POWER September 2016 - 52

NUCLEAR
9. Laggard. The long-delayed Flamanville
3 EPR plant, using Areva's Generation III+ design,
is finally nearing completion. This photo
of the construction site was taken June 28,
2016. Courtesy: EDF/ Morin Alexis
10. Future focused. William D. Magwood
IV, director general of the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development's
Nuclear Energy Agency, urged World
Nuclear Exhibition attendees to invest in the
future. Otherwise, he said, " we won't have a
very good future. " Source: POWER/Gail Reitenbach
Dassault's
Charlès commented on the
problem of communication between teams
because of a lack of understanding. There's
a huge opportunity, he said, to transform the
French nuclear industry's " capacity to trust
each other " and " exactly understand what is
happening. " He gave an example from the
aerospace industry, where greater collaboration
has resulted in more successful projects.
Even when deploying new digital tools,
the communication component must be present.
You can't just believe that IT will solve
the problem, Charlès said. " It has to be driven
from the executive team. "
and intermediate-level waste that is currently
operating (Figure 8), it faces a " challenging
situation, " said a representative of its National
Radioactive Waste Management Agency
(KORAD). By 2019, Wolsong Unit 1-the
country's second-oldest reactor, which received
a seven-year operating license extension
last year-will reach onsite SNF storage
saturation.
Overarching Solutions
In addition to the necessity of efficiency
improvements at all stages of the lifecycle,
as well as policy and market changes, three
other main solutions to current industry challenges
emerged over the three-day event.
Standardization of Codes and Standards.
As critical as the rules of the road are
to nuclear projects, globalization requires a
level of consistency among those rules. More
than a couple of speakers called for greater
standardization of nuclear codes and standards
globally as being necessary to ensure
safety, communication, and efficiency. As
Magwood said, if we're going to see more
nuclear plants built, " we're going to have
to become much better at building nuclear
power plants, " and one way to improve is to
" harmonize codes and standards. "
Technology to the Rescue? Using new
technology-especially big data, analytics,
and a variety of digital tools, including virtual
reality-was a new theme at WNE this
year. Dominique Louis, founding chairman
of Assystem, said the industry is looking
for digital technology to help manage costs,
assist with design and engineering, and improve
efficiency.
Interestingly, different countries are starting
their digital journeys in different places.
Dassault's Charlès said that Japan started
with digitization in manufacturing engineering;
in the U.S. it began with design; in
France and Russia it started with construction.
You can start at different places, he
said-it depends on the culture of the company.
At Flamanville 3 (Figure 9), for example,
52
which is in its final construction phases, they
are digitizing 40,000 pages of commissioning
test documents.
Ivan Borisov, vice-president business development
for ASE Group in Russia, commented
on his group's work with Dassault and
on how, by creating a digital model of a future
nuclear station, they can anticipate problems,
in the digital world, before they build.
Charlès also commented that digitization
isn't an end in itself. It's about being more
competitive and reliable. For the first time, he
said, you can replicate an airplane or power
plant with digital data, and the digital replication
or " twin " is a better model than what a
human can produce.
Magwood made a pitch for exploring technology
that can " treat, recycle, and reduce
toxicity of nuclear waste, " such as advanced
fast reactors and fuel reprocessing.
Better Management and Communication.
A subtle theme, at times an actual
admission of previous failures, was the need
for better communication among project
partners to ensure positive cost and timeline
results for new builds. A related suggestion,
made by Betri CEO Jérôme Teissier, was that
clients should delegate control for components
to vendors, because, he said, " delegation
brings real responsibility. "
On the other hand, as Magwood noted in
a different session (while Westinghouse's
Mark Marano, president, EMEA & Americas
Regions, nodded), owners have to be involved
along the way to ensure that they are
getting value for their projects. When Marano
spoke, he acknowledged that " our supply
chain was not ready " in the U.S., presumably
referring to delays with the V.C. Summer and
Plant Vogtle projects.
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Innovation Required
If there was one thing every speaker would
have agreed upon, it is the nuclear industry's
need to innovate, quickly, on multiple
fronts-from education, management, and
policy to technology, finance, and safety.
Speed is imperative both for climate change
reasons and because innovations and cost
reductions in other clean energy options are
moving faster than the nuclear industry is
used to moving. Some of the initiatives mentioned
at WNE may be moves in the right
direction, but whether they prove sufficient
remains to be seen.
Magwood (Figure 10) commented in the
panel on innovation that we benefit today
from investments made by previous generations
in things like aerospace and power, but
we're " fixated on today's comforts and not focused
on the future in 50 years. " That's a " failure
of vision, " he said. " If we don't invest in
the future, we won't have a very good future. "
As if to prove Magwood's point about
near-sightedness, John E. Kelly, deputy assistant
secretary for nuclear reactor technologies
at the U.S. Department of Energy, spoke
next about how deployment of a closed fuel
cycle worldwide won't happen unless there's
an economic reason to take that path. Kelly
noted that there's more drive to recycle spent
fuel when there isn't domestic uranium available.
If prices increase, he said, then recycling
will be more attractive.
A major motivation for pursuing innovation
is to make money. A question from the
audience regarding Australia's proposed plan
to develop a repository for global nuclear
waste prompted attorney Paul Murphy to
comment that if project planners sell the government
on the idea, " they're going to make
a lot of money. " Furthermore, it makes sense,
he said, that not every country would have " a
big hole in the ground. " He continued, " We
need to get out of our own way and make
these things happen " so there's a solution to
long-term waste management from decommissioned
plants. ■
-Gail Reitenbach, PhD is POWER's editor.
POWER | September 2016
http://www.powermag.com
POWER September 2016

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