NOTABLE EVENTS 2023 their subcontractors. ASN regularly finds situations in which these latter are unaware of the applicable requirements, or even that their product is intended for use in the nuclear industry. ASN will shortly be issuing an educational brochure intended for these stakeholders, so that they can gain a clearer understanding of the regulatory requirements applicable to their activities. It also shared the findings of its inspections with the main ordering customers, who it asked to improve their management of the procurement chains. ASN regulation and oversight entered a new phase when in the summer of 2023, EDF submitted its creation authorisation application for two reactors in Penly. ASN is conducting the technical examination of this file on behalf of the Government, with a view to creation authorisation towards the end of 2026. SMALL MODULAR REACTORS Following the call for proposals issued by the Government for innovative reactors, new designers of SMRs of a few tens to a few hundred megawatts emerged, banking on the fact that a significant reduction in power will drastically reduce their complexity and enhance the mass production effect through manufacturing in the factory. The term “SMR” covers a variety of technologies and applications. A number of projects to supply energy directly in the form of heat at temperatures of several hundred degrees thus represent an alternative to fossil fuels for many industrial processes. In terms of technology, even if some reactor projects opt for light water, the same technology as that used in the reactors currently in operation in France, the vast majority of the new players have chosen to develop reactors using different technologies. In 2015, the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) had examined the level of maturity of the various reactor technologies and concluded that usable OEF only existed for Sodium Fast Reactors (SFR) and High-temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs). For each technology, IRSN had also identified the additional scientific and technical knowledge that needed to be acquired before being able to envisage industrial demonstrators. Most of the technologies still require considerable development work. Initial discussions with a project sponsor allow a review to be made of their technological choices, as well as their research and test programme leading to the definition and justification of the safety case for an industrial reactor or a first experimental prototype. Over and above the technical aspects specific to the development of each project, SMRs raise new questions or lead to a fresh look at certain practices. In this respect, ASN participates in several international working groups for discussions with its foreign counterparts aiming to promote the creation of ambitious international baseline requirements. The first subject concerns the definition of safety objectives for these SMRs. The project sponsors for these new reactors are looking to deploy them on a large number of industrial sites which could be located close to urban areas. ASN thus set up a pluralistic working group to consider the safety objectives to be defined before envisaging such siting choices. Given the large number of emerging projects, ASN defined appropriate methods for discussions and work with these new stakeholders, so that on the one hand the mobilisation of its resources and those of IRSN can be tailored to the level of maturity of the projects and, on the other, so that it can adapt to the reactivity of the project sponsors. The exchanges during the first phases are in particular more informative and iterative, in order to provide rapid feedback on questions or problems arising from the envisaged design choices. A few projects should be entering a new phase in 2024, with examination of the first files stipulated by the regulations (ASN opinion on the safety options or creation authorisation application). THE “FUEL CYCLE” FACILITIES The development of a new-technology reactor is not a stand-alone project. It is necessarily part of a whole range of inter-dependent projects for new nuclear facilities, with a front-end for producing its specific nuclear fuel, and a back-end for managing its spent fuel and operating waste and, eventually, its decommissioning. The question is that the existing “fuel cycle” facilities were designed to meet the needs of a nuclear fleet consisting of reactors of the same technology, using relatively similar fuels. These facilities were also commissioned several decades ago and their continued operation for the medium or even long term, beyond 2040, as had previously been envisaged, implies major safety issues which must be examined in the light of the most recent standards. The decision to build new facilities must thus be made rapidly, so that they can be designed and built in controlled conditions of safety and radiation protection. Given the needs involved in the fabrication, and possibly the reprocessing of the fuels needed for the reactors of a new nuclear programme or for SMRs, ASN stresses the fact that these future facilities must have the necessary capacity margins and use technologies that are ambitious enough to achieve them in the best conditions of safety and management of the inventories of radioactive materials and waste. With the same goal, forward planning is also required concerning the necessary storage facilities and means of transport. n 1. Administrative region headed by a Prefect. ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2023 13
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