Safety and Licensing of Nuclear Facilities for Fusion

Nuclear fusion facilities of the future will need authorization for their construction, commissioning and operation. This licensing by a nuclear regulator will require, as for any other nuclear facility, that the design conforms to regulations and high safety standards, and that it is demonstrated that all necessary safety provisions are incorporated in the design. A safety culture is required throughout the facility lifetime starting at the conceptual design stage and this must include clear top-level safety objectives that cascade down to detailed safety requirements at the component level. ITER has already achieved an important step by obtaining the license to construct. Lessons learned during this licensing process should be applied to DEMO and other future nuclear fusion facilities. Additional safety issues may arise as the result of large-scale tritium breeding and other design variations such as the selected materials. As well as developments in the design of fusion systems, the evolving expectations of nuclear regulators has also to be taken into account.