ASN Report 2017

444 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 16  - Radioactive waste and contaminated sites and soils The Manche repository - BNI 66 The Manche Waste Disposal Facility (CSM), which was commissioned in 1969, was the first radioactive waste repository operated in France. 527,225 m 3 of waste packages are emplaced in it. The CSM stopped accepting waste in July 1994. In application of Decree 2016-846 of 28th June 2016 relative to the modification, final shutdown and decommissioning of BNIs and subcontracting, the CSM is no longer considered to be in the monitoring phase but in decommissioning (operations prior to its closure) until the long-term cover has been definitively put in place. An ASN resolution will specify the duration of the operations in question and the minimum duration of the monitoring phase. ASN considers that the state and the operation of the CSM are satisfactory. Andra must however continue its efforts to reinforce the stability of the cover and to eliminate the residual infiltrations of water into the repository at the edge of the membrane. Furthermore, the examination of the periodic safety review guidance file led ASN to remind Andra of the additional technical information required for the dimensioning of the long-term cover, initially requested for 1st September 2017, and that in 2018 Andra was to submit the progress of the work to preserve and transmit the memory of the site, and information on analyses of the impact of the BNI. In 2016, Greenpeace France lodged a complaint concerning tritium contamination of the water table, which resulted to a large extent from the disposal in 1976 of waste with a high tritium content. The complaint was dismissed by the public prosecutor in June 2017. With regard to the updating of the regulatory baseline, a new version of the on-site emergency plan was authorised by ASN in April 2017. Examination of Andra’s request to modify the BNI perimeter of the facility in order to extend the perimeter to the limits of ownership of the facility continued in 2017 and should be completed in 2018. The Aube repository - BNI 149 Authorised by the Decree of 4th September 1989, the Aube repository (CSA) took over from the Manche repository (CMS), benefiting at the same time from its experience. This facility, situated in Soulaines-Dhuys, has a disposal capacity of one million cubic metres of LL/IL-SL waste. The operations authorised on the facility include waste packaging by injection of mortar into metal crates of 5 m 3 or 10 m 3 volume, or by compacting 200-litre drums. At the end of 2017, the volume of waste in the repository was about 325,600 m 3 , or 32.6% of the authorised capacity. According to the estimates Andra made in the concluding report on the periodic safety review of the CSA in 2016, the CSA could be filled to maximum capacity by 2062 instead of 2042 as initially forecast, this new estimate being based on better knowledge of the future waste and the waste delivery schedules. In 2017, Andra continued the modification work on the package inspection facility aiming to give the site more efficient means for checking the quality of the packages received at the CSA. The last additional information was provided by Andra in 2017. The commissioning of this facility, planned for 2018, will require an ASN authorisation. In 2017, Andra also sent ASN an application for a license to receive disused sealed sources from the licensees CIS bio international and the CEA. The technical examination of the CSA periodic safety review, for which the concluding report was submitted in 2016, continued in 2017. It formed the subject of an inspection on 1st and 2nd June 2017 and an opinion from the GPD and the GPU on 8th February 2018. ASN will rule on the conditions for continued operation of this repository in 2018. ASN considers that the CSA is operated satisfactorily, in line with previous years. 1.3.3 Management of High-Level and Intermediate-Level, Long-Lived (HL/ILW-LL) waste The Act of 28th June 2006, in continuity with the Act of 30th December 1991, states that research into the management of HL/ILW-LL waste shall be pursued in three complementary directions: separation and transmutation of long-lived radioactive elements, storage, and reversible disposal in a deep geological repository. Separation/Transmutation Separation/transmutation processes aim to isolate and then transform long-lived radionuclides in radioactive waste into shorter-lived radionuclides or even stable elements. The transmutation of the minor actinides contained in the waste could have an impact on the size of the disposal facility, by reducing both the heating power and the harmfulness of the packages placed in it and the repository inventory. However, the impact of the disposal facility on the biosphere, which originates essentially from the mobility of the fission and activation products, would not be significantly reduced. On the basis of the interim report on the industrial prospects of the separation/transmutation processes submitted by the CEA in 2015 under the PNGMDR, ASN issued its opinion on 25th February 2016. It considers that the expected gains from the transmutation of minor actinides in terms of safety, radiation protection and waste management do not appear to be decisive, particularly given the resulting constraints on the fuel cycle facilities, the reactors and the transport operations, which would involve highly radioactive materials at all stages of the fuel cycle.  ASN also considers that these same gains do not eliminate the need for a deep disposal repository and could only bring a tangible reduction in the footprint of a future repository on the assumption of hundreds of years of operation of a sufficiently large fleet of fast-neutron breeder reactors to ensure the consistency of the cycle as a whole. Storage
 A second line of research and studies in the Act of 28th June 2006 concerns the storage of waste. The long-term storage of waste has not been retained as a solution for the final management of radioactive waste.