ASN Report 2017

39 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 In 2018, it will issue a position statement on the CEA’s new decommissioning and waste management strategy, covering all the facilities. ASN will be particularly attentive to compliance with the deadlines for transmission of the decommissioning files for CEA’s old facilities which have been or will shortly be shut down (in particular Phébus, Osiris, Orphée, MCMF, LECA, Eole-Minerve). The drafting of all these decommissioning files and then performance of the decommissioning operations represent a major challenge for CEA, for which it must actively prepare. In 2018, ASN also intends to: ཛྷ ཛྷ continue monitoring the construction of the RJH; ཛྷ ཛྷ start the examination of the authorisation application for the substantial modification of Masurca (in-depth refurbishment, notably with the construction of a new storage and handling building). Other licensees ASN will continue to pay particular attention to monitoring the facilities being built, that is ITER and the Ganil extension. ASN will remain vigilant with regard to the safety organisation put into place at Ganil and to compliance with ASN’s requirements, more specifically those resulting from the last periodic safety review. ASNwill also remain vigilant with regard to the expected improvements at ILL, in particular for management of material modifications and the management of periodic checks and tests, as well as the satisfactory implementation in 2018 of the new ILL integrated management system, for which deployment began in 2017. Finally, ASN will maintain its reinforced monitoring of CIS bio international in 2018. Decommissioning covers all the activities carried out after shutdown of a nuclear facility, following which the facility can be delicensed. In 2017, 35 nuclear facilities of all types (power and research reactors, laboratories, fuel reprocessing plants, waste treatment facilities, etc.) had been shutdown or were undergoing decommissioning in France, representing more than one quarter of all BNIs. Significant events and assessment 2017 was notably marked by the examination of the decommissioning and waste management strategies for the CEA and Areva facilities. EDF also gave ASN confirmation of its intention to carry out final shutdown of the Fessenheim NPP once the Flamanville EPR is commissioned: the final shutdown declaration has not yet been sent. In 2017, ASN called EDF to a hearing about its change in decommissioning strategy for its Gas-Cooled Reactors (GCR) and initiated an examination of the acceptability of this new strategy in the light of the regulatory requirements which demand decommissioning of nuclear facilities as rapidly as possible. ASN also inspected EDF on this subject at the end of 2017. A comparison of these strategy files with the three-year files updating the long- term costs to be borne by the licensees, examined by ASN on behalf of the Government, shows that the time-lines linked to the technical scenarios and budgets associatedwith decommissioning are managed by the licensees with difficulty. At this stage, ASN considers that the decommissioning context is a subject of concern for the medium- term. Thus, the financial aspects and the lack of technical expertise in complex projects can lead the licensees to postpone decommissioning, notwithstanding the requirements of the law. 2017 was marked by the final shutdown of BNIs 92 (Phébus reactor), 42 (ÉOLE reactor), 95 (Minerve reactor) and 53 (MCMF) operated by CEA. 15 Decommissioning of basic nuclear installations Significant events and outlook