Education and Training Series #52: Experience of HTTR Licensing for Japan’s New Nuclear Regulation
Part of a webinar series hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group since 2016.
Who should attend?
Policymakers, industry professionals, regulators, researchers, students, the general public.
About the "GIF Education and Training" Webinars
These webinars, organised by the GIF Education and Training Working Group are streamed live monthly. The recordings and slide decks are accessible after the webinar on this website. These webinars cover a very broad range of technical and policy related topics. At the end of 2023 they have been viewed by more than 15000 people (approximately half of the views during the live streams and the other half views being of the archives on the public GIF website). In total, the GIF webinars have reached Generation IV enthusiasts, scientists, and engineers in more than 80 countries.
These webinars are organised and hosted by the GIF Education and Training Working Group (ETWG).
About this Webinar
On June 3rd, 2020, JAEA obtained the permission of reactor installation change for restarting the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR, 30 MW) from the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) of Japan. This is the first restart permission for a gas-cooled reactor in Japan under the New Regulatory Requirements. By employing a high-temperature-resistant and large-heatcapacity graphite core, HTTR enables inherent safety characteristic of slow and limited temperature transient without fuel damage even in a loss of coolant accident. The safety review by NRA against the New Regulatory Requirements has confirmed that no fuel damage would occur even in the event of a beyond design basis accident such as multiple losses of reactor shutdown functions. With the aim of early restarting, the refurbishment to the HTTR as mandated by the permission of changes to reactor installation is steadily carrying out, including installation of countermeasure systems against internal and external fires and so on. In this Webinar, an experience of HTTR licensing for Japan’s New Nuclear Regulation will be introduced.
Presentation made during the webinar
Meet the presenter
Dr. Etsuo Ishitsuka is the general manager of HTTR Reactor Engineering Section at the Department of HTTR project in JAEA, Japan Atomic Energy Agency. He earned his Doctorate of Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1999. He started his research career at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute in 1986 as a research engineer for the Japan Materials Testing Reactor (JMTR) project. He worked in a wide field of neutron irradiation technology development, such as production of medical radioisotopes, fusion blanket materials, plasma facing components and plasma diagnostics components, etc. He was promoted to Senior research engineer in 1994 and managed the experiments of a fusion blanket functional test in JMTR and the ITER project as the deputy general manager. After managing an international cooperation and training of foreign young researchers, he joined HTTR project in 2015 as the general manager. His current works are the technology developments related to core management and operation. His team was in charge of the seismic evaluation of facilities and beyond design basis accidents in this licensing.