Kevin Allars, Director of New Build GDA at the HSE, and Joe McHugh, Head of Radioactive Substances Regulation at the Environment Agency, published the third Quarterly Report for 2009 (July-September) today. This provides an update on our work to assess new nuclear power station designs.
In summary, we have continued to make good progress on technical issues and assessment resources. We have continued to work closely with the Requesting Parties, potential operators, overseas regulators and other stakeholders.
Looking forward, the next major milestones are the delivery of the HSE Step 3 reports on 27 November and the start of the Environment Agency’s consultation, on that part of the assessment, around May/June 2010. We remain on course to complete a meaningful GDA in June 2011.
Kevin Allars, Director of New Build GDA at the HSE, and Joe McHugh, Head of Radioactive Substances Regulation at the Environment Agency, published the second Quarterly Report (April -June 2009) today. This provides an update on our work to assess new nuclear power station designs.
In summary, we have continued to make good progress on technical issues and assessment resources. We have continued to work closely with the Requesting Parties, potential operators, overseas regulators and other stakeholders, as well as issuing guidance and discussion documents, and improving public access to information and ourselves.
The HSE is on track to publish its Step 3 reports on 27 November 2009, and the Environment Agency will issue its consultation in May 2010. Together, we remain on track to complete GDA in June 2011.
A new satellite office in Cheltenham opened on 13 July 2009. London and Cheltenham have been chosen as regional ND offices because of their strategic locations for recruitment. They are in addition to HSE’s main office in Bootle.
The plans to create a new nuclear statutory corporation have reached a key milestone with the launch of the official public consultation on the proposals on 30 June. The consultation is being led by Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and DWP and will last for 12 weeks. You can find out more about the proposals and how to respond to the consultation via the DECC website.
Following on from a seminar for potential operators, held on 26 February 2008, the HSE and the Environmental Agency held a second joint seminar at Aintree, Liverpool on 13 May 2009.
The aim of the seminar was to update potential nuclear power station operators on the joint HSE/Environment Agency Generic Design Assessment process, help them to understand the process for applying for site licences and environmental permits and, in particular, to understand the responsibilities of nuclear power station operators in the UK.
The Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency have produced a discussion document on the management process for the end of the GDA assessment - including Design Freeze, Design Completion, GDA Design Acceptance Confirmation, Exclusions, Conditions, and Change Control.
Members of the public are invited to comment on this document, comments will be accepted until 30 May 2009. Comments can be sent to the Joint Programme Office by emailing new.reactor.build@hse.gsi.gov.uk or by post to:
Joint Programme OfficeKevin Allars, the Director of New Nuclear Build Generic Design Assessment (GDA), published three reports on the HSE’s work to assess the new nuclear power stations designs that could be developed in the UK over the coming years. These are:
The HSE also published its responses to the PRB and AMTEC Reports.
Kevin Allars said:
“We remain on track to complete the GDA assessment by June 2011. Although significant challenges still exist, particularly in recruiting the specialist staff we need, I am confident we can address them.
“We are now making real progress on the recruitment/redeployment of staff and applying best practice project management principles, which will allow us to develop a stronger and more focussed project management capability within the team.
“In an effort to ensure that we are as transparent as possible, in November this year, I intend to publish assessment reports to mark the end of Step 3 and then the Step 4 Reports in June 2011.
“Although GDA remains a significant challenge, I am confident that the HSE and industry teams can ensure a successful outcome.”
The Government published a list of sites that have been accepted into the Strategic Siting Assessment process and that could be potential hosts to a new nuclear power station in the UK. Details of the announcement can be found at: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/news/.
For more information on the Strategic Siting Assessment (SSA) process, visit: http://www.nuclearpowersiting.decc.gov.uk
The Nuclear Directorate is looking to recruit Nuclear Inspectors in a range of disciplines. Could you use your proven track record as a high quality professional to secure and improve nuclear safety through your expertise, experience and personal qualities? If so then visit the following website for more information about a fascinating, challenging and highly rewarding career as a nuclear inspector.
The HSE today published its strategy for working with, and using information from, overseas regulators during the assessment of new nuclear power station designs.
As part of its drive to increase the pace of GDA, NII has started to place work packages with contractors to help it carry out its detailed technical assessment of new nuclear power station designs. So far, it has placed 8 work packages with a total value of around £1m. NII expects to place more work packages over the coming weeks and months.
HSE established the framework agreement, including 31 Technical Support Contractors, across a range of 15 technical areas using the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) process. OJEU is the publication in which all contracts from the public sector valued above a certain financial threshold must be published.
The framework allows NII to bring in technical support in specific areas to support their assessment work.
The Environment Agency recently published new guidance on the disposal of radioactive waste to near surface facilities, in partnership with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).
The Environment Agency has also published new guidance on geological disposal facilities in partnership with the NIEA.
The Environment Agency has recently published the second report describing the environmental performance of the nuclear sector in England and Wales in 2007. The report measures performance against the objectives and performance indicators set out in the nuclear sector plan.
Overall, the report concluded that the environmental performance of the sector was good during 2007, with improvements against previous performance in a number of areas.
The Nuclear Development Forum, chaired by Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, held its second meeting. At the event, the Government published:
The Government announced its new policy on low-level radioactive waste (LLW) management in March 2007. The policy now allows the nuclear industry to dispose of this type of waste to landfill.
Landfill companies and nuclear operators can now apply to the Environment Agency for authorisations to dispose of low-level radioactive waste. Before we issue a permit, the landfill operator must prove that disposal can be carried out safely.
The Environment Agency has published guidance on how it will regulate the disposal of low-level radioactive waste to landfill sites.
The Environment Agency has recently published the results of radiological monitoring conducted by the environment agencies (The Environment Agency for England and Wales), the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency) and Food Standards Agency during 2007.
The RIFE Report (Radioactivity in Food and the Environment) will help you to understand the impact of radioactivity. It provides an in-depth assessment of radioactivity levels and the public’s exposure to it, including around the UK's 39 nuclear sites.
The report shows that:
The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has recently launched a Government consultation on a process for determining the strategic suitability of sites that may be proposed for the construction of new nuclear power stations.
One important factor affecting whether a potential site is suitable for a new power station is the density and distribution of the nearby population, and BERR has been developing proposals for this ‘demographic criterion’. Recently, BERR sought the views of HSE’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) on the suitability of the existing Government reactor siting policy which had been set out in a statement to Parliament in 1988. In providing its views to BERR, NII was able to draw on the results of a recent review which it had undertaken into its regulatory approach both to the siting of any new nuclear facility and to providing advice to local planning authorities regarding developments in the vicinity of existing nuclear licensed sites. NII advised BERR that in the light of world-wide experience in nuclear reactor operation, and allowing credit to be taken for robust safety features which are available in modern nuclear plant design:
In practice, however, the acceptability of any new build proposal would not be decided until NII has been able to consider the detailed design proposal and to assess the site-specific safety case.
NII has recently reviewed its regulatory approach both to the siting of any new nuclear facility and to providing advice to local planning authorities regarding developments in the vicinity of existing nuclear licensed sites. This has led us to adopt a goal-setting approach based upon the demonstration of achieving the risk targets specified within the HSE Safety Assessment Principles (SAPs). For new installations, including new reactors, this approach would be applied by NII once details of the proposed installation and its safety case had been submitted as part of a nuclear site licence application. Technical details of NII’s revised approach were given in a presentation by NII to the July 2008 meeting of HSE’s independent Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (NuSAC). Because of the technical nature of the papers presented to NuSAC, NII intends shortly to describe its revised approach in a set of more accessible documents suitable for both the general public and for more specialist audiences.
Broadly, NII’s review recommends a two step process:
Step 1: Generic Screening: A design independent screening process to determine whether a site is automatically excluded (because the near site population density is too high), or included as a potentially suitable site. Where appropriate, this will take account of any relevant SSA assessment that the Government may have already undertaken for that site.
Step 2: Site and Design Specific For sites where Step 1 has identified them as potentially suitable, the viability of the site will be determined on the basis of the risk presented to persons off the site compared with the risk targets that NII applies in its SAPs. This assessment will be undertaken by NII specialists, taking fully into account the degree to which the application has demonstrated that the risk is both compliant with the risk targets in the SAPs and is as low as reasonably practicable.
In practice, if a design is shown to present a risk which is well below the NII’s risk target, then demographic restrictions are unlikely to be a factor in its siting - providing the population density is no higher than the recommended exclusionary limit (the "semi-urban" siting criterion).
The technical papers describing NII’s siting review and the NII presentation to the July 2008 NuSAC meeting are available on the NuSAC webpage:
