Is Entombment an Acceptable Option for Decommissioning? An International Perspective - 13488
- US Department of Energy (United States)
- Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (Belgium)
- Scientific and Engineering Centre on Safety in Nuclear Energy (United States)
- Institut de radioprotection et de surete nucleaire (France)
- US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (United States)
- International Atomic Energy Agency (Austria)
Selection of a decommissioning strategy is one of the key steps in the preparation for decommissioning of nuclear facilities and other facilities using radioactive material. Approaches being implemented or considered by Member States include immediate dismantling, deferred dismantling and entombment. Other options or slight modifications of these strategies are also possible. Entombment has been identified in the current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safety Standards as one of the three basic decommissioning strategies and has been defined as a decommissioning strategy by which radioactive contaminants are encased in a structurally long lived material until radioactivity decays to a level permitting the unrestricted release of the facility, or release with restrictions imposed by the regulatory body. Although all three strategies have been considered, in principle, applicable to all facilities, their application to some facilities may not be appropriate owing to political concerns, safety or environmental requirements, technical considerations, local conditions or financial considerations. The IAEA is currently revising the decommissioning Safety Standards and one of the issues widely discussed has been the applicability of entombment in the context of decommissioning and its general objective to enable removal of regulatory control from the decommissioned facility. The IAEA recently established a consultancy to collect and discuss experience and lessons learned from entombment projects, to identify regulatory requirements and expectations for applying entombment as a decommissioning option strategy, in compliance with the internationally agreed standards. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9-332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22225069
- Report Number(s):
- INIS-US-13-WM-13488; TRN: US14V0646046024
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: WM2013: Waste Management Conference: International collaboration and continuous improvement, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 24-28 Feb 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 13 refs.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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