IAEA Issues Recommendations Regarding Temporary Restart of Dutch Reactor

An IAEA-led international team of nuclear reactor safety experts completed a safety review mission on 18 February at the High Flux Reactor (HFR) at Petten, in the Netherlands. The mission was conducted at the request of the Government of the Netherlands to review a set of previous evaluations made by the Dutch regulatory authority regarding the reactor´s safety

The IAEA mission made a series of recommendations to enhance the safety of the year-long temporary restart. The recommendations included:
Performance of the monitoring system for leaks should be rigorously checked during the interim year of operation;
Temporary operation of the HFR cannot be extended beyond 1 March 2010; and
In case of any detected leakage from the coolant pipes, the reactor should be shut down immediately and repaired before restarting.The international team was composed of one IAEA staff member and five external experts from Argentina, Canada, France, India and South Africa.

The HFR at Petten is one of five research reactors in the world that produces radioactive medical isotopes, used an estimated 40 million times annually for cancer treatment and the diagnosis of heart attacks. Prolonged outages at any of these five reactors have a far-reaching impact on medical treatments and diagnoses for patients around the globe. Since August 2008, the HFR reactor has been in shut-down status due to corrosion of pipes in its primary cooling circuit.The Nuclear Research & Consultancy Group (NRG), the operating organization for Petten, proposed a one-year restart of the HFR reactor, which was approved by the Dutch regulatory body. The reactor then resumed operation on 12 February 2009.One of the main requirements of the regulatory authority was that the reactor must be immediately shut down if any leakage is detected. The IAEA strongly supports this requirement.

The reactor is authorized by the regulatory authority of the Netherlands to remain operational for an interim year until 1 March 2010 to allow for preparation of repairs. Repair of the pipe degradations is expected to last several months and is scheduled to begin in March 2010.

Nuclear´s Great Expectations. The IAEA has revised upwards its nuclear power generation projections to 2030, while at the same time it reported that nuclear´s share of global electricity generation dropped another percentage point in 2007 to 14%

LATEST NEWS RELATED TO PRIS AND THE STATUS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
Current status of the nuclear industry:
436 nuclear power reactors in operation with a total net installed capacity of 370.234 GW(e)
5 nuclear power reactors in long term shutdown
44 nuclear power reactors under construct

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Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

The objective of the Division is to increase the capabilities of interested Member States in policy making, strategic planning, technology development and the implementation of nuclear fuel cycle and waste management programmes that are safe, reliable, economically efficient, proliferation resistant and environmentally sound."

Hans ForsströmDirectorDivision of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

The Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology is responsible for formulating and implementing the Agency's nuclear fuel cycle and waste management related activities. The activities are mainly in two parts: safe, secure, environmentally sound and cost effective nuclear fuel cycle activities associated with nuclear power and research reactors; and waste management strategies and technologies associated with all activities that generate radioactive waste, decommissioning of nuclear facilities and remediation of radioactively contaminated sites.
The Division is organised into two Sections and one Group to implement its activities. These are:
Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Materials Section
Waste Technology Section
Research Reactor Group

Research Reactor Group

Objective:

To increase the capability of interested Member States to safely and reliably continue and improve scientific research and technology development at research reactors, to promote non-proliferation considerations.
Overview:

Research reactors (RRs) will continue to be a key component for the development of peaceful applications of atomic energy and essential for nuclear science related human resources development through education and training.

To meet their goals, RRs must be safely and reliably operated, properly maintained, adequately utilized, refurbished when necessary, provided with adequate proliferation resistant fuel cycle services and safely decommissioned at the end of their life. Around 65% of operating RRs are over 30 years old. Of these, around 45% are over 40 years old.

Therefore, among priority issues in Member States (MS) are refurbishment and modernization, technologies related to ageing management, and planning for new national or regional replacement RRs. There is also a need to develop strategies for effective utilization on a national, regional and international basis for an important number of RRs worldwide that are under-utilized and consequently under-funded as well as for organisations in need of RR goods and services located within MS with no reactor facilities.

Many of today's research reactors will exceed their original design life within the next 10 to 15 years and thus the number in operation is expected to decrease within that time period. It is deemed desirable to replace the present ageing and often underutilized fleet of RRs with new multi-purpose reactors that are fewer in number, more capable, use low enriched uranium fuel, and are built and/or operated by international arrangements. As a consequence, the IAEA provides assistance in strategic planning and institutional arrangements for possible national and regional RRs, regional and international research reactor coalitions, networks and shared-user facilities and in the management of spent fuel prior to decommissioning.

The Agency will continue carrying out activities in support of initiatives seeking to reduce global nuclear threats, especially in connection with civilian use of highly enriched uranium (HEU). In particular IAEA continues its longstanding support of the RERTR programme which works on the conversion of RRs from HEU to low enriched uranium and the programmes to return fresh and spent HEU fuel to the country of origin.

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