ASN Report 2018

AUVERGNE-RHÔNE-ALPES REGIONAL OVERVIEWOF NUCLEAR SAFETY AND RADIATION PROTECTION P35 facility Following on from the delicensing process of the Pierrelatte DBNI by decision of the Prime Minister, the «P35» facility, BNI 179, has been created. This facility comprises ten uranium storage buildings. ASN registered this facility in January 2018 and has ascertained, with ASND, the continuity of oversight of the nuclear safety of these storage areas. The installation baseline requirements are currently being overhauled to ensure conformity with the regulatory texts applicable to BNIs. The first inspection conducted by ASN in 2018 revealed no anomalies. Alongside this, under the project to group together the Tricastin site storage areas within a single BNI – the Tricastin uranium-bearing material storage areas BNI, Areva – now called Orano Cycle – filed an application with the Minister responsible for Nuclear Safety in late 2017 to merge BNIs 178 and 179. Tricastin Analysis Laboratories (Atlas) Atlas (BNI 176) was authorised by Decree 2015‑1210 of 30 September 2015 and commissioned in May 2017. The facility represents a significant improvement in safety compared with the old laboratories it replaces. Two of the three UF 6 analysis and sampling benches were commissioned in February 2018 following validation of the prior test results. Commissioning of the last bench, which will finalise the complete commissioning of the facility, is planned for 2019. During its inspections ASN noted shortcomings in the traceability of proof of conformity of the facilities with the safety requirements and in the traceability of deviations. It thus revealed the fact that the fire hatches of the facility did not undergo a systematic verification of conformity during acceptance of the facility. At the request of ASN, a fire hatch verification campaign was carried out and the noncompliant hatches were rendered compliant in 2018. ASN also considers that the licensee must improve the management of the waste storage areas and the associated traceability, themanagement of fire loads, the monitoring of service providers and the tracking of its personnel training courses. Tricastin Operational Hot Unit (BCOT) The BCOT constitutes BNI 157. Operated by EDF, it is intended for the maintenance and storage of equipment and tooling, fuel elements excluded, coming fromcontaminated systems and equipment of the nuclear power reactors. ASN considers that the level of safety of the BCOT is on the whole satisfactory. In 2018, the BCOT continued the cutting up of the used control rod guide tubes from the pressurised water reactors operated by EDF. The operations should be completed in 2020 at the latest. The examination of the periodic safety review report led ASN to prescribe several improvement measures, particularly concerning worker radiation protection. In a letter dated 22 June 2017, EDF declared the final shutdown of the BCOT by 30 June 2020 at the latest. The storage and maintenance operations shall be now carried out on the Saint-Dizier maintenance base (Bamas). Transfer of the activities and the start of tooling disassembly began in 2018. New uranium storage facility project In February 2015, Orano Cycle informed ASN that it wanted to create a new BNI intended for storage on the Tricastin site of uranium-bearing materials resulting from fuel reprocessing. Orano Cycle has undertaken actions to optimise the site’s existing storage areas in order to push back the date they are filled to capacity from 2019 to 2021, and in November 2017 it filed an application for authorisation to create new storage buildings. In 2018, ASN informed the Minister responsible for Nuclear Safety that the content of the creation authorisation application was sufficient for its examination to continue in 2019. 34  ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018