France Sets Out Updated Radwaste Management Programme
Written by NucNet
Tuesday, 08 June 2010
France’s nuclear safety authority (Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire; ASN), and the government’s directorate-general for energy and climate (DGEC) have released a new edition of the national radioactive material and waste management plan, moving towards a “coherent national waste management framework”.
The new document, known as the Plan national de gestion des matières et des déchets radioactifs (PNGMDR), sets out national procedures for the management of radioactive materials and radioactive waste in France.
The plan was announced on 4 June 2010 by ASN president André-Claude Lacoste and Pierre-Franck Chevet, director-general of energy and climate within the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea.
First published in 2007, the plan led to proposals for two long-term storage facilities. One would be a retrievable deep geological repository for long-lived high- and medium-level radioactive waste (beyond 2025). The other would be a shallow underground storage facility for long-lived low-level waste, which French waste management agency Andra is expected to establish for 2012.
The revised 2010 plan proposes:
• Further progress towards the establishment of the two facilities long-term storage facilities outlined in the 2007 plan;
• Increased research for the conditioning of waste types such as long-lived medium-level waste;
• The retrieval of old radioactive waste currently in temporary storage for depositing in longer-term facilities, and the assessment of current temporary facilities; and,
• The management of high-value materials such as depleted uranium, plutonium and thorium and their assessment for future use and/or storage as waste.
The 147-page plan is the product of a working group led by the DGEC and ASN, involving waste producers, waste management agencies and political and administrative representatives.
Highlighting the plan’s importance, Mr Chevet said the establishment of long-term management procedures for radioactive waste which as yet had no long-term solutions was “the most important” matter in the next few years.
“In France, nearly 90 percent of the volume of radioactive waste has long-term solutions”, he said. “Although the management framework [in France] is already solid, the PNGMDR is proposing new measures to progress even further in the sustainable management of radioactive waste and materials.”
“For the ASN, all radioactive waste must eventually be subject to a procedure of elimination”, added Mr Lacoste. “In most cases, this procedure should end with permanent storage. A number of these storage facilities exist already. Radioactive waste which doesn’t have [these] is, until that storage becomes available, stored and monitored in conditions which the ASN considers to be sufficient.”
