ASN Report 2017

394 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 14  - Nuclear research and miscellaneous industrial facilities 1. CEA installations The CEA centres comprise facilities dedicated to research (experimental reactors, laboratories, etc.), as well as “support” facilities for the storage of waste, treatment of effluents and so on. The research carried out by CEA more particularly concerns the operating life of the NPPs, reactors of the future, nuclear fuel performance or the reprocessing and packaging of nuclear waste. The CEA facilities undergoing clean-out or decommissioning are covered in chapter 15 and those devoted to the management of waste and spent fuels are covered in chapter 16. 1.1 The year’s notable generic subjects The inspection campaigns and analysis of the lessons learned from operation of the facilities or from examination of the safety files enable a number of priority generic topics to be defined for ASN oversight. In 2017, the generic topics concerned: ཛྷ ཛྷ the management of safety and radiation protection (see point 1.1.2); ཛྷ ཛྷ the periodic safety reviews (CEA’s transmission of 16 conclusion reports at the end of 2017, see point 1.1.4); ཛྷ ཛྷ the new decommissioning and waste management strategy, covering all CEA facilities, implemented at the beginning of 2017. In October  2017, the ASN commission called the CEA Chairman to a hearing concerning: ཛྷ ཛྷ implementation of CEA’s “major commitments”; ཛྷ ཛྷ changes to the safety organisation; ཛྷ ཛྷ the reorganisation of CEA implemented at the beginning of 2017 with regard to decommissioning, post-operational clean-out and management of radioactive waste; ཛྷ ཛྷ the progress of the work linked to the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident; ཛྷ ཛྷ the future of CEA’s Saclay centre. N uclear research or industrial facilities differ from the BNIs involved directly in the generation of electricity (reactors and fuel cycle facilities) or the disposal of waste. These BNIs are operated by the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), by other research organisations (for example the Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL), the ITER international organisation and the Ganil) or by industrial firms (for instance CIS bio international, Synergy Health and Ionisos, which operate facilities producing radiopharmaceuticals, or industrial irradiators). The variety of the activities covered by these BNIs and their past history explains the wide diversity of facilities concerned. The safety principles applicable to these facilities are similar to those applied to power reactors and nuclear fuel cycle facilities, while taking account of their specificities with regard to risks and detrimental effects. With this in mind, ASN has divided the facilities it oversees and regulates into three categories defined by ASN resolution 2015-DC-0523 of 29th September 2015. The resolution establishes a classification of BNIs according to their risks and detrimental effects for the interests mentioned in Article L. 593-1 of the Environment Code (see chapter 3). 1.1.1 Experience feedback from the Fukushima Daiichi accident In the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, ASN undertook stress tests of the nuclear facilities. The approach consists in assessing the safety margins in the facilities with regard to the loss of electrical power, or cooling, and with regard to extreme natural hazards. In May 2011, ASN instructed CEA to carry out stress tests on the BNIs with the highest risks in the light of the Fukushima Daiichi accident (batch 1). For the CEA BNIs in batch 1 and in the light of the conclusions of the stress tests, ASN ordered the implementation of appropriate organisational and material measures on 26th June 2012, referred to as the “hardened safety core” (see chapter 12). The stress tests were continued for a second group (batch 2) of 22 facilities with lesser safety implications. These include CEA research facilities. The emergency management resources on the Cadarache and Marcoule sites underwent stress tests as part of this second batch. On 8th January 2015, ASN imposed binding requirements on CEA concerning the “hardened safety core” of its facilities, along with the implementation deadlines, which run until 2018 (see Figure 1). Finally, for the thirty or so other facilities with lesser safety implications (batch 3), ASN set out a calendar on 21st November 2013 for CEA to submit the stress test reports, a process which will run until 2020 (see Figure 2). In 2017, ASN 1 considered that the steps taken by CEA for emergency management and for emergency situations, with regard to extreme “hardened safety core situation” type scenarios, are on the whole satisfactory. These provisions are notably presented in the On-site Emergency Plans (PUI) for the CEA centres and, with regard to long-term management, specify the interfaces between the centre affected by the event 1 . ASN resolutions of 8th January 2015.