Nuclear power plant life management. Proceedings of a symposium

Presently, an area of major interest of the IAEA is the management of the nuclear power plant (NPP) life cycle from concept development to decommissioning and disposal, with the primary objective of maximising the return on investment in nuclear facilities through efficient operation of NPPs. 441 NPPs, with a capacity of about 350GW(e) supplied 16% of global electricity in 2002. Of these, about 300 NPPs have been in operation for 15 years or more and these older units with partially or fully amortized capital costs have proven to be the most profitable. Moreover, there are no significant safety or economic reasons not to continue the operation of well managed NPPs over a longer period and consequently the issues of plant life management and license extension are receiving increasing emphasis in many countries. Forecasts of nuclear power growth over the next two decades range from 350GW(e) in the worst case to 500GW(e) in the best case. This will need additional personnel and expansion of the infrastructure in the developing countries, particularly as much of the new demand growth is forecast to take place outside the countries where most of the existing infrastructure resides. All aspects of NPP life cycle management are addressed by the IAEA and are briefly described in these proceedings. The IAEA Technical Working Group on Life Management of Nuclear Power Plants (TWG-LMNPP) recommended, during its regular meeting in February 1999, that the IAEA should consider holding a symposium on this subject area in 2002. This TWG-LMNPP Proposal was approved and, this symposium was held, attended by 138 participants from 32 Member States and 2 international organizations. The objectives of the symposium were as follows: Emphasise the role of NPP life management programmes in assuring a safe and reliable NPP operating cycle; Identify progress in methodological and technological developments for managing ageing processes and understanding ageing mechanisms; Provide a forum for information exchange on national and international policies and strategies in NPP life management programme development. The programme of the symposium was conducted in five technical and two poster sessions which included the following topics: Issues of plant life management; Technological and operational aspects of Plant Life Management Program (PLIM); Special aspects of PLIM-economics and the end of the life cycle; Current methods and national approaches to PLIM. Seventy-six papers, including fifteen poster papers, were presented and in the final phase there was a large panel session which addressed the topic of 'Plant Life Management - why and how'