Radioactive waste management in France: taking-up present and future challenges - 15120
- AREVA France (France)
The reduction of the volume and radiotoxicity of radioactive waste has been one of the key drivers for the implementation of the French nuclear program. Interactions between the nuclear industry, the administration, the competent authorities and other stakeholders including the civil society has led to a continuous evolution of the industrial facilities, practices, solutions and products to move towards waste minimization. Bringing a solution to the management of ultimate radioactive waste is clearly a requirement for the sustainable development of nuclear energy whose crucial role in the world's future energy mix has been confirmed in the past few months by several international organizations. The first question to be answered concerns the definition of radioactive waste. This notion may be seen as self-evident. It is not. For example, used fuel is considered a High Level Waste in Finland or Sweden, but a recyclable material in countries including China, France, India, Japan, Russia, and the Netherlands. In France, a definition is provided by law to clarify this notion. Indeed, the 2006 French law concerning the Sustainable Management of Radioactive Materials and Waste stipulates that 'ultimate radioactive waste shall include any radioactive waste for which no further processing is possible under current technical and economic conditions, notably by extracting their recoverable fraction or by reducing their polluting or hazardous character'. Used fuel is thus reprocessed in order to reduce the final waste volume and long term radiotoxicity, while extracting value from the recovered materials. Even if the general approach and the processes may be common for waste management, it is important to clearly make the distinction between the wastes stemming from used fuel processing or conditioning (when considered as waste), the wastes generated through the operation of nuclear power plants and fuel cycle facilities, and the waste arising from the dismantling of nuclear installations. After a brief overview of the different types of waste stemming from nuclear power generation, this paper will review solutions and processes already implemented for their safe and efficient management. It will also practically illustrate the evolution of these processes and related facilities to further gain in efficiency, notably in terms of volume reduction; the related R and D outcomes will be addressed. It will also describe the upcoming challenges in this field and the envisioned solutions to respond to them; the efficiency, the completeness and consistency of these solutions with the currently considered global framework, based on a stepwise and long term approach from waste generation to disposal, will also be analyzed. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22822679
- Report Number(s):
- INIS-US-19-WM-15120; TRN: US19V0669067594
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: WM2015: Annual Waste Management Symposium, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 15-19 Mar 2015; Other Information: Country of input: France; 7 refs.; Available online at: http://archive.wmsym.org/2015/index.html
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Radioactive Waste Management - It's Role in contributing and achieving Sustainability. R1.13 The French strategy of waste management: technical and political dimensions of sustainability
Management of radioactive waste in France-policy, issues, and solutions
Related Subjects
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
CHINA
FINLAND
FRANCE
FUEL CYCLE
FUEL REPROCESSING PLANTS
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
INDIA
JAPAN
NETHERLANDS
NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
POLLUTION ABATEMENT
POWER GENERATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
REPROCESSING
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
SAFETY
SPENT FUELS
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
SWEDEN