 M.Bell Partitioning and transmutation of radionuclides 205 K. Fukuda, P. Menut International collaboration between nuclear research centres and the role of research reactors 207 B. Dodd International R&D project on high performance LWR 209 J. Cleveland International R&D project on development of coated particle fuel for innovative reactors 211 J.M. Kendall List of Participants 213 HIGHLIGHTS Opening session The Director General of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, opened the meeting. He welcomed the participants. In his address, he mentioned that the role of the IAEA