It more particularly urges continuation of the work undertaken under the PNGMDR 2016-2018, such as the consolidation of the inventories of the various families of LLW-LL waste and the periodic reassessment of storage needs, notably in order to allow the decommissioning of the nuclear facilities. As at 31 December 2019, the producers and holders of LLW-LL waste indicated that their storage capacities for this type of waste were sufficient for the next 30 years. ASN considers that, on the basis of a multi-criteria analysis, Andra should submit the outlines of various technical and safety options for the near-surface disposal facilities for LLW-LL waste, comparing the health and environmental effects of the various options envisaged. All of the stakeholders concerned, in particular the representatives of the localities actually or liable to be concerned, must be involved more actively in defining the LLW-LL waste management solutions. ASN also recommends setting time milestones for Andra’s next design stages (preliminary design study and then safety options file), for a near-surface disposal project for LLW-LL waste in the Vendeuvre-Soulaines municipality federation, which will be incorporated into this general strategy. In its opinion of 6 August 2020, ASN considers that the legacy RTCU waste, as a conservative measure, and the RTCU waste produced as from 1 January 2019 must, in application of Article 63 of the Order of 23 February 2017, be registered in the LLW-LL category. The waste must be better integrated in the current work on the LLW-LL waste management scenarios. ASN recommends that the studies of a near-surface RTCU waste disposal facility, under reworked cover (either in the pit of the former open-cast mine, or in a new pit yet to be built), be continued, involving the representatives of the localities actually or liable to be concerned. The aim is to provide the technical and safety options for this facility at a level of maturity corresponding to a pre-feasibility study, before 30 June 2024. The 5th edition of the PNGMDR is intended, during its implementation, to clarify the possible management scenarios for all LLW-LL waste and to analyse it applying several criteria in order to stabilise an overall management strategy. The main question is to define the scope of the waste that could be emplaced in the facility planned to be set up on the site of the municipal federation of Vendeuvre‑Soulaines and to identify the additional needs for disposal sites, sites whose locations shall be sought under regulated conditions. 1.3.4 High-level and intermediate-level long-lived waste Following on from the Act of 30 December 1991, the Act of 28 June 2006 provides for the research into the management of HLW and ILW-LL radioactive waste to be continued along three complementary lines: separation and transmutation of the long-lived radionuclides, interim storage and reversible deep geological disposal. Separation/transmutation The report of the Special Public Debates Commission of 25 November 2019 concerning the public debate prior to the 5th edition of the PNGMDR concludes in particular that “there are two options, each one defended by a portion of the actors: deep geological disposal and interim sub-surface storage for a sufficient length of time to allow progress to be made in transmutation research in order to reduce the radioactivity of the waste.” Separation/transmutation processes aim to isolate and then transform the long-lived radionuclides in radioactive waste into shorter-lived radionuclides or even stable elements. The transmutation of the minor actinides contained in the waste would have an impact on the size of the disposal facility, by reducing both the heating power, the harmfulness of the packages placed in it and the repository inventory. Despite this however, the impact of the disposal facility on the biosphere, which originates essentially from the mobility of the radionuclides contained in the fission and activation products, would not be significantly reduced. In its opinion 2020-AV-0369 of 1 December 2020, ASN points out that the prospects of industrial- scale transmutation of the already packaged waste of the Cigéo reference inventory are not credible. It considers that, although transmutation studies should be continued, they should concern radioactive substances currently qualified as materials or the waste produced by a future fleet of reactors and that they should be carried out with a view to developing complete solutions, including the disposal of the waste resulting from transmutation and offering a high level of safety. Lastly, at the end of 2021, ASN underlined the interest of the definition proposed by the CNE2 in its Assessment Report No. 15 concerning the notion of alternatives to deep geological disposal, which in its opinion remains the reference solution for managing the most highly radioactive waste. Storage The second line of research and studies in the Act of 28 June 2006 concerns the storage of waste. The long-term storage of high-level long-lived waste (HLW-LL), which was one of the lines of research provided for in the Act of 30 December 1991, has not been retained as a definitive management solution for this type of radioactive waste. Storage facilities are nevertheless indispensable pending commissioning of the deep geological disposal facility, to allow the cooling of certain types of waste and then to accompany the industrial operation of the disposal facility, which will develop in stages. Furthermore, if operations to remove emplaced packages were to be decided on in the context of the reversibility of the repository, storage facilities would be needed. Reception of the first radioactive waste packages for deep geological disposal is now planned for around 2040. The Act of 28 June 2006 tasked Andra with coordinating the re– search and studies on the storage of HL and ILW-LL waste, which are therefore part of the approach of complementarity with the reversible repository. This law stipulated more specifically that the research and studies on storage should, by 2015 at the latest, allow new storage facilities to be created or existing facilities to be modified to meet the needs identified by the PNGMDR, particularly in terms of capacity and duration. Progress in storage In 2013, Andra submitted a report on the research and studies carried out. This report more particularly presented the established inventory of future storage needs, the exploration of the complementarity between storage and disposal, studies and research on engineering and on the phenomenological behaviour of the warehouses and a review of innovative technical options. From 2013 to 2015, Andra conducted more in-depth studies into storage concepts linked to repository reversibility. This concerns facilities which, if necessary, would accept packages removed from the repository. For such facilities, Andra looked for versatility which would allow simultaneous or successive storage of packages of various types in their primary form or placed in disposal overpacks. In the study it submitted in 2013, Andra stated that it had stopped its research into near-surface storage facilities. It justified abandoning this operation in particular because of the greater complexity of this type of facility (consideration of the presence of underground water and the need for ventilation if exothermal waste was emplaced, surveillance of the civil 352 ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2021 14 – RADIOACTIVE WASTE AND CONTAMINATED SITES AND SOILS
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