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Interview of the Month
10 CFR50 Appendix B, Part 21and ASME NQA-1. It is a quality
different types of technologies; they all have different quality assurance
assurance program that is unique to the nuclear industry in the United
program requirements. They probably have a slightly different supply
States and other countries that adopted this program. In Europe,
chain base. Now China has the French reactor, Canadian reactor,
Germany, France and Switzerland, they allow quality programs like
Russian reactor and now US reactor and China is going to build its
ISO 9001orother quality programs that were not necessarily nuclear specific. In the United States, that is not allowed in the nuclear industry for safety-related equipment. So in the United States, we absolutely needed to use a process that is called “Dedication” in order to take
own reactors. I think the real difficulty in China is not the distance between provinces, but the biggest issue is that the different types of technologies that have already been in China. They have different
commercial grade equipment and upgrade to safety-related use. I
types of technologies, supplier bases, quality requirements, and
think that same issue is going to happen in China and other locations
standard qualifications. I think that will be the much bigger challenge
where the quality isn’t good enough. So dedication is a way to assure
for the Chinese nuclear fleet as it gets bigger.
the quality of the equipment is suitable for safety-related applications. Given the supply base for China, and given it is buying from many countries as possible, I think dedication will probably be employed in China as well.
DPS: Were the requirements from the 10 CFR50 Appendix B Part 21 more stringent after the Three Mile Island accident? Craig Irish: Those requirements were actually prior to Three
Mile Island (TMI) and obviously they become stronger, and the NRC became stronger after TMI. The requirements have been there for a long time and became stronger over the years as the industry learned lessons over various situations.
DPS: In the US, you have GE, Babcock and Wilcox, and Westinghouse, but they are all using the same quality assurance program? Craig Irish: in the United States they all required to have the same
quality assurance and all the same regulatory agency. Basically, you have two different types of reactors: GE Boiled Water Reactor (BWR) and the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) built by Combustion Engineering, Westinghouse and Babcock & Wilcox. They are all under the same quality requirements, and use similar equipment, so they have a very similar supply chain. Don’t get me wrong, that was difficult enough for the US regulatory agency, and clients and engineering firms. China will also have to face differences in language, culture, technology and quality requirements.
DPS: CGNPC and CNNC had nuclear power plants, now both of them have a fleet, extended from Guangdong to Liaoning. What major impacts both will face for the operation and maintenance in such distance?
DPS: Can you let us know which type of equipment you supplied to the AP1000 in China?
Craig Irish: I believe that the supply chain in the nuclear industry
Craig
is very important. So knowing your suppliers, knowing what kind of
pressure transmitter and differential pressure transmitter, harsh
quality assurance program they use, controlling your suppliers is
environmentally qualified, safety-related for in-containment for
extremely important. I believe China would absolutely have to do the
one of the projects. For the other project it was safety-related level
same thing when they have a fleet as large as China is hoping to have.
DPS: Let me take a specific example: the distance from South Texas Project (Texas) to Seabrook NPP (New Hampshire) is more or less the same between Changjiang (Hainan) to Hongyanhe (Liaoning). Do you foresee management issue due to large distance? Craig Irish: I don’t think distance will be an issue in China. I think the issue is that several countries built reactors in China. They all have
Irish: It was specialized instrumentation, in-containment
instrumentation for in containment flood up and the third project was for safety related and ASME Section III level instrumentation for the core markup tank.NLI supplied specialized safety-related custom manufactured instrumentation.
DPS: Have you been in contact with the engineering companies and with their procurement departments to expand your activities for the new AP1000? Craig Irish: Yes, we are helping them with electrical distribution,