POWER September 2016 - 80

COMMENTARY
Lloyd's Register on Current
Nuclear Power Challenges
P
OWER Editor Gail Reitenbach interviewed King Lee of
Lloyd's Register on June 29 at the World Nuclear Exhibition
in Le Bourget, France. The firm is a " non-profit distributing
charity with a public benefit mandate, " which means
that it is independent from shareholders, and profits are distributed
to a variety of educational and other charities. Its nuclear
group has provided independent, expert technical advice on
safety and risk management for more than 60 years, beginning
with the UK's Calder Hall reactors in the 1950s. The UK vote
to exit the European Union (EU), known as " Brexit, " had taken
place the previous week. Questions and answers have been edited
for length and style.
GR: What effect do you think Brexit, if it actually goes
through, will have on UK nuclear plans and the European
power sector generally?
KL: I think it's too early to say whether Brexit will happen,
and if it does happen, what form it will take, because the details
will have to be worked out between the UK and EU countries. My
personal thought at this stage is that it's unlikely to have any
real or significant impact on the UK nuclear industry and the UK
civil nuclear power program.
Electricité de France (EDF) has been talking about making a
decision soon on financing the Hinkley Point C project. Are
you hearing anything about which way they're leaning?
The view is that EDF's board is supportive of the Hinkley C
project in the UK, so the expectation is that the French government
[which owns 85% of the company] will make its final decision
[soon] by resolving any issues internally. [GR: On July 28,
the EDF board approved the financing decision.]
The timeline and costs for new nuclear are clearly a huge
hurdle for just about everybody, unless they're state-supported,
so what does Lloyd's Register see as the best options for
ensuring project goals?
I'm not the best person to address the financing aspect but
obviously, for any major project to succeed, with huge initial
capital cost-and cost of capital-impediments, it's essential
that it's delivered to time, quality, and safety. We believe that
Lloyd's Register can play a large part in that because what we
do is to ensure quality and equipment and organization conform
to regulatory requirements and meet codes and standards
as specified. The implication of not meeting those would be
project delay and associated loss of investor confidence, and
costs. When procuring equipment, developers need to ensure
that the organizations in their supply chain are competent
and that their products and services are delivered to the right
quality, on time, and to budget. If any materials are not to
80
specified quality, that will cause delays and increase costs.
Given that there are some new nuclear entrants that want to
export their technology-I'm thinking in particular of South
Korea and China-what sort of due diligence is possible for
potential customers of newer players?
The nuclear industry has recently come to a new globalization.
Historically, perhaps 20 or 30 years ago, most of the nuclear
civil programs were national programs. Only a few countries-
the U.S. or France or Russia-were exporting. But now there
are increasing players exporting overseas. But also, the suppliers
are exporting overseas. So now we're seeing increasingly internationalization
and globalization of the nuclear sector, so it's
important that there is absolute confidence in this international
supply chain.
As Fukushima (and other nuclear accidents) showed, if there's
an accident or mishaps, it affects the whole nuclear industry,
and that affects public confidence. So it's critical that the quality
and safety of the supply chain is maintained. One thing is
to make sure to decide on what standard you aim to achieve.
From a nuclear safety point of view, the benchmark would be
in accordance with International Atomic Energy Agency safety
requirements, and then throughout your program, ensuring that
due diligence is being done by a competent body.
I know you're also involved with decomissioning projects.
Are there any unanticipated issues that you're seeing?
A number of countries have made policy decisions to shut
down certain reactors. In terms of decommissioning, I don't see
it as a huge technical issue as long as sufficient financial provisions
have been made by the country to carry out that task.
A more important issue to deal with is waste management.
It's not taking apart the nuclear reactor but what you decide
to do with the waste. Some of the waste will be nonradioactive
and can be disposed in a normal way, but some of the
waste will be radioactive-in different levels-and has to be
contained safely in its own containers. Then you have to store
that, in an interim way, and then decide where to store it for
the long term.
The UK has some of the oldest reactors and is dealing with
this issue. What is your country doing with its radioactive
materials from dismantling?
The real problem for most countries is a long-term repository
for high-level waste. The UK are investigating sites, though no
site has been chosen yet, and are determining the generic design
of such a site. ■
-King Lee (king.lee@lr.org) is head of nuclear at Lloyd's Register.
www.powermag.com
POWER | September 2016
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POWER September 2016

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