Expert meeting on OECD / NEA ROSAU project proposal, OECD / NEA, Paris, France, 20. - 21. 9. 2018
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) brings together 34 Member States and is known as the organization of elite economies. Several specialized agencies operate within the OECD, including the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). The mission of the OECD/NEA is to support Member States through international cooperation in maintaining and further developing the scientific, technical and legal basis for the safe, environmentally friendly and economical use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. NEA activities comprise several areas. In the field of nuclear safety and governance, the Committee on Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) operates within the framework of which several working groups are operating. The main task of the Working Group on Analysis and Management of Accidents - WGAMA - is to improve the understanding of physical processes and addresses the security concerns of existing and advanced reactors.
Argonne National Lab (ANL) from the United States at the CSNI meeting in December 2017 presented a proposal for the OECD/NEA ROSAU (Reduction of Severe Accident Uncertainties) project. CSNI has approved the implementation of a WGAMA Expert Meeting, which would bring together the content of the project and verify the interest of individual countries to participate in the project. The expert meeting was held from 20. -21. 9. 2018 at the OECD/NEA in Paris. At the meeting, ANL presented the background of the proposed 5-year ROSAU project in the amount of USD 9.9 million, the content of the project, proposed experiments, timetable and costs per year. The project encompasses topic spreading and cooling of the melt of the core, which in the case of a severe accident in a nuclear power plant and the failure of the reactor vessel flows into the flooded reactor cavity is divided into two experimental sets:
- Experiments (6) underwater melt spreading,
- Experiments (5) on the molten core cooling and molten core concrete interaction.
Accompanying analytical activities are also foreseen. OECD/NEA presented the standard rules of cost sharing such joint projects: 50% of the costs are covered by the experiments conducting country, the remaining costs shall be covered by the participating countries in the project in proportion to the gross domestic product of the country, but not less than 1,5% and not more than 10% . The contribution of Slovenia (1.5%) would thus be 150,000 USD. Exceptionally, countries may also agree to a different cost sharing, for example, enable the country to participate with an appropriate contribution in kind. The following countries presented their interest in participating in the project (covering project costs): USA, Japan, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Belgium, China, France, Spain, Germany and Korea. Previously, the following countries expressed their interest, but did not attend the meetings: United Arab Emirates, Russia, Canada. The OECD/NEA will prepare a cooperation agreement and will send it to countries willing to cover the costs of the project. The initial meeting of the ROSAU project is expected to be from 29. - 30. 1. 2019 at the OECD / NEA in Paris.
The meeting of experts on the proposal of the OECD/NEA ROSAU project was attended by dr. Matjaž Leskovar from the Reactor Engineering Division (R4) and he actively participated in expert discussions. He explained that the IJS R4 is interested in participating in the project, but that it can contribute only with analytical activities.