Knowledge Management Challenges
To Assure Sustainable Development of Nuclear Energy Utilization1
Shunsuke KONDO, Chairman
Japan Atomic Energy Commission

Thank you Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, this morning, I would like to talk about
two challenges, the challenge the global nuclear community faces and the knowledge
management challenge the Japanese nuclear community is confronted with in pursing
its goal.
The first, the challenge the global nuclear community faces. As the world seeks toincrease its energy supplies to sustain its continued economic growth, while responsibly
addressing greenhouse gas emission, nuclear power will play a much greater and moresignificant role than ever, but still with substantial uncertainty.
At this juncture, the global nuclear community should energetically confront various
challenges to secure public confidence in nuclear energy, as the public opinion is thekey to start and or expand the utilization of nuclear energy in any country.
To do so, it is essential to foster mutual understanding with the public that nuclear
energy has desirable characteristics in the three dimensions of sustainable development;
economy, environment and society.
Important characteristics in the dimension of economy in this respect are competitiveenergy production cost and its stability of supply. Those in the dimension ofenvironment are low human health impact, small volume of waste production and rarity
of severe accidents that contaminate the land on a large scale; and those in thedimension of society are low neighbor disturbance, low risk of nuclear proliferation andlong-term safety of radioactive waste disposal.
To foster such understanding, however, the global nuclear community should, a)
actually demonstrate that nuclear power plants and its fuel cycle facilities have, as asystem, the aforementioned characteristics, and b) sustain its competitive position
among various energy technologies over time by incessantly promoting research anddevelopment of the technology.
Last but not-least, as the devil is in the details, it is important for each and every plant
operator and organization of the global nuclear community to continue to operate plants
and facilities as promised, maintain relevant infrastructure needed to have nuclear
power program, and incessantly performing business risk assessment for the assurance
Presented at the IAEA’s Regional Workshop on Managing Nuclear Knowledge heldin Tokyo on October 22, 200711

of their commitment to the society, utilizing peer review processes provided by theIAEA, WANO, and others.
Needless to say, these actions should be promoted under strong integrated management,
in which knowledge management has an important responsibility in diverse issues,
ranging from human resource development to organizational development forinnovation and learning to make a knowledgeable decision.
To do so is a challenge for organizations that promote nuclear energy utilization; it is achallenge for a nation that pursues nuclear energy utilization, and a challenge for theworld that needs nuclear energy.
The Japan Atomic Energy Commission is keen to the above-mentioned challenges or
three-tier structure of actions needed to secure public confidence in nuclear energyutilization. At the same time, the Commission recognizes it important to reflect into its
nuclear energy policy strategy, the prospect of societal situation in the early part of thiscentury, which will be different from the situation in the past. The points to beconsidered are, among others;
(1)

(2)
(3)

(4)

(5)

In progress is an aging society with fewer children and a foreseeable decreasein population: The growth of demand for energy and electricity will decelerate
and eventually stagnate, though the stagnation of electricity demand growth
will come later:
The retirement of a large number of skilled labors and engineers who werehired in the years of construction boom has started.
Construction of nuclear power plants has become bare a few sites and major
works have been moving to the operation and maintenance of the existing
nuclear power plants;
The public and private investment in research and development of nuclear
energy has been declining in recent years due to the stagnated nuclear businessenvironment in this country.
The public fear and concern about exposures to hazards have increased alongwith a corresponding demand for information so that the public can have asense of security.

The Commission aims at making the share of nuclear power in electricity generation
after the year 2030 similar to or greater than the current level of 30 to 40 %, and asks
the Government and industries to take actions across three different time frames;
short-term, medium-term and long-term, to achieve this objective under the recognitionof such prospect of business environment in the future.
The Commission recognizes that knowledge management is an important cross-cutting
issue for these actions, and considers it knowledge management challenge at energy
policy level to facilitate knowledge proliferation among the public for awareness andlearning about nuclear energy, including risk and benefit of nuclear energy. As decisions
affecting many people or the entire society should be made with public involvement asmuch as possible, we are asking the Government that energetic literacy of people should2

be cultivated so that the public can make informed decisions on matters affect, or areaffected by, energy.
Contributors to energetic literacy are formal education, informal education, andinvolvement of the public into decision making. As for formal education, theCommission is expecting that the Government agencies that set education policy wouldencourage the integration of energy content into curricula and instructional materials invarious subject areas, at least introducing, where appropriate, the word “energy” into
their titles and contents, and improve guidance for primary, middle, and senior schools,
regarding energy including radiation and nuclear energy as appropriate., by requestingguidance in the sciences, history, social studies etc. to stress their connection with thesesubjects.
Informal settings for the public to learn about energy are diverse: they are museums;
science and technology centers; meetings and seminars provided by universities,
research centers, the Government, and non-profit organizations (NPOs); and materials
in print, online, and in the broadcast media. Therefore the Commission is asking that theGovernment should fund science museums and nuclear research facilities to enrich
opportunities for the public to learn about energy through experiences in these settings,
and hold meetings and seminars as well as provide fund for NPOs to hold them with aview to increase opportunities for the public to learn about issues related to energy
including nuclear energy.
Knowledge management challenges in the action to demonstrate the soundness of
nuclear energy systems through their realization are diverse. Needless to say, researchand development organizations and design, construction and operation organizations
should incessantly make efforts to innovate the practices to identify, create, represent,
and distribute knowledge for attaining their missions.
In addition, these organizations are required to sustain a world-class nuclear science andengineering research and development workforce in spite of the future social condition
mentioned before. It was along this line of thinking that the AEC recommended thefollowing actions to the organizations involved in the management of the research anddevelopment of fast reactor and its fuel cycle technologies:
(1)

(2)

The Government and R&D organizations should consider and realize systems
for knowledge management within the Government and industry, including
knowledge and information infrastructures that make it possible to effectivelytransfer and utilize the knowledge and experience accumulated through R&D
activities for the commercialization of the technologies.
They should develop, in particular, a system for nurturing capability for plantengineering including that to compile performance and structure specificationsof plants and their components, understanding that such capability will bedeveloped to the levels that enable the industry to participate in the market,
mainly through repetition of design and evaluation activities. Recentestablishment of FBR development company MFBR is an action taken by theJAEA in response to this recommendation.

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(3)

(4)

International R&D cooperation programs should be proactively worked out andpromoted as they could not only reduce R&D risks and costs but also bring
opportunity to produce technologies of global-standard.
As the FBR cycle technologies development program is a long-term one, theyshould organize personnel exchanges between industry, R&D organizations anduniversities in order to develop and secure manpower that will undertake these
activities in the future.

Finally I would like to discuss the knowledge management challenge in operatingorganization. The first is human resource development. Generally speaking, staff
entering the operating organization is to undergo in-house education and training
beyond graduation, to improve their specific knowledge of operating systems. The
challenges here are a) how to recruit highly motivated graduates of higher education
systems, and b) how to maintain their motivation to make progress in something goodfor the organization.
Innovation of activities in the organization for higher education is a challenge in thiscategory and nuclear engineering courses in universities have special roles ofpassing-on the nuclear science and engineering heritage to the young generation andsustaining the work force for these activities.
As for cultivating motivation, we think it essential that employees can feel that theiractivity is meaningful in some way. This is the reason why the Commission said in theFramework for Nuclear Energy Policy that it is crucial that the nuclear facility and work
place be vigorous and engaging, realizing a system where new approaches can be testedon the premise of safety assurance, so as not to discourage creative efforts in the work
place, in view of implementing activities on the basis of the most up-to-date knowledge.
Before closing, I would like to touch upon the knowledge management requirement forbusiness risk management. Risk is unavoidable and every organization needs risk
management activities to make sure that their business risk can be justified incomparison with a level which is tolerable.
In light of the public nature of nuclear energy-related business, the Commissionconsiders it essential that the private sector enhances business risk management
activities to control the damage from the occurrence of unexpected events, and lead therisk management strategy of the organization from the top and embed it in the normal
working routines and activities of the organization.
The issue here is the leadership of the top management in grasping the extent to which
the licensing basis remains valid and the adequacy of the arrangements that are in place
to be able to continue the business in view of new development of science andtechnology as well as the claim that the island of Japan is going into a earthquake prone
period and the destructive power of natural phenomena is increasing due to the progressin global warming, making realistic analysis of the present status and future prospect ofplant and facilities and workforce.

4In conclusion, the global nuclear community faces various challenges, including thoseto gain public support, maintain the competitive advantages and increase effectivenessof operation. The community should energetically confront these challenges,
establishing and sustaining effective leaderships and management. There are a numberof claims or motivations in the action plan for this purpose, leading to organizations
undertaking a knowledge management effectively and efficiently. The Atomic Energy
Commission of Japan will continue asking to promote quality work for accomplishing
the strategic policy goal, paying due attention to the soundness of knowledge
management activities of organizations involved from the viewpoint of emerging newsocial environment.

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