The internationally accepted nuclear regulation policy is for each country to
undertake first principle analysis and approvals for the technical design and
operating rules, benchmarking against nationally determined regulations and
standards that are aligned to the IAEA standards. This is largely due to the
acceptance that the liability of any risk emanating from the operation of a nuclear
power plant is the strict liability of the licensed operating company locally. This
approach results in a very large national technical regulator with expensive foreign
support along with a very large in-house engineering team in the licensee. While this
is economically credible in a technically advanced country with an existing nuclear
fleet (such as Canada) it is an extreme overhead on a African country considering the
deployment of a limited number of SMRs. The paper discusses how it may be
possible to create a pan-African regulation option for SMRs, possibly based on the
African Union.https://cse.cigre.orgam2024Mechanical and Aeronautical EngineeringNon

Connell, S.H.

Maqabuka, B.G.

Naidoo, P.

Nicholls, D.

Slabber, Johan F.M.

UPSpace at the University of Pretoria

©2024 - CIGRE CSE N°31 December 2023 1Issues Relating to Licensing and Liabilityfor Small Modular Reactors in AfricaAUTHORSD. NICHOLLS, B.G. MAQABUKA, S.H. CONNELL, P. NAIDOO -  Department ofMechanical Engineering, University of Johannesburg,  SAIEE Nuclear Chapter, SouthAfrica J. SLABBER -  Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pretoria University,  SAIEENuclear Chapter, South AfricaThe internationally accepted nuclear regulation policy is for each country toundertake  rst principle analysis and approvals for the technical design andoperating rules, benchmarking against nationally determined regulations andstandards that are aligned to the IAEA standards. This is largely due to theacceptance that the liability of any risk emanating from the operation of a nuclearpower plant is the strict liability of the licensed operating company locally. Thisapproach results in a very large national technical regulator with expensive foreignsupport along with a very large in-house engineering team in the licensee. While thisis economically credible in a technically advanced country with an existing nuclear eet (such as Canada) it is an extreme overhead on a African country considering thedeployment of a limited number of SMRs. The paper discusses how it may bepossible to create a pan-African regulation option for SMRs, possibly based on theAfrican Union.One of the key issues for the operation of nuclear power plants is that of liability fordamage caused by nuclear accidents. In other industries (e.g. aviation industry,chemical industry etc.) the normal practice is that, within the national regulations,the liability for any damage to the public is a function of which organisation was atCSE 031SummaryNuclear, SMR, Regulation, Utility, Safety, EconomicsKEYWORDS1. Introduction©2024 - CIGRE CSE N°31 December 2023 2fault. For example if an airliner crashes, the liability could be with whichever aspectcaused the crash, be it the aircraft designer, the airline itself, the enginemanufacturer and so on. Due to the creation of the commercial nuclear industryunder the shadow of the nuclear weapons programs and with the fear of the impact ofnuclear radiation, the civil nuclear industry has a virtually unique system where theoperator of the nuclear plant (the holder of the operating license) has strict liabilityfor any nuclear damage caused  by the plant. There is no defence by the operatoragainst the claims from those affected and there is no option for affected party to sueanyone other than the operator. While this may seem to be an elegant and straightforward method of resolving a highly controversial issue it puts a very signi cantresponsibility on the nuclear operator and the related national regulatory body.This approach is speci ed in international conventions such as Vienna Convention“no person other than the operator shall be liable for nuclear damage”[1]. This isaligned to most national regulations such as the South African “a holder of a nuclearinstallation licence is, whether or not there is intent or negligence on the part of theholder, liable for all nuclear damage caused by or resulting from the relevant nuclearinstallation”[2]. Another example is the Swiss Federal Of ce of Energy “Under theFederal Nuclear Energy Liability Act, operators of nuclear installations bearunlimited liability for nuclear damage arising from the operation of theirinstallations”[3].This is not just a  nancial insurance requirement but requires an engineeringcompetence that license holders “should maintain an ‘Intelligent Customer’capability for all work carried out on their behalf by suppliers that may impact uponnuclear security.”[4] This implies a full design understanding of the installation andthe knowledge of speci cations for all components and systems. This requirementexplicit states that the related resources must be in-house expertise and cannot becontracted out.In a similar industry that is perceived as a high risk, the airline industry, it is widelyaccepted that the designer and constructor of the aircraft is liable for thefundamental safety of the aircraft, given that the operator obeys the operating,inspection and maintenance rules and programs laid down by the designer and anymodi cations considered essential by the designer are implemented. In terms of thecerti cation of the design, it is accepted that the aviation authorities in the country oforigin are seen to be competent to assess the design. This was tested in the issuesrelating to the Boeing 737 Max problems in the previous years. Under thesecircumstances it is accepted that the “Design Authority” for the aircraft is theoriginal designer throughout the service life of the aircraft. With this relationship it isreasonably possible for a small African airline to purchase an airliner without the fullset of liability obligations. The airline will have to train the aircrew in line with thedesigner regulations and will have to have the aircraft maintained by an organisationcerti ed as competent by the designer. Similarly the airline regulator will be limitedto con rming that the local airline is following the design requirements.This is not the case with a nuclear power station. As all the liability rests on theoperator both they and the national nuclear regulator are required to have a fullunderstanding of the design of the power plant, along with the operation, inspectionand maintenance requirements. This results in the operator of the plant being the“Design Authority” of the plant, with all the overheads that this requires. It is notable2. Discussion©2024 - CIGRE CSE N°31 December 2023 3that due to national requirements, unlike the aviation industry, virtually everycountry has variations of the original design with different safety justi cations. Thisalso largely applies to the regulator. If one considers the situation of South Africa,with one nuclear power station, Koeberg, of some 2000MW then the operator, Eskom,has an engineering and licensing team of over 200 skilled people and the regulator,the National Nuclear  Regulator, has a staff (2022 annual report) of 173, largelycommitted to the regulation of the Koeberg power station.Such a nuclear regulator has taken about  fty years to produce. South Africa was the rst African country with a Nuclear Regulator. It was routed in the legislatedestablishment of the Atomic Energy Board (1948), which became the Atomic EnergyCorporation (AEC) just before South Africa became a member state of the IAEA in1957. In 1982, again be legislation, the AEC became responsible for all nuclearmatters in 1982, with the Council for Nuclear Safety (CNS) being established as anindependent consultative body. The CNS became the fully independent regulatorybody in 1988. In yet another new Act in 1999, the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR)superseded the original CNS, fully by 2000. This process was accompanied by a deepprocess of human capacity building, essentially over more than two generations.Egypt is now in the construction phase of four nuclear power reactors at El-Dabaa. Itwill be the second country in Africa with Nuclear Energy (not counting small researchreactors) . Egypt had a similar deep and long process to develop its regulator. Firstwas the formation of its Atomic Energy Commission in 1955, evolving to the EgyptianAtomic Energy Authority (EAEA) in 1956. The Nuclear Regulatory and SafetyCommittee (NRSC) was established in 1982. The NRSC formed the National Center ofNuclear Safety and Radiation Control (NCNSRC) within the EAEA. Finally the EgyptianNuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA) was established as anindependent nuclear regulatory body in 2010. The long lead time to the development of the National Regulator re ects thecomplexity of nuclear reactors, which involve many sub-disciplines in science andengineering, each at an extreme level of competence.This level of engineering support required for a nuclear power plant is notspeci cally related to the size of the nuclear  eet, but primarily the diversity withinsuch a  eet. In relation to a single nuclear plant it can be seen that under the currentinternational approach to nuclear liability and related licensing a base overhead ofsome 300 skilled personnel can be expected in a country. With a power plant size ofsome 2000 MW this, while expensive, can be justi ed as part of the overalladvantages of such a plant.A large reactor or set of reactors, (Koeberg about 2GW and El-Dabaa about 5 GW) isnot appropriate at this stage for most countries in Africa, due to matching the size ofa single source with the grid capacity. Smaller reactors, such as the Small ModularReactors (SMRs) of around 50MW – 300MW would be better matched. However, in thecase of a small SMR project the current regulatory model would be a signi cantbarrier to entry.Estimates of staf ng for a 924MWe 12 unit NuScale plant is 270 [5] and the staf ngfor the 210MWe HTR-PM operating in Shandong, China is quoted at 175. In theAfrican context there are many national grids where unit sizes of about 100MWwould be appropriate and therefore the “strict liability” requirement would imply amore than doubling of the resources to operate the early units. It can be seen thatthis would be a signi cant barrier to entry for SMRs in the African market.©2024 - CIGRE CSE N°31 December 2023 4The African continent has adequate resources to support the deployment of SMRsinto the small grids that would bene t from them to allow industrialisation whilemoving towards a Net Zero Carbon status by 2050. The issue of achieving this isconstrained by the infrastructure overheads that are induced by the currentinternational licensing regime. It is proposed that there has to be a number of changes to the way that nuclearpower is managed to resolve this:1. The African Union, in conjunction with the SMR vendor, undertakes theequivalent of the US Design Certi cation (DC) of SMR designs.2. This Certi cation is supported by the existing nuclear regulators in the AU, suchas the South African National Nuclear Regulator.3. It is accepted that the SMR design(s) that obtain a DC are completelystandardised.4. The SMR vendor accepts liability for nuclear damage caused by errors in thedesign of the SMR.5. The national regulator in the country of construction accepts the DC as beingappropriate and undertakes the QA/QC that the design is constructed andinstalled as per the reference design.6. The operator(s) of the speci c SMRs installed across the continent under thisscheme have a joint liability for nuclear damage on all the related SMRs. Theremay, in fact, be a trans-national operating company.SMRs offer a potential solution to Africa’s chronic electricity shortage in a low carbonworld however there are direct technical and economic issues. The currentinfrastructural and legal construct makes the “roll out” of SMRs in diverse Africancountries very challenging. For these to be resolved there needs to be a differentapproach to SMRs in the region to that historically used in the developed countries. For SMRs to effectively assist Africa to meet its needs for industrialisation within aNet Zero Carbon world there needs to be a continent-wide agreement to allow supra-national nuclear licensing and liability in place of the current international practice.1. IAEA/INFCIRC500 20 March 1996 Vienna Convention on Civil liability for nucleardamage2. National Nuclear Regulator Act” Act No 47 of 19993. Swiss Federal Nuclear Energy Liability Actwww.bfe.admin.ch/bfe/en/home/versorgung/kernenergie/kernenergiehaftp icht.exturl.html/4. ONR - PROCUREMENT AND INTELLIGENT CUSTOMER CAPABILITYwww.onr.org.uk/operational/tech_asst_guides/cns-tast-gd-4.1.pdf5. NuScale SMR Technology – An Ideal Solution for Repurposing US Coal PlantInfrastructure and Revitalizing Communities -www.nuscalepower.com/-/media/nuscale/pdf/publications/nuscale-smr-technology-an-ideal-solution-for-coal-plant-replacement.pdf3. Proposed solution4. Conclusions and recommendationsReferences©2024 - CIGRE CSE N°31 December 2023 5

Issues relating to licensing and liability for small modular reactors in Africa

https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/2263/95738/1/Nicholls_Issues_2023.pdf

Issues relating to licensing and liability for small modular reactors in Africa

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