Message from the Chair
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The Standards Committee of Atomic Energy Society of Japan was established on September 22, 1999.
Our mission is to continually establish and revise nuclear standards with the latest findings, for such standards share the common ground as the recognition criteria for sound products in a market. This notion has been derived as industries and academic societies cooperate with one another to offer consumers the recognition criteria for sound products in a market to fully enhance economic and social environment, national character, industrial structure, and technologies.
The deliberations and resolutions concerning technological modality that should be actualized in the activities, such as designing, construction, and operation of nuclear power facilities, have been documented by the Standards Committee in order to ensure the safety and reliability of nuclear power facilities from the point of view that it leads to the maintenance and enhancement of quality level of relevant technologies. We practice this approach with the principle of fairness, impartiality, and transparency, of which examples include the consideration of public comments from possibly affected stakeholders with the latest findings presented by technology providers, users, and experts.
This will enable consumers to promptly use the latest knowledge concerning such technologies, as well as enable participating producers in a market competition to focus their efforts to expand technical fields that could yield comparative superiority, on the assumption that the technology in question has been standardized.
Furthermore, the establishment of necessary standards had been the role of national government as part of regulatory and administrative activities in the past, for it was utilized in making governmental decisions to ensure the quality of Japanese lives and support the steady economic growth. However, it was pointed out that the public may be late to receive the benefit of latest knowledge, since the reasonable standardization tasks in accordance with technological changes is too time consuming, with the technical renovation speed so rapid and the extent of new technologies usage so continuously expanding in the present age.
However, if the increased Committee activities leads to utilization of the so-called “consensus standard,” set upon the approval from the public, by the national government in response to political needs, then it in turn presents an opportunity to arrange an environment to promptly offer latest technological knowledge to the public with the smaller administrative cost.
We believe AESJ is the one to exercise diligence to introduce our Standards internationally, and achieving it will be the important contribution toward Japanese technological strategy in the global arena.
We have followed the principle of fairness, impartiality, and transparency, to provide for the operational rules, and have established Technical Committees in three fields, including Power Reactor, Nuclear Fuel Cycle, and Research Reactor, in order to respond to the above-mentioned needs likely to be expected in the future, with the full awareness of the roles and responsibilities of expert groups derived from the spirit of volunteerism. We have reviewed the organization of Technical Committees since November 2008, and our activities have been reinforced by the four newly-established Technical Committees: Risk, System Safety, Advanced and Fundamental Systems, and Nuclear Fuel Cycle.
Furthermore, since the content of each standard is, in principle, revised in five-year intervals, the Standards Committee always welcomes the questions and proposals toward revision of the AESJ Standards.
Naoto Sekimura
Standards Committee Chair
December 2014.