ASN Report 2018

United States On 23 and 25 January 2018 , the NRC took part in a technical seminar on decommissioning held in Lyon. Following this event, visits to the Bugey A, Iceda and Orano Tricastin sites were organised. On 6 June 2018 , discussions with the NRC in the ASN premises in Montrouge covered the latest regulatory changes in the fields of nuclear safety and radiation protection, information of and participation by the public, the reasons that led ASN to ask for the temporary shutdown of the Tricastin NPP in autumn 2017, as well as the respective approaches deployed in the area of nuclear safety (which for ASN is limited to the security of radioactive sources, while for the NRC it extends to the protection of nuclear installations against malicious acts). The discussions confirmed the benefits of sharing experience and best practices on many technical subjects: inspection practices, emergency situations management, nuclear safety, ageing and resistance of materials and equipment over time and so on. An action plan for 2018-2019, drawn up jointly by the two safety regulators, will ensure monitoring of the performance of cooperative work regarding these subjects (notably through joint inspections and visits to fuel cycle facilities in France and the United States and on the topic of the environment). The situation of personnel secondments between the two Authorities was also reviewed. At the 62nd IAEA General Conference, in September 2018 , the NRC and ASN also signed and thereby ratified the renewal of the bilateral cooperation agreement between the two Authorities. Finally, in 2018 , an American delegation came to ASN for discussions on emergency situations and took the opportunity to visit the ASN Emergency Centre. Finland From 17 to 19 September 2018 , a technical meeting was held in Helsinki between ASN and STÜK, followed by a visit to the EPR construction site of Olkiluoto. This annual meeting was a chance to discuss the progress of the EPR projects in the two countries. The discussions mainly concerned feedback from the start-up tests and other topical technical subjects on the construction sites. Japan From 26 February to 2 March 2018 , inspectors from the Lyon regional division went to Japan as part of a programme of exchanges with the NRA on changes to the oversight of nuclear safety in France and Japan. The inspectors were able to visit the Tokaimura site as well as the Fukushima Daiichi site, to observe how the NRA is overseeing the remediation work. On 3 and 4 September 2018 , a bilateral meeting in Tokyo enabled the Chairmen and technical experts from the two authorities to discuss topical regulatory subjects in both countries and control of the ageing of facilities in the fast neutron reactors and gas-cooled reactors. A visit to the damaged Fukushima Daiichi NPP took place the next day. ASN also received a large number of Japanese delegations in Paris and in the regions, under technical or university exchanges. Luxembourg The Franco-Luxembourg joint commission on nuclear safety held its sixteenth meeting on 1 February 2018 in Paris. The Commission consists of the national and Prefect level competent authorities and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs. It discussed recent developments in the two countries on the subject of nuclear safety and radiation protection, including the 2018 results from the Cattenom NPP, experience feedback from ASN participation in emergency exercises in Japan and Taiwan In 2018, at the invitation of its counterparts, ASN took part in two national emergency exercises as an observer: ཛྷ ཛྷ in Japan, in August, concerning the Ohi and Takahama NPPs (north-west of Kyoto); ཛྷ ཛྷ in Taiwan, in September, concerning the Chin Shan NPP. The two exercises mobilised considerable human and technical resources in the field. The population also played an active role and participated in the evacuation exercises (public spaces, beach, heli-hoisting, etc.) and in the decontamination workshops. Even though, in both cases, the exercise appeared to be more a demonstration of complete management of an accident than an assessment of the ability to actually respond to a nuclear emergency, certain aspects of interest to the French emergency management stakeholders were identified. For example: ཛྷ ཛྷ in Japan, the visit to a retirement home showed that it was equipped with filtration and tightness systems which meant that the residents who could not be evacuated could take shelter in the premises in the event of an accident with radioactive releases; ཛྷ ཛྷ in Taiwan, each person inside the zone concerned by the accident is alerted by a message sent to their smartphone. Furthermore, in the event of evacuation of a school, the procedure makes allowance for parents to be able collect their children. Visit to the Fukushima NPP. Bilateral ASN-NRA meeting of 3 to 5 September 2018 – Fukushima (Japan) 196  ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018 06 – INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS