International Project on
Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO)
Presented by Jon R. Phillips
On the Behalf of the INPRO Group
Nuc Info’Day 2013
Bucharest, Romania, 15-16 May 2013
IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency

Establishment of INPRO
Origins
• Initiated in 2000
• Authorized by IAEA General Conference resolutions
Basic Characteristics
• Membership based
• Funded mainly from extra-budgetary contributions
• 15 to 20 staff (mainly CFEs from Member States) located at IAEA
Headquarters
• International Project inside IAEA
• Cross-cutting with all relevant technical Departments involved
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INPRO Objectives
• INPRO cooperates with Member States to ensure that sustainable nuclear energy is available to help meet the energy needs of the 21 st century.
• To bring together technology holders and users so that they can jointly consider international and national actions required for achieving desired innovations in nuclear reactors and fuel cycles
• INPRO is part of the integrated services of the IAEA provided to
Member States considering initial development or expansion of nuclear energy programmes.
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INPRO Membership 2001-2013
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INPRO Projects in 2012–2013: subject of this presentation
Project 1: National nuclear energy strategies
To assist Member States in building national nuclear energy strategies and in long-range nuclear energy planning through the INPRO methodology and other tools.
Project 2: Global nuclear energy scenarios
To develop global and regional nuclear energy scenarios, on the basis of a scientific-technical analysis, that lead to a global vision on sustainable nuclear energy development in the 21st century.
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INPRO Projects in 2012–2013: projects supporting technical communications of particular interest
Project 3: Innovations
Investigate innovations in selected nuclear energy technologies, institutional arrangements and related R&D and support Member States in pursuing these innovations and exchanging progress toward their realization.
Project 4: Policy and Dialogue
Provide Member States’ guidance in the use of nuclear energy policy and planning tools and coordination with other international organizations and initiatives, bringing together technology holders and users to share information on long-range nuclear energy strategies, global scenarios and technical and institutional innovations.
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INPRO Steering Committee #16 17-19 November 2010 6

INPRO Methodology
INPRO Methodology for nuclear energy system assessment (NESA) - a comprehensive, internationally agreed criteria-based sustainability assessment in areas of economics, safety, waste management, proliferation resistance, physical protection, environment and infrastructure
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Architecture of INPRO requirements
(INPRO Methodology)
Basic Principles
User Requirements
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Criteria
Basic Principles : goals for development of sustainable NES (14).
User Requirements: what should be done by designer, operator, industry and/or State to meet goal defined in Basic Principle (52).
Criteria-Acceptance
Limits:
Assessor’s tools to check whether a User Requirement has been met (125).
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INPRO Methodology – Example of Safety Assessment of Reactor: BP1 (of 4), UR3 (of 7), showing all 6 assessment criteria (IN and AL)
Basic Principle
BP1. Defence-indepth:
Installations of new reactor(s) in
NES shall incorporate enhanced defence-in-depth as part of their fundamental safety approach and ensure that the levels of protection in defence-in-depth shall be more independent from each other than in existing reactors.
User Requirement
UR3. Design basis accidents: The frequency of occurrence of accidents should be reduced, consistent with the overall safety objectives. If an accident occurs, engineered safety features should be able to restore an installation of new reactor(s) in the
NES to a controlled state, and subsequently
(where relevant) to a safe shutdown state, and ensure the confinement of radioactive material.
Reliance on human intervention should be minimal, and should only be required after some grace period.
Criteria
CR1. DBA
CR2. Grace period
CR4. Barriers
CR5. Controlled state
CR6. Sub-criticality
Indicator
Calculated frequency of occurrence of design basis accidents.
Grace period until human intervention is necessary.
CR3. Safety features Reliability of engineered safety features.
Number of confinement barriers maintained.
Capability of the engineered safety features to restore the reactor to a controlled state (without operator actions).
Sub-criticality margins.
Acceptance Limit
Reduced frequency of accidents that can cause plant damage relative to existing reactors.
Reactor has a grace period of at least 8 hours in case of DBA.
Equal or superior to existing designs.
At least one in the event of a DBA.
Sufficient to reach a controlled state.
Sufficient to cover uncertainties and to allow adequate grace period.
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• 6 national assessments
• Argentina, Brazil, India,
Republic of Korea as technology developers .
• Armenia, and Ukraine as technology users .
• Results documented in IAEA report
TECDOC-1636
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• 1 multinational assessment
(“Joint Study”):
• Canada, China, France, India,
Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian
Federation, and Ukraine.
• Development of NES of sodium cooled Fast Reactor with Closed
NFC.
• Results documented in IAEA report TECDOC-1639 (Rev.1)
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Belarus recently completed!
•
Ongoing
• Ukraine: part 2
• Indonesia
• Romania
Planned
• Kazakhstan
• Others…
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• Project 2 helps participating countries define comprehensive national energy strategies by providing a framework for the analysis and assessment of:
• transition from the current fleet of nuclear reactors and fuel cycles to a sustainable nuclear energy system
• how a national nuclear energy system could contribute to, and benefit from, sustainability of regional and global nuclear energy systems
• the role that collaboration with other countries may play in transition
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•

Global Nuclear Energy Scenarios:
Example Projection
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Completed Activities
Global Scenarios and Regional Trends of Nuclear Energy Development in the
21st Century: Studies of Nuclear Capacity
Growth and Material Flow
13 INPRO Members:
Participants & observers:
EC, China, India, Russia, Italy, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, France, Ukraine, Japan, Canada and USA www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1476_web.pdf
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Completed Activities
• Collaborative project ThFC
(2009-2010)
• Nuclear Energy Series report
No. NF-T-2.4 published in
2012
 considered the potential role of thorium to supplement the uranium–plutonium fuel cycle in scenarios with a significant increase in the use of nuclear energy in the world
 http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1540_web.pdf
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Global Nuclear Energy Scenarios:
Current Activities
Objective:
Develop global and regional nuclear energy scenarios, on the basis of a dynamic
NES modelling and analysis, leading to a global vision of sustainable nuclear energy development in the 21 st century
Recently completed collaborative project:
Collaborative project GAINS (Global Architectures of Innovative Nuclear Energy Systems with
Thermal and Fast Reactors and Closed Nuclear Fuel Cycle) (2008-2011) – Final Report IAEA
Nuclear Energy Series NP-T-1.14 approved for publication (in print); Paper published in 2009
Ongoing collaborative project:
Collaborative Project SYNERGIES (Synergistic Nuclear Energy Regional Group Interactions
Evaluated for Sustainability) (2011–2014)
Planned collaborative project:
ROADMAPS for a transition to globally sustainable nuclear energy systems (2014–2015)
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Jon R. Phillips
J.R.Phillips@iaea.org
IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency