Chairman Greeting

Once again, it is a pleasure to offer my annual greeting to you. This is an opportunity to reflect on industry safety performance, progress at JANSI and consider the external factors that continually challenge and shape the Japanese nuclear industry as well as the broader international industry.

As I write this greeting 15 nuclear units at 9 sites have returned to service. Furthermore, an important industry milestone was achieved this year as TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 was returned to service following a 15-year shutdown. This ABWR was successfully returned to service due to the hard work of the dedicated leaders and staff at TEPCO as well as the support of nuclear professionals across the industry. The 15 units in operation continue to operate as high levels of safety and reliability as measured by internationally recognized measures of performance. However, on the other hand the self-reported misconduct in the calculation of the seismic design basis for the Hamaoka Nuclear Power plant is a serious issue for the industry. Where as the final root cause for this situation requires further work by Chubu Electric Power Company, JANSI is committed to work collaboratively with ATENA, FEPC and industry senior leaders to ensure generic lessons for this issue are communicated widely and appropriate measures are taken by each operator to prevent recurrence. Additionally, JANSI is committed to learn from this situation and strengthen JANSI programs as appropriate as well as support Chubu Electric Power Company in their reform efforts.

At JANSI we completed the second year of our second JANSI 10-year strategic plan. We continued our focus on conducting high quality peer reviews including successfully completing the field work necessary for the renewal of WANO peer review equivalency. We advanced our work to implement a program of continuous monitoring of plant performance and worked closely with the industry to improve in the areas of collective radiation exposure and industrial safety. Of special note, we placed special focus on improving in the area of operational risk management. In this effort we looked to other successful domestic high reliability operations, specifically the Japanese railway system and the airline industry. At our annual CEO training we were honored to learn about operational standards and best practices from the JR East Railway and our keynote speaker at the JANSI Annual Conference was from ANA Wings, the domestic arm of ANA Airways. We will use the experience from these 2 organizations to advance our standards and practices in the area of operational risk management.

As we view into 2026, we will continue our focus on executing high quality peer reviews, improving our capability to monitor and support operating stations on a continuous basis between peer reviews, and assisting the industry improve in areas requiring improvement such as collective radiation exposure and industrial safety. We have a clear focus on the WANO Action for Excellence 2030 goals and recognize that the Japanese industry has important gaps to close such that all stations meet the goals. There have been significant improvements in the core areas of operations, maintenance, engineering and equipment reliability as the units were returned to service over the last several years. We will now place greater effort on performance improvement programs, training, use of operating experience and leadership and organizational effectiveness in order to sustain and continuously improve safety performance. We will continue our efforts on proficiency and operational risk management.

As I mentioned in last year’s greeting, the importance of safe, reliable, secure, low-carbon and resilient electrical generation is evident as ever. The underpinnings of modern society is a reliable and safe source of electrical power and this imperative is only increasing as more of society’s needs are electrified. More countries see nuclear energy as a superior means to meet the above requirements. This is true in Japan as well as the US. In the US previous shuttered plants are being restarted and there are serious discussions concerning the building of both small modular reactors as well as large traditional reactors. The announced resumption of a study for a new nuclear unit by Kansai Electric Company is additional indication of nuclear energy’s importance. The difficult geopolitics of the world today are contributing to a movement from industry enthusiasm to a broader recognition of the critical benefits of nuclear generation. This places great importance on the role of JANSI and the unwavering commitment to nuclear safety by our members. Our commitment to safety and the performance of the industry will largely determine if we can meet this important moment.

In closing, I look forward to the upcoming year. At JANSI we have clear direction as defined in our 10-year strategy, unwavering support of industry senior leaders, particularly from our Board of Directors, and corporate and station leaders embrace the high international standards of excellence promoted by JANSI. JANSI is committed to work closely with our colleagues at ATNEA, NRRC, FEPC and WANO as well as other like-minded organizations as we advance our nuclear safety mission. As a community of nuclear operators, we are committed to continuous improvement as we strive for Excellence. At JANSI we understand our obligation and we embrace the challenges ahead with our motto “Excellence starts at home.”

William Edward Webster Jr.
Chairman
Japan Nuclear Safety Institute