With the concern and support from MEE/NNSA, the construction project for the NSC’s first national key-laboratory for environmental protection has been granted approval recently by the MEE after experts’ demonstration for several times. This laboratory is named the National Simulation Analysis and Verification Key-laboratory for Review of Environmental Protection and Nuclear and Radiation Safety (hereafter called LAB). The site of the LAB is planned to cover 750 square meters with a targeted cost of RMB 18 million supported from Multichannel Scientific and Capability-building Project and a projected construction period of 2 years.

Safe and high-efficient development of nuclear power technology is currently an important strategy in the domain of China’s energy and technology development, and is also an important part of national ecological environmental protection and sustainable development. With rising level of nuclear power technology, a number of new emerging types of reactors have been adopted such as AP1000, EPR, CAP1400 and HPR1000, and therefore, the expansion of nuclear power sector also advances the higher requirements for the regulators.

The construction of the LAB is aimed to establish a research system and platform on which independent audit computation and software verification are able to be carried out in the field of nuclear and radiation safety in line with the national mid-long term technical development strategy and the international forefront topics. The LAB will be able to provide solutions to the key issues arising in nuclear and radiation safety assessment. It can continue to improve China’s regulatory capacity and level for nuclear and radiation safety, and lead the progress and innovation in the related technologies. Therefore, these will provide further technical support to the strategic deployment of our nuclear power technology Going Abroad in such a manner that will adapt the need of situation in which novel technologies and new ideas are progressively adopted and will meet the need of situation where the review of nuclear and radiation safety is deepened and expanded.

Based on current research programs of nuclear and radiation safety review, independent audit computation, software validation, and the related research projects, and with the assistance of NSC Nuclear and Radiation Safety Regulation R&D Base, the LAB will set four additional research directions, which are nuclear and radiation accident simulation and analysis, nuclear and radiation accident analysis and experimental demonstration, nuclear and radiation accident analysis-related basic study, and assessment and development of nuclear and radiation accident safety analytical software respectively.

The subsequent efforts are set to build a world-class laboratory with “open, mobile, combinable and competitive” features in the field of nuclear and radiation safety. Through subsequent construction, the LAB will have performance-excellent computing terminals and fully functional simulation platform covering multiple technical capabilities, such as reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, probabilistic safety analysis, radiation protection, and environmental impact assessment, thereby fostering to a number of leading talents in the area of nuclear and radiation safety regulation.