Les cahiers de l'ASN #04 - DECOMMISSIONING CHALLENGES

In France, nearly 40 CEA civil and defence nuclear facilities have been finally shut down or are being decommissioned. The ageing and varied design of these facilities did not take account either of decommissioning or of radioactive waste management in accordance with current safety requirements. Given the number and complexity of the operations to be carried out, CEA defined priorities, based primarily on an analysis of the potential hazards, in order to mitigate the risks presented by these facilities. The highest-priority operations concern certain individual facilities on the defence basic nuclear installation (DBNI) in Marcoule (Gard département), as well as on the BNIs* in Saclay (Essonne département) and Cadarache (Bouches-du-Rhône département). An accident in one of these facilities could lead to significant nuclear safety and radiation protection consequences. With regard to the lower priority facilities, CEA is moving towards a “two-stage” decommissioning of each facility. First of all, most of the dispersible radiological inventory* will be removed. Secondly, following a potentially lengthy period of interruption, the operations will be completed. The resulting surveillance, upkeep and operations needed to maintain a sufficient level of safety in these facilities, for a period of decades up until delicensing*, will significantly increase the final cost of the decommissioning of all the CEA facilities. Moreover, the priority decommissioning of facilities with significant safety implications will lead to the modification of the regulatory requirements already issued for those facilities for which decommissioning is postponed. A strategy that ranks the priorities according to the risks, taking account of limited resources ASN’S POSITION • In their joint opinion of 27 May 2019, ASN and the Defence Nuclear Safety Authority (ASND) confirmed the overall pertinence of the prioritisation proposed by CEA, taking account of the resources allocated by the State and the large number of nuclear facilities being decommissioned, which implies massive investment. • ASN and ASND have concerns regarding the human and financial resources that are planned in order to address all the situations with safety implications or the most significant environmental harmful effects in the coming 10 years. A specific investment effort, as well as the creation of engineering units and the reinforcement of the safety teams dedicated to these projects, would seem to be necessary. • If these projects are to progress, the licensee’s oversight capabilities will have to be reinforced, allied with rigorous and transparent State monitoring of CEA’s actions, in terms ofcost, time and effectiveness. • The public must be regularly informed of the progress of the programme as a whole. For more information, scan this QR code. Decommissioning challenges • 15

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