BackgroundThe utilization of nuclear power in Asia continues to grow. Japan and the Republic of Korea have mature nuclear power programmes. China has embarked upon a large nuclear power programme and will soon be operating several new NPPs of different designs and from different vendors. Other countries in the region operate research reactors and are considering the introduction of nuclear power generation in their energy planning. There is general agreement that effective communication and exchange of information are essential tools to achieve a sustainable nuclear safety infrastructure and a high level of safety of nuclear installations in the region. On February 18, 2002, the Nuclear Safety (NS) Department discussed with the Director General (DG) the concept of an Asian Nuclear Safety Network (ANSN). The DG advised NS to proceed and that initially the network should be implemented in the frame of the Extrabudgetary Programme (EBP) on the Safety of Nuclear Installations in the South East Asia, Pacific and Far East Countries. Countries participating in the EBP are: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam. In addition, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Spain and USA provide in-kind and/or financial support to the EBP. China, Japan and Korea, Rep. of have already indicated their willingness to co-operate in the ANSN. After 2003 Workshop on Application of Knowledge Management held in Korea, South East Asia countries stated their commitment to join ANSN and built their National Centers. In early 2004, Indonesia has launched the first ANSN web server in South East Asia (http://ansn.bapeten.go.id) and become the most active IT activities supporting ANSN community in the area.ObjectiveThe objective of the ANSN is to pool and share existing and new technical knowledge and practical experience to further improve the safety of nuclear installations in Asia. The model could be further used for other regional nuclear safety networks and, eventually, for a global network.Major FunctionsThe network major functions aim at the sustainability of national nuclear safety infrastructures and optimum use of existing and new nuclear safety information. They are:1. Education and training 2. Information assessment from knowledge management 3. Communication among experts and the public Approach for ImplementationThe Network is to be implemented using state of the art in information technology (IT) tools for communication among Hubs and national centres worldwide. In its initial phase of implementation, the IAEA should take a more active role and initiative to establish a common technical basis for information assessment, knowledge management and communications protocol. Individual Hubs and national centres would be charged to extract, analyze and import data according to the knowledge base structure. Figure 1 annex depicts the scheme involving the knowledge base, information assessment and knowledge management. The knowledge base will be structured according to the categories of IAEA nuclear safety standards to facilitate the consistent pooling of relevant information and easy search and retrieval. Information to be input in the knowledge base would include:1.Education and Training 2.Safety Evaluations 3.Standards and Guides 4.Operating Experience 5.International co-operation In addition to that, ANSN will establish links to other web sites containing relevant nuclear safety information.  |
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