Opening the session, moderator King Lee - head of Policy and Industry Engagement at World Nuclear Association - said nuclear was expanding with new applications in sectors including marine, petrochemical, and the generation of synthetic fuel. "This places new demands on the existing regulatory framework," he said.
"We, at World Nuclear Association, under the CORDEL [Cooperation in Reactor Design Evaluation and Licensing] Working Group, have been working and cooperating with various stakeholders on streamlining and international harmonisation to accelerate nuclear application across multiple jurisdictions to avoid duplication, delay, and fragmentation, while supporting standardised design to reduce cost and facilitate global supply chain," Lee said. "Now we're seeing policymakers taking actions and looking to streamline the regulatory process."
Michelle Catts, Senior Vice President, Nuclear Programmes at GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy, said new nuclear technologies and their new applications "are really placing pressure on regulatory systems that were made for another era". She added: "To capture this moment, the regulators and the industry need to work together to transform together, streamline where it makes sense, embrace innovation, and align internationally so we can deploy nuclear faster, safely, and at scale."
She referred to the BWRX-300 - a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation small modular reactor (SMR) with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis of GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy's 1500 MW ESBWR boiling water reactor. The first BWRX-300 is under construction at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington site in Ontario, Canada.
"When vendors make smart choices in their designs, it can really help ease the review by regulators. It can streamline and make the reviews more efficient and more proportional for small modular reactors while still meeting the highest safety standards. Around the world, regulators are already showing confidence in this approach."
On the subject of floating nuclear power plants and nuclear-propelled ships, Baroness Charlotte Vere, Group Head Market Development at Core Power, said "there is no doubt" that nuclear for maritime will be part of the future. "The question is how, the question is where, and the question is when."
However, she noted that regulating nuclear for maritime falls under both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and this could be an issue if one "is doing this", and one is doing that - "my concern is that they'll look at each other and go, oh no, they don't match up. So we've got to get alignment between those different UN agencies".
She noted that the IMO recently decided to revise the safety code on nuclear merchant ships, which has not been changed since 1981.
World Nuclear Transport Institute CEO Pete Bryant added: "Regulation cannot be tied to process. It also cannot be tied to an attitude of 'we've always done it this way'. It must be outcome-focused, it must be science-based, but it must be agile. So this is not just about technology - this is about sustainable development, this is about societal benefit. And it's about public confidence."
He called for greater collaboration between industry, regulators and also the science. "We must build upon a common goal, wider than just safety. A common goal could be tackling climate change, it could be enabling the UN sustainability development goals. But we must ensure proportionate, outcome-focused approaches and show that safety, security, innovation and sustainability can reinforce each other.
"Regulation is not just rules, it is not just process. It's the foundation of public confidence, it's the enabler of innovation, and it's the key to nuclear's role in a sustainable future. And if we work together, regulation won't just keep up with the pace of change, it will help drive it for the benefit of society."
Collaboration key to change
During a separate session, Rumina Velshi, Former President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), said the organisation "had read the headwinds, knew we needed to be in a state of readiness to license and regulate SMRs, advanced technologies". However, she said that one of the biggest challenges that regulators face is having sufficient funding to be anticipatory and build up capacity.
(Image: World Nuclear Association)
"Regulators only start getting funding from their licensees once there's an application in front of them, which is a bit too late then to start saying, oh, I need to hire more people," she said. "And so if you don't go down that route, then you have to go to government and ask for a budget. And governments tend to be in a perpetual state of fiscal constraint."
Velshi said the CNSC took the option of asking Ontario Power Generation, the licensee for the Darlington SMR project, to advance its funds to license its application.
"Knowing that funding was available made all the difference for us to build that capacity," she said. "Regulators find it very difficult because they somehow feel this undermines their independence by asking for that funding up front. It actually doesn't. It just enables you to make things happen … Now, we did get the government funding down the road, but it was just the need to be creative."
Mark Foy, Chief Executive and Chief Nuclear Inspector of the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, said "today's environment is something that is completely different to that which has existed previously. The first nuclear programmes were very much national nuclear programmes with nations looking to deploy their own technology, unregulated within their own domestic frameworks." He said regulators are now looking to a collaborative approach.
The CNSC and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have been collaborating for several years, and in 2019 signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) covering technical reviews of advanced reactor and SMR technologies. In January 2023, Terms of Reference were signed and published between the CNSC and the ONR for an MoC between the two organisations on sharing best practice and experience around reviewing AMR and SMR technologies. The agreement also allowed for future working to facilitate a joint technical review of AMR and SMR technologies and to cover pre-application activities to ensure mutual preparedness to review them effectively and efficiently.
Velshi said this collaboration was "really a shift in paradigm" for regulators "because most regulators feel this is challenging their sovereignty if you're now depending on another regulator to do what seemed to be part of your core work. But that was a very bold step that we took … I think that has set the stage for greater collaboration for regulators".
She said the biggest challenge for regulators was the need for "the cultural shift, the mindset shift that is required. It's not around technology. It's not about regulatory frameworks. It really is how do we change the way we see things. And because we have such, frankly, an impeccable safety and track record, it is why upset the cart that's really working … There is a lot of inertia to overcome".
