Executive Summary

This report documents the proceedings of the Workshop on 'Safety Assessment of Fuel Cycle Facilities - Regulatory Approaches and Industry Perspectives' held in Toronto, Canada, on 27-29 September 2011. The workshop was organised by the Committee for the Safety on Nuclear Installations (CSNI) of the OECD/Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and hosted by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). More than 60 specialists representing 11 countries and international organisations attended the workshop. A total of 31 papers were presented and discussed in open forum. In addition, an opportunity was taken to consider the impacts of the events at Fukushima on Fuel Cycle Facilities (FCFs) in general. Nuclear fuel is produced, processed, and stored mainly in industrial-scale facilities. Uranium ores are processed and refined to produce a pure uranium salt stream, Uranium is converted and enriched, nuclear fuel is fabricated (U fuel and U/Pu fuel for the close cycle option); and spent fuel is stored and in some countries also reprocessed (close cycle option). Facilities dedicated to the research and development of new fuel or new processes are also considered as Fuel Cycle Facilities. The safety assessment of nuclear facilities has often been led by the methodology and techniques initially developed for Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). As FCFs cover a wide diversity of installations, the various approaches of national regulators, and their technical support organizations (TSO), for the Safety Assessment of Fuel Cycle Facilities are also diverse as are the approaches by their industries in providing safety justifications for their facilities. The objective of this workshop was to review the various approaches of national regulators, and their technical support organizations, in the Safety Assessment of Fuel Cycle Facilities and the experience of their industry in providing safety justification for their facilities. It addressed the present situation in various NEA member countries (MC) and concerned both initial safety assessment of new facilities and reassessment of existing ones (periodic safety review). It also considered trends of future improvement of safety assessment techniques. The workshop was organised in an opening session, four technical sessions, one special session and a conclusion session. The technical sessions were focussed on: - General approach including human aspects (9 papers); - Front end facilities (5 papers); - Chemical hazards - release limits (6 papers); and - Back end facilities (6 papers). In addition, a special session (4 presentations) was held to discuss the lessons learnt for FCFs from the Fukushima accident in Japan. The workshop ended with an organized site visit to Cameco Corporation's Port Hope Conversion Facility in Port Hope, Ontario on the last day of the workshop. This paper presents the Summary of the technical and special sessions, the General Conclusions and Recommendation of the workshop and some future directions