Survey on research and development status of Japanese small modular reactors in OECD/NEA activities (2022-2023)

Takeda, Takeshi ; Shibata, Taiju 

An important theme of Japan's 6th strategic energy plan is to indicate the energy policy path towards carbon neutrality by 2050. Policy responses for Japan's nuclear energy research and development (R&D) towards 2030 contain the demonstrations of technologies for small modular reactors (SMRs) through international cooperation by 2030. In light of this energy plan, basic policy initiatives over the next 10 years have been compiled to realize Green Transformation (GX), which simultaneously achieves decarbonization and economic growth. Looking overseas, activities of SMR R&D are active internationally, mainly in the US, Canada, Europe, China, and Russia. These activities are not only by heavy industry manufactures and R&D institutes, but also by venture companies. Under these circumstances, the NEA CSNI has gathered an Expert Group on SMRs (EGSMR) to help estimate the safety effects of SMRs. The EGSMR efforts required the submission of responses to several questionnaires whose main purpose was to collect the latest information on the efforts of SMR deployment and research. The first author of this report responded to this based on information from Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. as well as JAEA. Most of the responses from Japan to the questionnaires are the information that serves as the basis of CSNI Technical Opinion Paper No. 21 (TOP-21). In this report, the Japan's publicly available responses to the questionnaires arranged and additional information are explained, which complements some of the content of the TOP-21. In this manner, the investigation results of R&D related to SMR in Japan, focusing on the EGSMR activities (2022-2023), are summarized. The target of this report is to provide useful information for future discussions on international cooperation concerning SMR as well as nuclear power field human resources development internationally and domestically.