ASN Report 2018

This second version of this draft will likewise be subject to consultation by the stakeholders in 2019. The conclusions of these initial works are nevertheless already used in the ASN examination of the license application and to set license conditions. 4.3  ̶  The other suppliers of sources • Evaluation of radiation protection Suppliers of radioactive sources, cyclotrons excluded, propose technical solutions for the industrial, medical and research sectors. Suppliers may be manufacturers of "bare" sources or of devices containing sealed radioactive sources, manufacturers of unsealed sources, or distributors who import sources from other countries. Whatever the case, ASN examines the license applications submitted by these suppliers for the sources they wish to distribute in France. In 2018, 29 inspections of suppliers of sources other than cyclotrons were conducted at manufacturers/distributors of sealed and unsealed sources, companies involved in the removal of ICSDs, companies recovering lightning conductors and companies maintaining X-ray generators (although they do not yet have a distribution license, the utilisation of these devices is regulated, including the maintenance operations carried out by the companies that sell them). These inspections have covered about a third of the suppliers with safety-significant business, with specific inspection indicators directed at their responsibilities as source suppliers, for example the recovery of disused sealed sources to dispose of them appropriately considering the radiation risks they present for people and the environment. ASN considers the radiation protection situation in these companies to be satisfactory on the whole. The large majority of the licensees concerned meet the main requirements and assume their responsibilities (verifications prior to supply, technical verifications of the supplied sources, setting up the source recovery streams, transmission of information to IRSN) adequately. Nevertheless, the inspections carried out in 2018 also revealed points requiring particular attention, including in particular: ∙ ∙ the ability of the suppliers to fully and exhaustively track the sources from initial supply through to end-of-life recovery. This is because tracking is often incomplete and the expired or soon-to-expire sources (10 years administrative limit counting from the date of the 1st registration figuring on the IRSN supply form) are not identified sufficiently far in advance, which slows down the recovery procedure; ∙ ∙ the ability of the suppliers to ascertain beforehand, and particularly for unsealed sources, that the delivery of a source will not lead to the customer's license limits being exceeded. This has led to the reporting of some significant radiation protection events. It should be noted that the national indicators deployed in 2018 will have been applied to nearly all the suppliers with safety- significant business (excluding cyclotrons) at the end of 2020, thereby enabling this assessment to be supplemented. LA RÉUNION GUADELOUPE Joint use Research Production for medical applications On standby Location of cyclotrons in France ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018  253 08 – SOURCES OF IONISING RADIATION AND THEIR INDUSTRIAL, VETERINARY AND RESEARCH APPLICATIONS 08