JEDDAH – After Fukushima, the way in which the industry evaluates risk must change, and owner resiliency and responsiveness will need to increase. Operators also have to develop enhanced risk analysis methodologies, Booz & Company, a leading global management consulting firm, said Tuesday in a report on “Lessons from Fukushima: The Nuclear Industry's Key Challenges in the Aftermath of Japan's Disaster". The industry must strengthen its current methodologies and improve existing processes and tools – to help identify potential risks. Traditional thinking about ‘known unknowns' must be expanded to include ‘unknown unknowns', as such scenario planning can be a useful tool in expanding leaders' range of thinking when assessing risks and vulnerabilities. The end goal is to develop an industry-wide approach to defining and quantifying Fukushima-level improbable events, which will both satisfy regulatory safety requirements and assuage public concerns, while being implementable and cost-effective. A further imperative involves building the plant, enterprise, and industry resilience needed to withstand these unpredictable events. To retain its long-term credibility, the nuclear industry must diverge as little as possible from its planned investment levels and schedule. If projects currently on the drawing board fail to deliver on expectations for cost and schedule performance, the ability to build the next-generation nuclear fleet will be impaired. It is actually fortunate that the nuclear renaissance – the economic revitalization of the nuclear power industry – has begun slowly as it provides owners, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) groups with additional time to improve procedures. “Successful construction of a nuclear plant hinges on the ability of its owners to deploy effective project management capabilities, including project planning, progress measurement, and direct oversight, as well as the detailed performance metrics and insightful reporting processes necessary to achieve a successful project outcome," said Tom Flaherty, a Senior Partner with Booz & Company. “A robust project capabilities framework that addresses all the activities required to complete construction can provide owners with a model for project management success." A well-designed project management framework alone will not ensure success; owners must also overcome constraints in resources, limits to process rigor and controls, and infrastructure inadequacy. The nuclear industry must reassure both regulators and the public that the current nuclear operating fleet is safe, and this can only be achieved if it is willing to submit to an increasingly rigorous regulatory regime. Leaders within this sector should also remind themselves and others of its track record as a decades-long model for safe and reliable operations, as this will provide the political capital needed to guarantee the future role of nuclear power. Owners and operators will need capabilities of intelligent risk management and high-touch project execution to build the next cycle of nuclear plants within established cost and schedule frameworks – as well as achieve high levels of quality in construction and operations. Building these capabilities is a critical step in establishing a ‘right to play' in energy generation and enabling the industry's future. In the Middle East in particular, reactions differed: while some delayed or shelved their announced nuclear energy programs, others were less prone to do so. In the UAE, The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation's plans to build four reactors over the next decade or so – for a total capacity of 5.6 GW – went ahead as intended. – SG
