Analysis of Current Global Nuclear Safety and Security Cooperation

By Liu Chong



Analysis of Current Global Nuclear Safety and Security Cooperation

By Liu Chong1

China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations

Last year, global nuclear security and safety cooperation gained great achievements. In nuclear safety respect, the current severe situation of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reveals that the new nuclear safety regulation system in Japan still has too many flaws, sounding the alarm for East Asia countries, which accelerates the regional nuclear safety cooperation. In nuclear security respect, since the Seoul Summit in Mar. 2012, global nuclear security cooperation has achieved new successes. The arrangement for later-on working framework would become the major concern for the follow-on two Summits. IAEA has and would play the central role in pushing forward the international framework and strengthening nuclear security globally. However, there are still some obstacles to overcome in the future, which need international society to enhance communication and common understanding, especially high-level consultations.

I. Fukushima Nuclear Accident Accelerates East Asian Regional Nuclear Safety Cooperation

1. The current severe situation of the decontamination of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reveals the flaws of Japan’s new nuclear safety regulation system

Currently, the radioactive water decontamination has become the major problem of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant dismantle plan. Especially since Aug. 2013, many severe situations have been kept happening, which catches global attention.

The primary Fukushima water problem is the daily generating highly contaminated water. Approximately 400 tons groundwater per day seeps into the basements. The water need to be pumped out and stored in about 1,000 temporary radioactive water tanks, more than 300 of which are simply pasted by iron sheet and resin, so are very fragile and easy to leak out.

The second problem is the high contaminated water lost in the plant area. In the first weeks of the accident, there were uncontrolled releases of highly contaminated water onto basement floors. This water flowed into underground tunnels with thousands of pipes and cables and could be mixed with groundwater (300 tons per day) and go into the sea.

The third problem is large amount of low contaminated water around the plant. In the first days, after the hydrogen explosives, much of the airborne contamination settled on the ground of the plant, and dissolved from the ground surface into the subsurface water. Around 1,000 tons of water per day flows down toward the plant buildings and approximately 600 tons per day eventually enters into the sea.2

With no doubt, Japan has done tremendous work to rethink the accident causes and the inappropriate emergency response. In Sep. 2012 in Japan, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) is created in response to shortcomings identified in the country's previous regulatory structure after the Fukushima accident.3However, the current severe situation of the Fukushima reveals that the new safety regulation system in Japan still has too many flaws.

Firstly, the Japanese Government had stood by and let TEPCO to deal with all the mess until the severe situation went public in Aug., and took over the job in Oct. 2013, but more than two years are wasted.

Secondly, the Japanese Government and TEPCO manipulate information for political reasons. TEPCO detected the leaking in May, but announced it more than two months later, on Jul. 23, one day after the House election. Moreover, after the TEPCO announced that 300 tons leaked from the tanks, Japanese NRA said that the amount could be exaggerated by the inaccurate measuring, possibly because it’s one week before Olympic campaign.

Thirdly, the Japanese regulation body set impracticable goals and the political leaders always lied to assure local and global society. In Oct. 2013, the NRA said it would extend the deadline for water decontamination from 2013 to 2017. Japanese Prime minster Abe said in the Olympic campaign speech that the contamination covers only 0.3 square kms in the harbour in Sep. 2013. Later in mid Oct. the radioactive monitoring created historical highest record. Then, Abe said the situation is under control as a whole but 83.8% Japanese do not buy it.4

2. East Asia regional nuclear safety cooperation gained profound achievements

Significant expansion of nuclear power is projected to continue in the non-OECD region as a whole, with total nuclear capacity more than quadrupling.5Especially, East Asia is the focal point of global nuclear power development. Besides China, Japan and the ROK, the ASEAN countries also have ambitious nuclear plans. Currently, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia are in the process of developing nuclear energy; Cambodia, Myanmar indicated interest of nuclear energy; Singapore sees it as a possible option; only Brunei Darussalam, Laos have shown no indication. In the third ASEAN Energy Outlook, nuclear served as an important role in each Scenario. The energy demand of ASEAN countries would be doubled or tripled by 2030 compared with 2010, and the nuclear energy amount would be 24-30 MTOE6, equivalent to 15-19 reactors.7Although Indonesia and Thailand are considering delaying their first nuclear power plant projects until 2020, considering that Vietnam affirmed no change to plans to build their first nuclear power plants and the dramatic increasing energy demand, nuclear electricity would not be ruled out in South-East Asia region. Currently, the power on grid of the operating reactors in East Asia is 77GW, only 20.7% of the world. But the reactors under construction in this region take 33 out of 64 in the world. In the 160 reactors already ordered or planned, East Asian countries own 72.8

After Fukushima nuclear accident, the IAEA General Conference passed the “IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety”, which set the enhancement goal of the global nuclear safety framework. Since the adoption of the IAEA Action Plan, focusing the implementation of the safety plan, IAEA has done tremendous jobs in nuclear safety area. Significant progress has been made in several key areas, such as assessments of safety vulnerabilities of nuclear power plants (NPPs), strengthening of the Agency’s peer review services, improvements in emergency preparedness and response capabilities, strengthening and maintaining capacity building, widening the scope and enhancing communication and information sharing with Member States, international organizations and the public, and protecting people and the environment from ionizing radiation. Significant progress has also been made in reviewing the Agency’s safety standards, in particular severe accidents, and emergency preparedness and response, which continue to be widely applied by regulators, operators and the nuclear industry in general.9In the year 2013, IAEA initiated around 20 new extra-budgetary projects, and the total budget was only €11 million.10Another example is the Emergency Preparedness Review services. IAEA only implemented eight Emergency Preparedness Review missions in 2012, which already set the highest number since the programme began in 1999.11Besides the international services insufficiency, IAEA has many member States. Each State has its own position in international regulation cooperation, which makes the international nuclear safety framework too difficult to be improved.

To fulfil the gap, East Asian countries actively strengthen regional nuclear safety cooperation. China, Japan and the ROK in 2008 launched the Top Regulators Meeting (TRM) as an annual event bringing together the nuclear-safety regulators of the three countries. It has provided a sound cooperation mechanism and information sharing-platform on nuclear safety. The fourth meeting, held in Tokyo in Nov. 2011, produced a Cooperative Nuclear Safety Initiative.12In Nov. 2013 at the 6th TRM, the three countries agreed to implement the initiative in phases, which included Information Exchange Framework establishment, trilateral joint radiological emergency training and Regional Cooperation Project, establishment and operation of trilateral video conference system, and establishment of on-line information sharing system.13

The ASEAN countries also actively built a network of their nuclear regulation bodies. Thailand presented a relevant proposal to the ASEAN Summit 2011 and received warm welcome from the Member States. In Aug. 2012, 10 ASEAN Member States finalised the Term of Reference of ASEAN Network of Regulatory Bodies on Atomic Energy (ASEANTOM). On 3-4 Sep. 2013, Thailand held the 1stmeeting of ASEANTOM, which settled a detailed Action Plan for 2014 and 2015.14

Ⅱ. Global Nuclear Security Cooperation Achieves New Success

1. The arrangement for later-on working framework would be the major concern for the two follow-on Summits.

Since the Seoul Summit in March 2012, global nuclear security cooperation has achieved new successes. 16 countries ratified the 2005 CPPNM amendment, 9 countries ratified ICSANT, 9 countries hosted, requested, or are preparing for IPPAS missions, 44 countries hosted nuclear security related workshops, conferences, and exercises, 22 countries enhanced their counter-smuggling, transport security and border control capacities, 32 countries strengthened their nuclear security laws and regulations, and 2 countries eliminated all of their HEU.15

U.S. president Obama declared a four-year goal to lock down all vulnerable nuclear materials in four years in his 2009 Prague speech. The past two Summits have raised international awareness of and attention to nuclear security. In a June 2013 speech in Berlin, Obama announced that he would host the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit. Thus, the arrangements for later-on working framework would be the major concern for the two follow-on Summits.

Barring any unforeseen circumstance, the IAEA would serves as the central role in follow-on global working framework. From 1 to 5 July 2013, IAEA held a Ministerial International Conference on Enhancing Global Nuclear Security Efforts, which endorsed the first international Ministerial Declaration on Nuclear Security. The Declaration - the first of its kind for nuclear security - notes that all States are responsible for their own nuclear security, but that international cooperation is important in supporting States' efforts to fulfil their responsibilities. It affirms the central role of the IAEA in strengthening nuclear security globally, and leading coordination of international activities in this field. It also proposed several measures to strengthen international cooperation under the IAEA framework.16With no doubt, IAEA would further push forward the international framework on nuclear security, and would set a strong basis for the post 2016 Nuclear Security Summit era.

2. Simple quantitative evaluation is not helpful to international nuclear security cooperation

In January 2014, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) published the 2ndversion of its Nuclear Materials Security Index, which tried to give a quantitative evaluation of each country’s nuclear security efforts. However, like its 1stversion, the country’s final score in the report is too sensitive and the indicators would always be not well designed and comprehensive, to rank countries by a simple index might not be wise or helpful.

For instance, the 1stIndex calculation of China’s nuclear security and safety practices are misleading.In the 2ndIndex, the producer argued that “both India and China continue to score poorly because their regulatory structures lack key requirements for securing materials”.17However, the real reasons are not the ones stated by the Index producer.

Firstly, the Societal Factor (with a new name “Risk Environment” in the 2ndIndex), which contributes to 23.1% of the total score in the 1stIndex and 18% in the 2ndIndex, reflects Western democratic understandings of general social patterns. For example, the Societal Factors’ sub-indicators “orderly transfers of power” and “pervasiveness of corruption” both scored China as zero.

Secondly, the index set some highly-weighted sub-indicators, but gave a low score to China for no justifiable reason. For example, in the 1stIndex, the “physical security during transport”, which requires “IAEA guidelines INFCIRC 225/Rev. 4 to be translated into the national regulatory regime”, weighs 7.7% of the total score. China was scored zero by the Index. Though, China has translated this guideline into Chinese, and China State Council issued “Radioactive Materials Transportation Safety Regulations”in 2009, only because it did not publish the regulations document in English. In the 2ndIndex, the producer quietly fixed the mistake without any instructions, thus the score changed by 2 years of China is only 1 point in the 2ndIndex. But actually the real score change between the two editions is 12 (52-64). Only one sub-factor status change makes such great change, how could the Index methodology be correct and helpful? Moreover, the 2ndIndex argued that China’s personnel vetting requirements not includes drug tests, which led to the low score of the “personnel vetting requirements” indicator. Thus, a quantitative evaluation without accuracy would have more negative impacts on facilitating the international nuclear security cooperation.

Ⅲ. Several Outstanding Nuclear Security and Safety Issues Pending further International Coordination

1. Upgrading International Legal Instruments

In terms of nuclear safety, multiple inadequacies are exposed (during Fukushima nuclear accident) in the Convention on Nuclear Safety, the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident, and the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency. Moreover, significant legal loopholes exist in the areas of radiological pollution preventions in marine environment, liability for nuclear damage too. These issues still need well-defined and legally binding documents. The international community should understand the implications of Fukushima nuclear accident and accelerate relevant negotiating process to fix those loopholes.

In terms of nuclear security, many important international treaties require full and resolve implementations. CPPNM enjoys the broadest membership which includes 149 states signatories;18however, its 2005 Amendment was ratified by only 72 countries19considering that the amendments will take effect once they are ratified by two-thirds (99 countries) of the States Parties to the Convention, it would be very difficult to achieve the goal proposed by the Seoul Communiqué that “seeking to bring the Amendment into force by 2014”.

The Fukushima accident has necessitated comprehensive reviews and targeted improvements on current safety standards. Especially, we should promote more universal and stricter implementations of the current standards. Today, only the EU has made legally binding the IAEA nuclear safety standards. A healthy development of the global nuclear industry could be substantiated by more universally supported international safety standards.

In the areas of nuclear security, structured directions are needed for the growing number of nuclear power plants under construction and growing global fissile material stockpile. Although IAEA has finished several fundamental nuclear security documents, significant gaps exist compared to more mature nuclear safety standards.20Cross-border communications are needed, and IAEA documents should constitute a facilitating base for a efficient and comprehensive national nuclear security system.

2. International Coordination in Domestic Legislations and Regulations

Global increasing wide-spread radioactive industrial applications require coordinations which would involve radioactive material transport, spent fuel storage and reprocessing, safety regulations, and many other aspects of domestic legislations. Denial incidents are primarily caused by national variations in regulations.21Thus, the lack of coordination has created safety risks in an internationalized nuclear industry. So, international standards and practices are needed.

One of the major causes of Fukushima nuclear accident is the badly defined responsibilities and power in Japanese nuclear regulatory structure. This leads to a lack of safety regulatory structure. However, the current review services provided by IAEA are on a voluntary basis, and this is because the partial transfer of sovereignty will be one essential pre-condition for this kind of global arrangement.

The national level is no doubt the dominant level at which periodical reviews regarding domestic nuclear facility safety are conducted. In 2008, IAEA issued reports that addressed earthquakes beyond the designs, and noted the possible risks for Japan’s NPPs.22However, TEPCO and the Japanese regulators failed to take the advantages of peer reviews and other countries' experiences. The IAEA Director General has recommended to “conduct a peer review of one out of ten nuclear power plants throughout the world”23. Also If IAEA would like to provide some mandatory peer review services in future as suggested by IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety, member states need to thoroughly discuss and coordinate before any tangible steps.

3. Emergency Responses and International Cooperation

Immediately after the Fukushima accident, many measures damaged its international image further, such as the harsh rating of the accident level, inaccurate data, and unilateral decisions to dump radioactive water into the sea. During the process of long-term radioactive water decontamination, the Japanese government and TEPCO also manipulated information for political reasons and lied to public. Current global accident notification system took its shape 25 years ago; IAEA can only distribute information that is confirmed by relevant countries. Therefore, amendments of existing treaties or new treaties may be required for IAEA to verify crisis information's accuracy or participate in the response efforts. Member states' full participations and mutual understanding are fundamental to achieve this end, but those supplementary actions could not solve the fundamental problem stated above.

Today, many countries are building their first ever nuclear power plants, with a great variety of reactor designs under construction. So any major accident would become a regional crisis that has significant impacts. Thus it is necessary to discuss, in a concrete manner, an international arrangement for assistance in nuclear emergencies.

The deepening globalization profoundly enlarges the socio-economic impact of any major nuclear safety or security incident in today's world. These complications will likely create wide-spread public panic and anti-nuclear sentiments. The international community should not ignore these socio-economic dimensions, and build better emergency plans .

4. Integrating Global Resources

There are multiple layers of international organizations for tackling nuclear safety or security concerns. Global Threat Reduction Initiative and G8 Global Partnership are two prominent examples in the nuclear security area, while IAEA, OECD and many regional forums constitute the multilateral toolbox in the nuclear safety area. IAEA has pointed out that “there is not always clarity about the role and function of some international nuclear security related initiatives. The risk of duplication with Agency activities is a continuing concern.”24Duplication and the lack of coordination will create wastes of resources, and they work against our global nuclear safety and security efforts.

Currently, only 10% of IAEA budget, about 34 million Euros, is allocated to nuclear safety and security programs.25This amount is less than half of the organizational spending on “Policy, Management and Administration Services”. Global nuclear renaissance means huge increases in the numbers of nuclear facilities and material stockpiles; in addition, many post-Fukushima international cooperative initiatives are emerging. Without robust budgetary supports, none of the opportunities can capitalize.

IAEA takes the leading role in current training and educational activities concerning nuclear safety and security. However, these activities would not be sufficient for a world with dramatically increasing nuclear operators and radioactive sources. All states should further cooperate with IAEA, using modern educational technologies to open up new possibilities for nuclear safety and security trainings.

Established nuclear energy countries should facilitate structured transfers of nuclear safety and security equipment and technologies to the emerging nuclear operators. These transfers will boost the safety and security level of the existing sites and of those under construction. Cooperation should also be considered to turn relevant arms control/disarmament verification technologies into nuclear safety and security equipment. In terms of equipment utilizations, joint frameworks could be created to re-use the nuclear security hardware during large-scale events.

Notes:

1.The author is Chief for Arms Control and Military Strategy of CICIR.

2. The water amount estimate comes from the paper by Lake H. Barrett:, 9 SEPTEMBER 2013, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, http://thebulletin.org/fixing-fukushima%E2%80%99s-water-problem

3. “New Japanese regulator takes over”, 19 September 2012, http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-New_Japanese_regulator_takes_over-1909125.html

4.《安倍宣称福岛污水泄漏得到控制，逾8成日本国民不相信》，新华网，2013年10月28日，http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2013-10/28/c_117900678.htm

5. U.S. Energy Information Administration: “Annual Energy Outlook 2012”, p74.

6.“The third ASEAN Energy Outlook”, The Institute of Energy Economics of Japan and the ASEAN Center for Energy, February 2011, p 21.

7. Here assume the average power on grid of each reactor is 700MW, and the average reactor load factor is 90%.

8.Data from: “World Nuclear Power Reactors & Uranium Requirements” ,Oct 2012 , World Nuclear Association, http://world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html

9.Progress in the Implementation of the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety, GOV/INF/2012/11-GC(56)/INF/5, 9 Aug, 2012, seg 2.

Progress in the Implementation of the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety, IAEA, GOV/INF/2013/8-GC(57)/INF/5，5 August 2013, seg 5.

10.Progress in the Implementation of the IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety, seg 3..

11. Nuclear Safety Review 2013, IAEA, GC(57)/INF/3, July 2013, page 6.

12. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘China–Japan–ROK Cooperation (1999–2012)’, White Paper, 10 May 2012, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t930436.htm.

13.ROK, China and Japan Established Implementation Plans For Nuclear Safety Cooperation, 29th Nov 2013, http://www.nssc.go.kr/nssc/english/release/list.jsp?mode=view&article_no=5829

14.ASEANTOM (ASEAN Network of Regulatory Bodies on Atomic Energy), http://library.oaep.go.th/ASEAN-Network.html

15.Michelle Cann, Kelsey Davenport and Sarah Williams: The Nuclear Security Summit: Progress Report, July 2013, Page 49, http://uskoreainstitute.org/2013/07/01/nssreport2013/

16.Ministers at IAEA Conference Call for Stronger Nuclear Security, 1 July 2013, http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/2013/prn201309.html

17.“NTI Nuclear Materials Security Index”, www.ntiindex.org, January 2014, p46.

18.http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Conventions/cppnm_status.pdf, 17 December 2013.

19.http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Conventions/cppnm_amend_status.pdf, 10 January 2014.

20. Nuclear Security Report 2011, GOV/2011/51-GC(55)/21, 5 Sep 2011, Seg 16.

21.Nuclear Safety Review for the Year 2010, GC(55)/INF/3, Jul 2011, seg 149.

22.Follow-up IAEA Mission in Relation to the Findings and Lessons Learned from the 16 July 2007 Earthquake at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, February, 2008.

23.IAEA Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety 20-24 June 2011, GOV/INF/2011/13-GC(55)/INF/10, 5 September 2011, p2, seg 13.

24.Nuclear Security Report 2011, P16, seg 16.

25.“Regular Budget appropriations for 2012, Resolution adopted on 22 September 2011 during the seventh plenary meeting”, GC(55)/RES/5