ATENA held its sixth "ATENA Forum 2024" on February 15, 2024. The event was organized as a hybrid event that combines onsite attendance and online distribution using ZOOM Webinar.
About 500 people attended the event at the venue or online, including participants from ATENA member organizations such as nuclear operators, manufacturers and nuclear industry organizations, Government offices such as the Nuclear Regulation Authority and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, local governments, media, and the general public.
Date and time： 4:00 pm to 5:45 pm JST, Thursday, February 15, 2024
Form of Event： Hybrid event that combines onsite attendance and online distribution using ZOOM Webinar
Program
- 1．Opening Remarks
- 2．Greeting message
- 3．Keynote Speech
- 4．Panel Discussion
- 5．Closing remarks
- Program and Presentation Materials for ATENA Forum 2024:Click here
1．Opening Remarks（Hiroto Uozumi, President & CEO, ATENA）
Mr. Uozumi made opening remarks for "ATENA Forum 2024."
(5 min 53 sec)
2．Greeting message（Commissioner Tomoyuki Sugiyama, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, Japan）
Commissioner Sugiyama commented that: "the operator side and the regulatory side should make efforts to ensure safety independently of each other, and it is necessary to maintain the necessary tension and build a cooperative relationship based on the positions of both sides. In particular, cooperation needs to be promoted while ensuring transparency and accountability from each side." He also said that he expected ATENA to "act as a counterpart to the Nuclear Regulation Authority and unite the power companies" and that "we have confirmed a certain level of effectiveness of the ATENA-led initiatives to regulatory issues through the discussions on the software common cause failure of the digital safety protection system."
（9 min 16 sec）
3．Keynote speech（Jennifer Uhle, Vice President of NEI）
Dr. Uhle gave a keynote speech titled "Risk-informed Regulation: The Strong but Flexible Fabric of Safety."
She pointed out the followings:
・In addition to the foundation of a deterministic approach, we can get another evaluation of safety through PRA. These two approaches produce a strong fabric of safety.
・The difficulty with using PRA is that, first of all, a lot of data is needed and information needs to be shared among operators and also with the regulators. The regulators also need to provide its viewpoint back to the industry.
（12 min 5 sec）
4．Panel discussion
- Theme：
- Utilizing risk information in various efforts to improve nuclear safety in Japan
- Moderator：
- Akira Yamaguchi,
Director, Nuclear Safety Research Association - Panelists：
- George Apostolakis,
Director, Nuclear Risk Research Center
Ichiro Ihara,
Director, Senior Managing Executive Officer, Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc.
Yoichiro Kurokawa
Director, Nuclear Regulation Policy Planning Division, The Nuclear Regulation Authority, Japan
Jennifer Uhle
Vice President of Technical & Regulatory Services, Nuclear Energy Institute
Taku Sato
Director, ATENA
Dr. Yamaguchi facilitated a panel discussion session on the following three discussion points.
(1) Progress in the use of risk information in the U.S. and factors behind its success.
(2) What is the current status of risk information utilization in Japan, both by the regulators and the industry, and what needs to be done to close the gap between the current status and the desired state?
(3)What kind of risk factors need to be considered from a broader perspective?
（1 hour 8 minutes 30 seconds）
The panelists provided various suggestions and advice, including expectations from ATENA and the regulators, as follows
"Research on the use of risk information is being conducted by the Nuclear Risk Research Centre (NRRC) of the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), which is indicating a right direction to the industry. We ourselves, as members of ATENA, must become a group with the desire to identify issues proactively and improve safety voluntarily."（Mr. Ihara）
"The issue of credibility is of paramount importance. Peer review conducted by experts is only way to assure the credibility of the PRA model. It would be good if the NRA would formally issue performance metrics for Core Damage Frequency and Containment Failure Frequency."（Dr. Apostolakis）
"Use of risk insights is not detracting from the use of deterministic requirements. We are adding another lens to look at the plant and assess the safety significance. We can learn more information and get additional value. The industry in Japan in collaboration with the NRA can carry out some kind of study to show the value of using risk insights."（Dr. Uhle）
"There has not yet been sufficient discussions within the NRA on where risk information should be used in the regulatory process. We also have concerns whether current PRA models and data are credible enough. The state of skepticism between operators and the regulators is a problem and it is very important to create a relationship where they can frankly argue with each other. I think this will solve the problem."（Mr. Kurokawa）
"I am unhappy to be told that there is no trust between the regulators and operators. We cannot escape from the power station in the event of an accident, and we sincerely believe that we must not cause an accident in the area where we live and where we get great support from the local residents. I believe that understanding these thoughts is the foundation of trust. The industry has been making use of risk information to date, but we believe that there have been shortcomings in terms of the relationship with the regulators, and we recognize the need of enhanced communication."（Mr. Sato）
As a closing, Dr. Yamaguchi looked back on the discussions and expressed his concluding remarks, "I think we have found the direction of building trust between the regulators, operators and ATENA, and also the direction of utilizing risk information. Instead of only asking why utilization of risk information is not progressing well, I hope that a track record of using risk information will build up hereafter."
5．Closing remarks（Yoshihiro Tomioka, Director, ATENA）
Mr. Tomioka delivered closing remarks for "ATENA Forum 2024."
（3 minutes 44 seconds）
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