NUCLEAR ENERGY: BENEFITS VERSUS RISKS
BENCHMARK III
Student Anastasia Gorbunova
Teacher Olga Cherepanova
Seversk Gymnasia
Seversk
2008
CONTENTS
1. Introduction.
2. The manageability of nuclear
waste.
3. Types of radioactive wastes.
4. Recycling used fuel.
5. RussiaÕs radioactive
management program.
6. Nuclear Renaissance in the Age
of Global Warming.
7. Modernization and safety.
8. Nuclear safety.
9. Conclusion.
INTRODUCTION
In 1997 Russia started a new program of the nuclear energetic
development that involves modernization of the active nuclear power plants,
completion of initiated construction, and placing into commercial operation of
3 new reactors within next five years. New nuclear power plants will be built
on already developed industrial territories.
The safety of nuclear objects, safe removal of nuclear power plants from
service, and disposal of radioactive wastes remain the main problems of the
nuclear energetics. By now tens of billion curie
radioactive wastes are accumulated on the Earth. The most
"contaminated" is the process of conversion of used nuclear fuel from
military reactors used for production of weapon plutonium. Last reactor of this
type was stopped in the USA in 1988. In Russia 5 remaining reactors were
converted for production of electric energy or dual-use isotopes. The used fuel
from nuclear power plants has the highest rate of accumulation. Worldwide, its
discharge rate exceeds 9 000 ton per year. Supposedly, 220 thousand ton of used
fuel will accumulate on the planet by the year of 2000. In Russia the total
amount of accumulated used nuclear fuel is estimated as 10 000 ton with total
radioactivity about 5 billion curie.
Modern specialists consider two possible approaches to the solution of
the radioactive waste problem: closed fuel cycle when used fuel is used for
secondary extraction of uranium and plutonium for repeated use, and the open
fuel cycle, when the used fuel is buried. In the open fuel cycle only 1% of
uranium is used, whereas the rest goes into the dumps of enriching plants or
becomes used fuel. The efficiency of the closed cycle is much higher from the
point of view of uranium utilization, but the process of separation and
extraction of uranium and plutonium is accompanied by production of large
amount of radioactive wastes.
In Russian practice two methods of dealing with used nuclear fuel are
accepted:
In actual practice, the closed fuel cycle is not complete because
extracted plutonium accumulates in storage and does not enter the fuel cycle,
and the open fuel cycle does not include the terminal stage of burial.
The problem of removal of nuclear power plants from service is also far
from being solved. In Russia the 30-year projected period of exploitation for
several nuclear units of 9 nuclear power plants will end by the year of 2001
and practically every year 1-2 nuclear units will have to be taken out service.
At the moment, 4 units are already stopped. In early 1997 the government
ordered a decree about financing the removal of nuclear power plants from service.
/www.rus-stat.ru/
THE MANAGEABILITY OF NUCLEAR WASTE
Radioactive wastes are waste types
containing radioactive chemical
elements that do not have a practical purpose. They are sometimes
the products of nuclear processes, such as nuclear
fission. However, industries not directly connected to the nuclear
industry can produce large quantities of radioactive waste. It has been
estimated, for instance, that the past 20 years the oil-producing endeavors of
the United States
have accumulated eight million tons of radioactive wastes.[1] The majority of radioactive waste is "low-level
waste", meaning it contains low levels of radioactivity per mass or volume. This
type of waste often consists of used protective clothing, which is only
slightly contaminated but still dangerous in case of radioactive contamination of a human body
through ingestion,
inhalation,
absorption, or injection. /www.wikipedia.org/
The issue of disposal methods for nuclear waste
was one of the most pressing current problems the international nuclear
industry faced when trying to establish a long term energy production plan, yet
there was hope it could be safely solved. Modern civilization produces huge quantities of industrial waste
requiring careful treatment and disposal. Among these, nuclear waste is
comparatively tiny in amount and highly manageable. In contrast, chemical
wastes are thousands of times greater in volume, can remain permanently toxic
and represent a disposal problem far more difficult.
Due to effective shielding and containment,
waste from civil nuclear power has never caused harm to any person or to the
environment. For nuclear waste that is highly radioactive, well-designed
long-term storage is needed while its radioactivity decays to natural levels.
Far form being an 'unsolvable' problem, waste
disposal is a comparative asset of nuclear energy - because there is so little.
The spent fuel produced yearly from all the world's reactors would fit inside a
two-storey structure built on a basketball court.
Geological Storage - A Natural
Solution Backed By Science
Are there stable geological locations that
could safely isolate nuclear waste from the biosphere? If you doubt this,
remember that trillions and trillions of liters of natural gas have remained
underground - in the same place - for many millions of years. In comparison,
the quantity of nuclear waste requiring permanent storage is minuscule. And far
from being a volatile gas or liquid, it is a solid and stable ceramic.
Nature had provided a good example of nuclear
waste 'storage'. About two billion years ago, in what is now Gabon in Africa, a
rich natural uranium deposit produced a spontaneous series of large nuclear
reactions. Since then, despite thousands of centuries of tropical rain and
subsurface water, the long-lived 'waste' from those 'reactors' has migrated
less than 10 meters.
Radiation scientists, geologists and engineers
have produced detailed plans for safe underground storage of nuclear waste. A
stable geological formation constitutes a highly reliable barrier. Extra layers
of protection come from 'multiple engineered barriers', including the ceramic
fuel itself and robust containers built for high-longevity. Geological
repositories are designed to ensure that harmful radiation would not reach the
surface even with severe earthquakes or the passage of time. Waste can be
retrieved if new technologies offer ways to reuse the material or hasten
radioactive decay. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Waste Management in the
Nuclear Fuel Cycle
- Nuclear power is the only energy-producing technology which takes
full responsibility for all its wastes and fully costs this into the
product.
- The amount of radioactive wastes is very small relative to wastes
produced by fossil fuel electricity generation.
- Used nuclear fuel may be treated as a resource or simply as a waste.
- The radioactivity of all nuclear wastes diminishes with time.
- Safe methods for the final disposal of high-level waste are
technically proven; the international consensus is that this should be
deep geological disposal.
/www.world-nuclear.org/
All parts of the nuclear fuel cycle produce
some radioactive waste (radwaste) and the cost of
managing and disposing of this is part of the electricity cost, i.e. it is
internalized.
At each stage of the fuel cycle there are
proven technologies to dispose of the radioactive wastes safely. In some cases,
however, they are not implemented because of public concerns or because they
are not presently needed.
The radioactivity of all nuclear waste decays
with time. Each radionuclide contained in the waste has a half-life - the time
taken for half of its atoms to decay and thus for it to lose half of its
radioactivity. Radionuclides with long half-lives
tend to be alpha and beta emitters - making their handling easier, while those
with short half lives tend to emit the more penetrating gamma rays.
Eventually all radioactive wastes decay into
non-radioactive elements. The more radioactive an isotope is, the faster it
decays.
The main objective in managing and disposing of
radioactive (or other) waste is to protect people and the environment. This
means isolating or diluting the waste so that the rate or concentration of any radionuclides returned to the biosphere is harmless. To
achieve this, practically all wastes are contained and managed - some clearly
need deep and permanent burial. None is allowed to cause harmful pollution.
In the OECD some 300 million tons of toxic
wastes are produced each year, but conditioned radioactive wastes amount to
only 81,000 cubic meters per year. In countries with nuclear power, radioactive
wastes comprise less than 1% of total industrial toxic wastes (the balance of
which remains hazardous indefinitely). /www.world-nuclear.org/
TYPES OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES
Exempt Waste &
Very Low Level Wastes:
Exempt waste and very low level waste (VLLW) is radioactive waste which
contains radioactive materials at a level which is not considered harmful to
people or the surrounding environment. It consists mainly of demolished
material (such as concrete, plaster, bricks, metal, valves, piping etc)
produced during rehabilitation or dismantling operations on nuclear industrial
sites. Other industries, such as food processing, chemical, steel etc also
produce VLLW as a result of the concentration of natural radioactivity present
in certain minerals used in their manufacturing processes (see also paper on
NORM). The waste is therefore disposed of with domestic refuse, although
countries such as France are currently developing facilities to store VLLW in
specifically designed VLLW disposal facilities.
Low-level Wastes
(LLW) are generated from
hospitals and industry, as well as the nuclear fuel cycle. It comprises paper,
rags, tools, clothing, filters etc which contain small
amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity. It does not require shielding
during handling and transport and is suitable for shallow land burial. To
reduce its volume, it is often compacted or incinerated before disposal. It
comprises some 90% of the volume but only 1% of the radioactivity of all radwaste.
Intermediate-level Wastes (ILW) contain higher amounts of radioactivity and some requires shielding. It
typically comprises resins, chemical sludges and
metal fuel cladding, as well as contaminated materials from reactor
decommissioning. Smaller items and any non-solids may be solidified in concrete
or bitumen for disposal. It makes up some 7% of the volume and has 4% of the
radioactivity of all radwaste.
Removal of very
low-level waste/www.wikipedia.org/
High-level Wastes
(HLW) arise from the use of
uranium fuel in a nuclear reactor. It contains the fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core. It is
highly radioactive and hot, so requires cooling and shielding. It can be
considered as the "ash" from "burning" uranium. HLW
accounts for over 95% of the total radioactivity produced in the process of
electricity generation. There are two distinct kinds of HLW:
- used fuel itself in fuel rods, or
- reprocessing waste
High Level Waste flasks
are transported by train in the United Kingdom. Each flask is constructed of
3 ft (0.91 m) thick solid steel and weighs in excess of 50 tons /www.wikipedia.org/
As described below. HLW may also be categorized
as long-lived or short-lived depending on the length of time it will take for
the radioactivity of that particular waste to decrease to levels that are
considered no longer hazardous for people and the surrounding environment.
/www.world-nuclear.org/
Managing HLW from used fuel
Storage
pond for used fuel at UK reprocessing plant /www.world-nuclear.org/
Used fuel gives rise to HLW which may be
either:
- the used fuel
itself in fuel rods, or
- the principal
waste arising from reprocessing this (see next section).
In either case, the amount is modest - about 27
tonnes of spent fuel or three cubic metres per year of vitrified waste for a typical large
nuclear reactor. Both can be effectively and economically isolated, and have
been handled and stored safely since nuclear power began.
/www.world-nuclear.org/
Storage is mostly in ponds at reactor sites, or
occasionally at a central site. Some 90% of the world's used fuel is stored
thus and some of it has been there for decades. The ponds are usually about
seven meters deep, to allow three meters of water over the used fuel to fully
shield it. The water also cools it. Some storage is in dry casks or vaults with
air circulation and the fuel is surrounded by concrete.
If the used fuel is reprocessed, as is that
from UK, French, Japanese and German reactors, HLW comprises highly-radioactive
fission products and some transuranic elements with
long-lived radioactivity. These are separated from the spent fuel, enabling the
uranium and plutonium to be recycled. The remaining HLW generates a
considerable amount of heat and requires cooling. It is vitrified into
borosilicate (Pyrex) glass, encapsulated into heavy stainless steel cylinders
about 1.3 meters high and stored for eventual disposal deep underground. This
material has no conceivable future use and is unequivocally waste.
The hulls and end-fittings of the reprocessed fuel assemblies are compacted, to
reduce volume, and usually incorporated into cement prior to disposal as ILW.
But if used reactor fuel is not reprocessed, it
will still contain all the highly radioactive isotopes, and then the entire
fuel assembly is treated as HLW for direct disposal. It too generates a lot of
heat and requires cooling. However, since it largely consists of uranium (with
a little plutonium), it represents a potentially valuable resource. Hence there
is an increasing reluctance to dispose of it irretrievably.
Either way, after 40-50 years the heat and
radioactivity have fallen to one thousandth of the level at removal. This
provides a technical incentive to delay further action with HLW until the
radioactivity has reduced to about 0.1% of its original level.
After storage for about 40 years the used fuel
assemblies are ready for encapsulation or loading into casks ready for
indefinite storage or permanent disposal underground.
Direct disposal of used fuel has been chosen by
the USA and Sweden among others, although evolving concepts lean towards making
it recoverable if future generations see it as a resource. This means allowing
for a period of management and oversight before a repository is closed.
Increasingly, reactors are using fuel enriched
to over 4% U-235 and burning it longer, to end up with less than 0.5% U-235 in
the spent fuel. This provides less incentive to reprocess. Used fuel from light
water reactors contains approximately:
95.6% uranium (less than 1% of which is U-235)
2.9% stable fission products
0.9% plutonium (about two thirds fissile Pu-239
& Pu-241)
0.3% cesium & strontium (fission products)
0.1% iodine and technetium (fission products)
0.1% other long-lived fission products
0.1% minor actinides (americium, curium, neptunium) /www.world-nuclear.org/
RECYCLING USED FUEL
Any used fuel will still contain some of the
original U-235 as well as various plutonium isotopes which have been formed
inside the reactor core, and the U-238. In total these account for some 96% of
the original uranium and over half of the original energy content (ignoring
U-238). Reprocessing, undertaken in Europe and Russia, separates this uranium and plutonium
from the wastes so that they can be recycled for re-use in a nuclear reactor as
a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. This is the "closed fuel cycle".
(This is very much what is to happen with the
tiny quantities of spent fuel from the Australian research reactor at Lucas
Heights near Sydney. Some of this spent fuel has been returned to Europe for
reprocessing, and the small amount of separated waste will eventually be
returned to Australia for disposal as intermediate-level waste.)
Plutonium arising from reprocessing comprises
only about 1% of commercial spent fuel. It is recycled through a MOX fuel
fabrication plant where it is mixed with depleted uranium oxide to make fresh
fuel. European reactors currently use over 5 tons of plutonium a year in fresh MOX fuel, although all reactors routinely burn much of the plutonium which is
continually formed in the core by neutron capture. The use of MOX simply means
that some plutonium is incorporated into fresh fuel. (Plutonium arising from
the civil nuclear fuel cycle is not suitable for bombs. It contains far too
much of the Pu-240 isotope because of the length of time the fuel has spent in
the reactor.)
Major commercial reprocessing plants operate in
France, UK, and Russia with a capacity of some 5000 tons per year and
cumulative civilian experience of 80,000 tons over 50 years. France and UK also
undertake reprocessing for utilities in other countries, notably Japan, which
has made over 140 shipments of used fuel to Europe since 1979. Until now most
Japanese used fuel is reprocessed in Europe, with the vitrified waste and the
recovered U and Pu (as MOX) being returned to Japan to be used in fresh fuel. Russia also
reprocesses some spent fuel from Soviet-designed reactors in other countries.
A proposed development of this reprocessing and
recycle is to separate plutonium with the minor actinides as one product. This
however cannot be simply put into MOX fuel and recycled in conventional reactors, it requires fast neutron reactors which are as yet
few and far between. However, it will make disposal of high-level wastes
easier.
Costs of radioactive waste
management
Financial provisions are made for managing all
kinds of civilian radioactive waste. The cost of managing and disposing of
nuclear power plant wastes represents about 5% of the total cost of the
electricity generated.
Most nuclear utilities are required by
governments to put aside a levy (e.g. 0.1 cents per kilowatt hour in the USA,
0.14 c/kWh in France) to provide for management and disposal of their wastes.
So far some US$ 28 billion had been committed to the US waste fund by
electricity consumers.
The actual arrangements for paying for waste
management and decommissioning also vary. The key objective is however always
the same: to ensure that sufficient funds are available when they are needed. /www.world-nuclear.org/
There
are three main approaches:
Provisions on the Balance Sheet
Sums to cover the anticipated costs of waste
management and decommissioning are included on the generating company's balance
sheet as a liability. As waste management and decommissioning work proceeds,
the company has to ensure that it has sufficient investments and cash flow to
meet the required payments.
Internal Fund
Payments are made over the life of the nuclear
facility into a special fund that is held and administered within the company.
The rules for the management of the fund vary, but many countries allow the
fund to be re-invested in the assets of the company, subject to adequate
securities and investment returns.
External Fund
Payments are made into a fund that is held
outside the company, often within Government or administered by a group of
independent Trustees. Again, rules for the management of the fund vary. Some
countries only allow the fund to be used for waste management and
decommissioning purposes, others allow companies to borrow a percentage of the
fund to reinvest in their business.
Further reading: NEA Report: The Economics of
the Nuclear Fuel Cycle (external site)
Disposing of used fuel and other
HLW
There is about 270,000 tons of spent fuel in
storage, much of it at reactor sites. About 90% of this is in ponds, the
balance in dry storage. Annual arisings of used fuel
are about 12,000 tons, and 3000 tons of this goes for reprocessing. Final
disposal is not urgent in any logistics sense.
To ensure that no significant environmental releases occur over tens of thousands of years, 'multiple barrier' disposal is planned. This immobilizes the radioactive elements in HLW and some ILW and isolates them from the biosphere. The main barriers are:
- Immobilize
waste in an insoluble matrix such as borosilicate glass or synthetic rock
(fuel pellets are already a very stable ceramic: UO2);
- Seal it inside
a corrosion-resistant container, such as stainless steel;
- Locate it deep
underground in a stable rock structure; and
- Surround
containers with an impermeable backfill such as bentonite
clay if the repository is wet.
HLW from reprocessing must be solidified.
France has two commercial plants to vitrify HLW left over from reprocessing
oxide fuel, and there are also significant plants in the UK and Belgium. The
capacity of these western European plants is 2,500 canisters (1000 t) a year,
and some have been operating for three decades.
/www.world-nuclear.org/
Loading silos with canisters containing
vitrified high-level waste in UK, each disc on the floor covers a silo holding
ten canisters
The Australian Synroc (synthetic rock) system is a more
sophisticated way to immobilize such waste, and this process may eventually
come into commercial use for civil wastes.
To date there has been no practical need for
final HLW repositories, as surface storage for 40-50 years is first required so
that heat and radioactivity can decay to levels which make handling and storage
easier.
The process of selecting appropriate deep
geological repositories is now under way in several countries with the first
expected to be commissioned some time after 2010. Finland and Sweden are well
advanced with plans and site selection for direct disposal of used fuel, since
their Parliaments decided to proceed on the basis that it was safe, using
existing technology. The US has opted for a final repository in Nevada. There
have also been proposals for international HLW repositories in optimum geology
- Australia or Russia are possible locations.
/www.world-nuclear.org/
An indepth statement
with reference to particular countries' waste policies and actions was
published by the International Nuclear Societies Council in 1999, Radioactive Waste Task Group.
The question is whether wastes should be
emplaced so that they are readily retrievable from repositories. While there
are sound reasons for keeping such options open, long-tern security is also
vital. After being buried for about 1,000 years most of the radioactivity will
have decayed. The amount of radioactivity then remaining would be similar to
that of the naturally-occurring uranium ore from which it originated, though it
would be more concentrated.
The appended table indicates the measures that
various countries have in place or planned to store, reprocess and dispose of
used fuel and wastes. It is not comprehensive.
Disposing of other radioactive
wastes
Generally, short-lived intermediate-level
wastes (mainly from decommissioning reactors - see next section) are buried,
while long-lived intermediate-level wastes (from fuel reprocessing) will be
disposed of deep underground. Low-level wastes are disposed of in shallow
burial sites.
Some low-level liquid wastes from reprocessing
plants are discharged to the sea. These include radionuclides
which are distinctive, notably technetium-99 (sometimes used as a tracer in
environmental studies), and this can be discerned many hundred kilometers away.
However, such discharges are regulated and controlled, and the maximum
radiation dose anyone receives from them is a small fraction of natural background.
Nuclear power stations and reprocessing plants
release small quantities of radioactive gases (e.g,
krypton-85 and xenon-133) and trace amounts of iodine-131 to the atmosphere.
However, they have short half-lives, and the radioactivity in the emissions is
diminished by delaying their release. Also the first two are chemically inert.
The net effect is too small to warrant consideration in any life-cycle
analysis.
It is noteworthy that coal burning produces
some 280 million tons of ash per year, most of it containing low levels of
natural radionuclides. Some of this could be
classified as LLW. It is simply buried. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Wastes from decommissioning nuclear plants
In the case of nuclear reactors, about 99% of
the radioactivity is associated with the fuel which is removed before moving to
any of the three options. Apart from any surface contamination of plant, the
remaining radioactivity comes from "activation products" such as
steel components which have long been exposed to neutron irradiation. Their
atoms are changed into different isotopes such as iron-55, cobalt-60, nickel-63
and carbon-14. The first two are highly radioactive, emitting gamma rays, but
correspondingly with short half-life so that after 50 years from closedown their
hazard is much diminished. Some caesium-137 may also be in decommissioning
wastes.
Some scrap material from decommissioning may be
recycled, but for uses outside the industry very low clearance levels are
applied, so most is buried.
Natural precedents for
geological disposal
Nature has already proven that geological
isolation is possible through several natural examples (or
"analogues"). The most significant case occurred almost 2 billion
years ago at Oklo in what is now Gabon in West
Africa, where six spontaneous nuclear reactors operated within a rich vein of
uranium ore. (At that time the concentration of U-235 in all natural uranium
was about 3%.) These natural nuclear reactors continued for about 500,000 years
before dying away. They produced all the radionuclides
found in HLW, including over 5 tons of fission products and 1.5 tons of
plutonium, all of which remained at the site and eventually decayed into
non-radioactive elements.
The study of such natural phenomena is
important for any assessment of geologic repositories, and is the subject of
several international research projects. However, it must be noted that the Oklo reactions proceeded because groundwater was present as
a moderator in the "enriched" and permeable uranium ore. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Legacy Wastes
This paper mainly addresses the routine wastes
arising from current nuclear power generation and its supporting activities.
In several countries which pioneered nuclear
power and especially where power programs arose out of military programs, there
are other radioactive wastes which require management and disposal. These are
sometimes voluminous and difficult, and are referred to as 'legacy wastes'.
They arose in the course of those countries getting to a position where nuclear
technology is a commercial proposition for power generation, and they represent
a liability which is not covered by current funding arrangements. In the UK,
some £50 billion is estimated to be involved in addressing these - principally
from Magnox and some early AGR developments, and
about 30% of the total is attributable to military programs. In USA, Russia and
France the liabilities are also considerable.
How much waste is produced? The volume of
nuclear waste produced by the nuclear industry is very small compared with
other wastes generated. In the OECD some 300 million tons of toxic wastes are
produced each year, but conditioned radioactive wastes amount to only 81,000 m3
per year. In countries with nuclear power, radioactive wastes comprise less
than 1% of total industrial toxic wastes. In the UK for example, ~120,000,000
m3 of waste is generated per year - the equivalent of just over 20 dustbins
full for every man, woman and child. The amount of nuclear waste produced per
member of the UK populations is 840 cm3 or a volume less than that of two video
cassettes. Of this waste, 90% of the volume is only slightly radioactive and is
categorized as low-level waste (has only 1% of the total radioactivity of all
radioactive wastes). Intermediate level waste makes up 7% of the volume and has
4% of the radioactivity. The most radioactive form of waste is categorized as
high-level waste and whilst accounting for only 3% of the volume of all the
radioactive waste produced, it contains 95% of the radioactivity. Considering the
amount of high-level waste produced from a typical large reactor (1000 MWe), light water type over a year: where countries have
adopted the reprocessing option, three cubic meters of vitrified waste (glass)
are produced. Countries that consider used fuel as a waste typically produce
20m3 (30 tons) for the equivalent reactor type per year. This compares with an
average 400,000 tons of ash produced from a coal-fired plant of he same size
Today, volume reduction techniques and abatement technologies as well as
continuing good practice within the work force all contribute to continuing
minimization of waste produced, a key principle of waste management policy in
the nuclear industry. Whilst the volumes of nuclear wastes produced are very
small, the most important issue for the nuclear industry is managing their
toxic nature in a way that is environmentally sound and presents no hazard to
both workers and the general public. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Radioactive Waste Management
Committee
The Radioactive Waste Management Committee is
an international committee made up of senior representatives from regulatory
authorities, radioactive waste management agencies policy making bodies and
research and development institutions. Its purpose is to foster international co-operation
in the management of radioactive waste and radioactive materials amongst the
OECD member countries. The main tasks of the RWMC are:
á
to
constitute a forum for the exchange of information and experience on waste
management policies and practices in NEA Member countries;
á
to develop
a common understanding of the basic issues involved, and to promote the
adoption of common philosophies of approach based on the discussion of the
various possible waste management strategies and alternatives;
á
to keep under
review the state-of-the-art in the field of radioactive waste and materials
management at the technical and scientific level;
á
to
contribute to the dissemination of information in this field through the
organization of specialist meetings and publication of technical reports and
consensus statements summarizing the results of joint activities for the
benefit of the international scientific community, competent authorities at
national level and other audiences generally interested in the subject matter;
á
to offer, upon
request, a framework for the conduct of international peer review of national
activities in the field of radioactive waste management, such as R&D
programs, safety assessments, specific regulations, etc.
In the fulfillment of its responsibilities, the
Radioactive Waste Management Committee works in close co-operation with the Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health
(CRPPH), the Committee on Nuclear Regulatory Activities (CNRA) and the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) and with other NEA Committees as appropriate. /www.nea.fr/
Regulation
The nuclear and radioactive waste management industries work to
well-established safety standards for the management of radioactive waste.
International and regional organisations such as the
IAEA, OECD/NEA, EC and ICRP develop standards, guidelines and recommendations
under a framework of co-operation to assist countries in establishing and
maintaining national standards. National policies, legislation and regulations
are all developed from these internationally agreed standards, guidelines and
recommendations. Amongst others, these standards aim to ensure the protection
of the public and the environment, both now and into the future.
International agreements in the form of
Conventions have also been established such as the "Joint Convention on
Nuclear Safety" and the "Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel
Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management". The latter
was adopted in 1997 by a diplomatic conference convened by the International
Atomic Energy Agency and came into force in June 2001 following the required
number of ratifications.
Other International Conventions and Directives
seek to provide for inter alia, the safe transportation of radioactive
material, protection of the environment (including the marine environment) from
radioactive waste and the control of imports and exports of radioactive waste
and transboundary movements.
The International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the international organisation
that advises on the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear technology. It is an
agency of the United Nations, based in Vienna, Austria founded in 1957 and it
currently has 134 member states from countries with and without nuclear energy
programs. The IAEA develops safety standards, guidelines and recommendations
and inter alia provides technical guidance to member states on radioactive
waste principles. Member states use the standards and guidelines in developing
their own legislation, regulatory documents and guidelines. It also verifies
through a safeguards inspection program compliance with the Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
The IAEAÕs Waste Safety Section works to
develop internationally agreed standards on the safety of radioactive waste.
The Radioactive Waste Safety Standards Program (RADWASS) provides guidance to
member states to produce their own policies and regulations for the safe
management of radioactive waste, including disposal.
In addition, the IAEA helps member states by
providing technical assistance with services, equipment and training and by
conducting radiological assessments. Radioactive Waste [Management An IAEA
Source Book, & IAEA Bulletin 40.1, 1998]
The Nuclear Energy
Agency of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD/NEA)
is based in Paris, France. It has a variety of waste management programs
involving its 28 member states. The organization aims to assist these states in
developing safe waste disposal strategies and policies for spent nuclear fuel,
HLW and waste from decommissioning nuclear facilities. It also works closely
with the IAEA on nuclear safety standards and other technical activities.
The European Commission (EC) supports research
and development projects, sponsors international symposia and provides training
opportunities. It also works closely with the IAEA in radioactive waste
management areas.
Under the Euratom
Treaty, which established the European Atomic Energy Community, the EC proposes
Directives and regulations covering the control of shipments of radioactive
substances between member states and basic safety standards for the protection
of health of workers and general public from ionizing radiation.
The Commission is currently developing a
"Nuclear Package". The package, which is in the form of two
Directives and several Regulations (and is legally binding), is designed to
produce common standards and monitoring mechanisms in the EU member states and
ensure a common approach to nuclear safety and radioactive waste management.
The package, inter alia, proposes a new Directive on the Management of Spent
Fuel and also seeks to ensure that member states have adequate funds in place
for decommissioning when required. The European Council is currently
considering the two Directives.
The International Commission on Radiological
Protection (ICRP) is an independent registered charity that issues
recommendations for protection against all sources of radiation. The IAEA
interprets these recommendations into international safety standards and
guidelines for radiological protection. National regulators may also adopt the
recommendations by the ICRP for their own radiation protection standards. The
Commission is currently reviewing its current recommendations (ICRP 60) with a
view to publishing new recommendations in 2005. Amongst others, the new
recommendations will include for the first time a proposed framework for the
assessment of the impact of ionizing radiation in the environment. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Waste
Management for Used Fuel from Nuclear Power Reactors
|
Country |
Policy |
Facilities and progress towards final repositories |
|
Belgium |
Reprocessing |
Central waste storage at Dessel |
|
Canada |
Direct Disposal |
Nuclear Waste Management Organisation set up
2002 |
|
China |
Reprocessing |
Central used fuel storage in LanZhou |
|
Finland |
Direct Disposal |
Program start 1983, two used fuel storages in operation |
|
France |
Reprocessing |
TUnderground rock laboratories in clay and granite |
|
Germany |
Reprocessing but moving to direct disposal |
Repository planning started 1973 |
|
India |
Reprocessing |
Research on deep geological disposal for HLW |
|
Japan |
Reprocessing |
High-level waste storage facility at Rokkasho
since 1995 |
|
Russia |
Reprocessing |
Sites for final repository under investigation on Kola peninsula |
|
South Korea |
Direct Disposal |
Waste program confirmed 1998 |
|
Spain |
Direct Disposal |
ENRESA established 1984, its plan accepted 1999 |
|
Sweden |
Direct Disposal |
Central used fuel storage facility - CLAB - in operation since 1985 |
|
Switzerland |
Reprocessing |
Central interim storage for HLW at Zwilag
since 2001 |
|
United Kingdom |
Reprocessing |
Low-level waste repository in operation since 1959 |
|
USA |
Direct Disposal, but reconsidering |
DoE responsible for used fuel from 1998, $28 billion waste fund |
/www.world-nuclear.org/
Radioactive Wastes - Myths and
Realities
- There are a
number of pervasive myths regarding both radiation and radioactive wastes.
- Some lead to
regulation and actions which are counterproductive to human health and
safety.
Over the years, many views and concerns have
been expressed in the media, by the public and other interested groups in
relation to the nuclear industry and in particular its waste. Questions have
been raised about whether nuclear power should continue when the issue of how
to deal with its waste has apparently not yet been resolved.
Some views and concerns include:
- The nuclear industry still has no solution to the
'waste problem',
so cannot expect support for construction of new plants until this is
remedied.
- The transportation of this waste poses an
unacceptable risk to our people and the environment.
- Plutonium is the most dangerous material in the world.
- There exists potential terrorist threat to the large
volumes of radioactive wastes currently being stored and the risk that
this waste could leak or be dispersed as a result of terrorist action.
- Nuclear wastes are hazardous for tens of thousands of
years. This clearly is unprecedented and poses a huge threat to our future
generations.
- Even if put into a geological repository, I am
concerned that the waste might emerge and threaten future generations.
- Man-made radiation differs from natural radiation.
- Nobody knows the true costs of waste management. The
costs are so high that nuclear power can never be economic.
- The waste should be disposed of into space.
- Nuclear waste should be transmuted into harmless
materials.
/www.world-nuclear.org/
International Nuclear Waste
Disposal Concepts
- There have been several proposal for
regional and international repositories for disposal of high-level nuclear
wastes and in 2003 the concept received strong endorsement from the head
of IAEA.
- Russia has passed legislation to allow the import of high-level
wastes, but appears unlikely to proceed with this.
- The European Commission is funding studies to assess the feasibility
of European regional waste repositories.
- Pangea Resources
earlier identified a large area of outback Australia as having appropriate
characteristics for deep geological disposal, and hence for such a
repository. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Responsibility for wastes
At present there is clear and unequivocal
understanding that each country is ethically and legally responsible for its
own wastes, therefore the default position is that all nuclear wastes will be
disposed of in each of the 40 or so countries concerned.
The main ingredients of high-level nuclear
wastes are created in the nuclear reactors which make the electricity in 31
countries. There is thus no moral obligation on uranium suppliers in respect to
the wastes, other than that involved in safeguards procedures.
For instance, Australian uranium is supplied
under safeguards, which are essentially accounting and inspection procedures to
ensure that neither the uranium nor any product of it (e.g. plutonium)
contribute to fulfilling the aspirations of anyone wanting to build weapons.
With the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Australian Safeguards
& Non-Proliferation Office tracks "Australian Obligated Nuclear
Materials" all the way through to spent fuel, reprocessing (if
undertaken), and recycling of plutonium (if separated) in mixed oxide fuels.
The same kind of arrangements apply to Canadian uranium.
Thus any international waste repository has
implications under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The trustworthiness
and standing of the host country is fundamental to the project's acceptability
to NPT states, which comprise virtually every country but India, Pakistan,
Israel and North Korea. Also, the international treaty produced by IAEA and
signed by most nations of the world in 1997 covering the management and
disposal of spent fuel and high-level wastes requires that the host facility or
system meets the highest national and international standards.
Even countries such as Australia with no
nuclear power have need for secure disposal of long-lived radioactive wastes. /www.world-nuclear.org/
International repositories
In November 2003, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the UN's International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said to the UN General Assembly: "We should
... consider multinational approaches to the management and disposal of spent
fuel and radioactive waste. Over 50 countries currently have spent fuel stored
in temporary locations, awaiting reprocessing or
disposal. Not all countries have the appropriate geological conditions for such
disposal - and, for many countries with small nuclear programs, the financial
and human resources required for the construction and operation of a geological
disposal facility are daunting."
In an October article he included research
reactors in the scope of this suggestion and concluded that "considerable
advantages - in cost, safety, security and non-proliferation - would be gained
from international co-operation in these stages of the nuclear fuel
cycle."
In 1980 the IAEA-sponsored International
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE) waste management and disposal report
firmly recommended that proposals "for establishing multinational and
international repositories should be elaborated" due to their
non-proliferation advantages. "Centralized facilities for disposal of
spent fuel and/or vitrified high-level wastes .... would
reduce the diversion risk" and be more economical.
Individual waste repositories for spent nuclear
fuel and other high-level wastes need to be reliably secure.
Achieving high security means:
- They can make a
vital contribution to global environmental safety
by ensuring that radioactive substances are permanently removed from the
human environment,
- They can
greatly enhance global security in the
broader sense by preventing malicious use of fissile and radiological
materials.
Insofar as these functions are less than fully
assured in any of the 40 countries concerned with radioactive wastes, there is
a justification for some kind of international collaboration and facilities,
possibly on a regional basis. In particular, the second point is arguably best
achieved by international collaboration under IAEA auspices.
While most countries should be able to find
suitably safe sites in stable geological formations, demonstrating this safety
so as to create public confidence is best achieved where there is simple
geology.
Certainly, geological disposal is the only
foreseeable way of ensuring adequate safety and security in the long-term
management of spent fuel and high-level radioactive wastes.
While acknowledging each county's responsibility for its own wastes, the
limits to the logic on indigenous disposal can be seen from the changing
national borders within Europe over the last century. For Slovenia for instance
(which has one nuclear power reactor), its capital city Ljubljana has
politically lain within seven different states in the last 100 years. [McCombie, C & Chapman, N. 2002, Regional &
International Repositories: not if, but how and when, WNA Symposium.]
The Pangea proposal
A major research program in the 1990s by Pangea Resources has identified Australia, southern Africa,
Argentina and western China as having the appropriate geological credentials
for a deep geologic repository, with Australia being favored on economic and
political grounds. It would be located where the geology has been stable for
several hundred million years, so that there need not be total reliance on a
robust engineered barrier system to keep the waste securely isolated for
thousands of years.
It would be a commercial undertaking and would
have dedicated port and rail infrastructure. It would take spent fuel and other
wastes from commercial reactors, and possibly also material from weapons
disposal programs.
Pangea sumed up the
situation thus:
"By taking a fresh look at the reasons for
the difficulties which have faced most national repository programs, and
discarding the preconception that each country must develop its own disposal
facilities, it is possible to define a class of simple, superior high-isolation
sites which may provide a multinational basis for solving the nuclear waste
disposal problem.
"The relatively small volumes of
high-level wastes or spent fuel which arise from nuclear power production make
shared repositories a feasible proposition. For small countries, the economies
of scale which can be achieved make the concept attractive. For all countries,
objective consideration of the relative merits of national and multi-national
solutions is a prudent part of planning the management of long-lived
radioactive wastes."
Early in 1999 Pangea
Resources released its project proposal to the Australian public, expecting
this "to initiate discussions which will enable us to more fully assess
the feasibility and strategy of our proposal ... on (its) merits." The
initial response from the federal government however was to reiterate
Australia's long-standing and bipartisan policy of not importing nuclear wastes
and saying that there was no immediate intention of considering such a
proposal.
Then, after only cursory consideration, the
Western Australian parliament passed a Bill to make it illegal to dispose of
foreign high-level waste in the state without specific parliamentary approval. Pangea continued its geological investigations in that
state while extending its feasibility study to other potential host regions. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Objectives
The following were Pangea's
objectives, but they are relevant to future proposals:
- To site a deep
geologic disposal facility in a region where the geology and biosphere
conditions meet the test of simplicity coupled with robustness.
This is required to demonstrate that the
performance of the facility from a safety standpoint will meet the highest
international standards and international safeguard requirements.
In addition to its ideal geological
characteristics, the host country should preferably be a first-world, stable democracy,
familiar with high-technology enterprises. The basic technology envisaged is a multibarrier system similar to that envisaged in most
countries with advanced plans for such high-level waste disposal, and as
implemented for intermediate-level wastes.
- to create a
facility for deep geological disposal capable of accepting spent fuel,
vitrified high-level waste, long-lived intermediate-level waste, and
appropriately conditioned long-lived nuclear materials, such as
immobilized plutonium.
To the degree necessary, the disposal facility
would also have short-term storage capability to allow imported nuclear
materials to reach a cool and safe condition for disposal.
- to provide an
economic and environmentally responsible disposal option.
- to provide a
safe and secure transportation service to the repository location.
- to provide the
host country with the opportunity to gain substantial economic benefits
and to play an important role in enhancing security and non-proliferation
efforts for the benefit of all nations.
Pangea's strategy implied that the geological barrier
can be the primary safety barrier, in contrast to some other potential
repository concepts where the waste form and the engineered barriers are
required to be more dominant. There is a side benefit in that less complex and
less expensive engineered barriers may be sufficient. Pangea
also saw a potential public acceptance benefit, in that reliance on a simple
geological barrier might be more readily understood and accepted.
The decision to concentrate effort on Australia
was the result of adding in to the fundamental safety arguments considerations
of a societal and political nature and to a lesser extent economics. The end
result is that Pangea focused on extensive contiguous
sedimentary basins extending from central Western Australia into northern South
Australia. /www.world-nuclear.org/
RUSSIAÕS RADIOACTIVE WASTE
MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
The decision of the Russian government to permit the
importation of nuclear waste for storage and eventual reprocessing is fraught
with significant consequences for both Russia and the international community.
Kazakhstan is considering a similar policy. External actors cannot remain
neutral with respect to the creation of a nuclear pollution haven in Russia and
Kazakhstan. First, between 70 and 90 percent of the world's spent nuclear fuel
is of U.S. origin, and thus shipment to any third country is subject to U.S.
consent. Second, Russia will be able to import spent nuclear fuel from the
member states of the European Union only if the European Commission concludes
that Russia has the legal, regulatory, and technical ability to safely manage
the waste. Finally, the resulting climate of uncertainty has generated an
incentive for EU candidate states with Soviet-designed nuclear power plants to
return their waste to Russia as quickly as possible, regardless of safety or
proliferation considerations. This paper will analyze the responses of other
states to the Russian and Kazakh proposals and relate these to the growing
literature on waste trading and pollution havens. /www.allacademic.com/
Low-level
radioactive waste
Some low-level liquid radioactive wastes are condensed by evaporation
and recycled. Any leftover waste is solidified and buried with other solid
low-level radioactive wastes in concrete burial units or trenches. Untreated
low-level liquid wastes are injected underground into deep porous rocks
surrounded by layers of clay.
Spent
nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste
RussiaÕs approximately 30 nuclear power plants store their spent nuclear
fuel waste on-site. Liquid high-level radioactive waste from reprocessed fuel
is vitrified, or converted into solid form.
Reprocessing
spent nuclear fuel
Reprocessing takes place at Chelyabinsk-65, a plant which has been in
operation for several years. A second facility is scheduled for start up at
Krasnoyarsk by 2015. Krasnoyarsk is already a central storage facility for
spent nuclear fuel.
Transporting
radioactive waste
Liquid wastes destined for solidification and disposal are transported
as liquids in trucks. Spent nuclear fuel assemblies are transported using a
cask and rail car designed to move the fuel.
Deep
geologic disposal plans
Investigations of potential geologic repository sites by a number of
Russian institutions, including the Russian Academy of Sciences, are ongoing.
Russia is currently investigating several regions as potential study sites.
Four possible rock types are being considered for disposal: salt, granite,
clay, and basalt. Disposal plans include using a multi-barrier approach. Russia
has a wide variety of geologic environments that contribute to the selection of
suitable sites. It is likely that one will be chosen based on its proximity to
a radioactive waste-producing facility. A repository operation date is to be
decided. /www.ocrwm.doe.gov/
In 2001 the Russian parliament (Duma) passed legislation to allow the import of spent
nuclear fuel. The President signed this into law and set up a special
commission to approve and oversee such imports. The commission will have 20
members, five each from the Duma, the Council (upper
house), the government and presidential nominees. It will be chaired by Dr Zhores Alferoy, a parliamentarian
who is also Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Nobel Prize
physicist.
In 2003 Krasnokamensk
was suggested as the site for a major spent fuel repository - it is a city 7000
km east of Moscow noted for uranium mining and milling run by the Priargunsky Combine, now a company with 38% Minatom, 38% TVEL and 24% worker/public ownership.
Pangea Resources personnel early in 2002 set up a
new, non-commercial body to promote the concept of regional and international
facilities for storage and disposal of all types of long-lived nuclear wastes.
This is ARIUS, the Association for Regional and International Underground
Storage. A key objective is to explore ways of providing shared storage and
disposal facilities for smaller users. Membership is open and comprises
countries with small nuclear programs as well as industrial organizations with
relevant interests.
Arius is focusing initially on Europe, and the
feasibility of regional repositories there. In 2002 a European Commission
Directive said that geological disposal of radioactive wastes was preferred and
that "A regional approach, involving two or more countries, could also
offer advantages especially to countries that have no or limited nuclear
programs, insofar as it would provide a safe and less costly solution for all
parties."
In mid 2003 Arius initiated the SAPIERR-1 Project
(Pilot Initiative for European Regional Repositories) which obtained European
Commission approval. This was undertaken over two years to 2005 to help the EC
grapple with the regional repository issue as flagged earlier in the EC
Radioactive Waste Directive. It allowed potential options for regional
collaboration and for regional repositories to be identified, though it did not
extend to site identification. Slovakia provided the project coordination.
In September 2006 a new EC-funded project to
assess the feasibility of European regional waste repositories was announced,
indicating a recognition in the EU that implementing
25 national repositories is not optimal economically or for safety and
security. Following the EC-funded pilot study, the SAPIERR-2 project will
propose a practical implementation strategy and the organizational structures
required for concrete plans to proceed from 2008.
The project is in line with proposals from the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russia and the USA (with GNEP) for
multilateral cooperation in the fuel cycle in order to enhance global security.
Shared repositories for high-level nuclear wastes are an important element of
this. Initially seven national organizations and Swiss-based Arius are
involved, but others are expected to join.
Spent fuel storage
Storage facilities for spent fuel are in
operation and are being built in several countries. There is no international
market for services in this area, except for the readiness of the Russian
Federation to receive Russian-supplied fuel, and with a possible offer to do so
for other spent fuel. The storage of spent fuel is also a candidate for
multilateral approaches, primarily at the regional level. Storage of special
nuclear materials in a few safe and secure facilities would enhance safeguards
and physical protection. The IAEA should continue investigations in that field
and encourage such undertakings. Various countries with state-of-the-art
storage facilities in operation should step forward and accept spent fuel from
others for interim storage.
Combined option:
fuel-leasing/fuel take-back
In this model, the leasing State provides the
fuel through an arrangement with its own nuclear fuel "vendors". At
the time the government of the leasing State issues an export license to its
fuel "vendor" corporation to send fresh fuel to a client reactor,
that government would also announce its plan for the management of that fuel
once discharged. Without a specific spent fuel management scheme by the leasing
State, the lease deal will of course not take place. The leased fuel once
removed from the reactor and cooled down, could either be returned to its
country of origin which owns title to it, or, through an IAEA-brokered deal
could be sent to a third party State or to a multinational or a regional fuel
cycle centre located elsewhere for storage and ultimate disposal.
The weak part in the arrangement outlined above
is the willingness, indeed the political capability, of the leasing State to
take-back the spent fuel it has provided under the lease contract. It could
well be politically difficult for any State to accept spent fuel not coming
from its own reactors (that is, reactors producing electricity for the direct
benefit of its own citizens). Yet, to make any lease-take-back deal credible,
an ironclad guarantee of spent fuel removal from the country where it was used
must be provided, otherwise the entire arrangement is moot. In this respect,
States with suitable disposal sites, and with grave concerns about proliferation
risks, ought to be proactive in putting forward solutions. Of course,
commitment of client States to forego enrichment and reprocessing would make
such undertakings politically more tolerable.
As an alternative, the IAEA could broker the
creation of multinational or regional spent fuel storage facilities, where
spent fuel owned by leasing States and burned elsewhere could be sent. The IAEA
could thus become an active participant in regional spent fuel storage
facilities, or third party spent fuel disposal schemes, thereby making
lease-take-back fuel supply arrangements more credible propositions.
Arius is simultaneously promoting both of the
multinational disposal models that were defined in last year's seminal IAEA
report (IAEA, 2004) - regional repositories, shared by cooperating partners
(e.g. the SAPIERR initiative), and international disposal facilities, provided
as a service by a large nuclear country. As is well known, the only option of
the second type that is currently being discussed is the possibility of spent
fuel storage in the Russian Federation. The storage proposal is currently
rather general and was re-stated most recently in July by Aleksandr
Rumyantsev, head of Rosatom,
at the Moscow Rosatom-IAEA Conference, described
earlier in this Newsletter. It would involve using surplus capacity at the
state-owned Mining and Chemical Processing Plant, an underground facility for
spent nuclear fuel storage, disposal, reprocessing and transportation, near
Krasnoyarsk in eastern Siberia.
The concept of a Russian storage and/or
disposal facility is regarded with suspicion by the majority of people - owing
to the unenviable record of environmental pollution in the former Soviet Union,
its poor nuclear industry safety performance, and the continuing lack of transparency
and variable integrity of Russia's industrial and financial systems. What would
it take to alleviate these suspicions and make a sceptical
international community 100% confident? This Topical Article presents our views
as nine key requirements that we believe would have to be met to make the
'Russian Option' an attractive and achievable solution. It is based upon a
longer, invited article to be published in the Safety Barriers magazine
(Radon Press) in Russia, later this year.
Multinational initiatives to facilitate
safeguards, provide increased nuclear security and guarantee the supply of fuel
cycle services to countries with nuclear power programs are very much at the
forefront of international discussion .Non-proliferation
is a key issue in current deliberations on global security within the United
Nations. Although the most urgent security and non-proliferation issues are
concerned with the front end of the fuel cycle, it is equally important to
ensure that spent fuel is properly managed. A major international workshop held
in Moscow this July (see Newsletter item in this issue) explored many of the
issues involved and focused in particular on the role that the Russian
Federation could play in providing facilities that would improve global control
of spent fuel and high-level radioactive wastes.
Suggestions have been made from time to time by
Russia concerning the possibility of long-term or permanent spent fuel storage
services. The current focus is on using the Krasnoyarsk facility as an international
store and, possibly, as a final repository for spent fuel. Under existing
national legislation, Russia could import spent fuel for:
- long-term
storage, with eventual return to the sender;
- storage, with
regeneration of light water reactor fuel for re-use in new generation
reactors, perhaps in Russia (thus possibly entailing no return requirement
to the sender);
- storage, with
reprocessing and return of some of the ensuing wastes to the sender.
Each option is economically attractive for
Russia since they all provide either income from provision of services or fuel
for the future, or both. However, at present, the law does not allow import for
eventual disposal. /www.world-nuclear.org/
Nuclear Renaissance in the Age of
Global Warming
With oil prices and
global temperatures rising, the nuclear option has once again entered
discussions about the future of the world's energy supply. Piggybacking on the
growing awareness of global climate change, the nuclear industry in the United
States, Russia, and elsewhere has launched a new public relations campaign,
marketing its services in the interest of clean, environmentally sound energy.
In contrast to similar proposals from the 1950s, technical feasibility and
economic profitability seem to be taken for granted, whereas concerns about
safety and nonproliferation have gained significance. The nuclear industry
today promotes new, "inherently safe," and proliferation-resistant
reactor designs, improved methods of personnel training, and cost-effective
standardization, along with strict licensing procedures under independent
regulatory agencies. Thus, in addition to legal provisions, the industry
advocates a series of "technical fixes" to prevent nuclear
proliferation. The unresolved problems of radioactive waste and lingering
public opposition to nuclear power are either left out of the picture, or
countered with unswerving technological optimism. / http://www.ostina.org/content/view/1687/636
Modernization
and safety.
Modernization is one
of the key ways to enhance an NPPÕs safety. Presently, such a project is
underway at the 1 st unit of Leningrad NPP.
The Concern plans to
modernize its existing NPPs, to check up their safety systems, to introduce
probabilistic safety assessment methods, to start conducting regular safety
assessments (once in a decade), to improve operating procedures.
In the last 13 years
the Concern has significantly reduced the number of incidents at its NPPs. If
in 1992 there were 197 incidents (32 significant), in 2005 there were just 40 incidents
with none of them being significant. Only 6 automatic stoppages were registered
in 2005 against 32 ones in 1992.
In order to enhance
the emergency response preparedness of its personnel, the Concern conducts
annual complex emergency response exercises at one of its NPPs. In 2004 such
exercises were conducted at Beloyarsk NPP, in 2005
– at Kola NPP.
Nuclear
Power Plants.
Presently, there are
10 operating nuclear power plants (NPP) in Russia with most them located in the
European part of the country. They produce 17% of the electricity generated in
the country.
NPPs are absolutely
safe for the environment, unlike many ecologically dangerous productions. The
modern safety standards applied at NPPs guarantee that the past mistakes
– when inattention and incompetence caused serious technological failures
- will never recur.
In the last years lots
of developed countries have reviewed their policies on peaceful nuclear energy
and have begun actively building own NPPs in order to reduce their dependence
from electricity exporters.
NPPs are not only
strategic facilities but companies employing tens of thousands of people.
Continuity and devotion underpinned by stability and high remuneration are the
key guarantees of the sectorÕs development.http://www.rosenergoatom.ru/eng/npp/
Nuclear safety.
Nuclear safety covers
the actions taken to prevent nuclear and radiation accidents or to limit their
consequences. This covers nuclear power plants as well as all other nuclear
facilities, the transportation of nuclear materials, the use and storage of
nuclear materials for medical, power, industry, and military uses. In addition,
there are safety issues involved in products created with radioactive
materials. Some of the products are legacy ones (such as watch faces), others,
like smoke detectors, are still being produced.
This diagram
demonstrates the defense in depth strategy of design of modern nuclear power
plants. Current plants may have some or all of these defenses,
the defenses vary depending on the type of plant, the nation constructing them,
the use (civilian, military, naval vessels) and the age.
1st layer of defense
is the inert, ceramic quality of the uranium oxide itself.
2nd layer is the air
tight zirconium alloy of the fuel rod.
3rd layer is the reactor
pressure vessel made of steel more than a dozen centimeters thick.
4th layer is the
pressure resistant, air tight containment building.
5th layer is the
reactor building or in newer powerplants a second
outer containment building.
The topic of nuclear safety
covers:
The research and
testing of the possible incidents/events at a nuclear power plant,
What equipment and
actions are designed to prevent those incidents/events from having serious consequences,
The calculation of the
probabilities of multiple systems and/or actions failing thus allowing serious
consequences,
The evaluation of the
worst-possible timing and scope of those serious consequences (the
worst-possible in extreme cases being a release of radiation),
The actions taken to
protect the public during a release of radiation,
The training and
rehearsals performed to ensure readiness in case an incident/event occurs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/nuclear_safety
CONCLUSION
We can hardly doubt that Russia will be
included into the list of countries that could monopolize Òatomic servicesÓ in
the world as well as other world leaders like the USA, France, Great Britain
and China. Of course, they are not the only states possessing nuclear
technologies. But nuclear power engineering was developed in the countries with
nuclear weapons, when the world realized that nuclear weapons programs should
be reduced and the atom should be peaceful.
Today, Yuri Sokolov,
Deputy Director-General of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, claims
that Òthere does not exist the question of nuclear monopolistsÓ but it is quite
obvious that it might arise tomorrow just because there is a proposal to limit
the number of countries developing nuclear technologies which was discussed at
the international conference in Moscow devoted to the fuel cycle technical and
organizational approaches for nonproliferation reinforcement (July 16-18, 2007)
/www.iranatom.ru/
As long as IAEAÕs idea is supported throughout
the world, there will arise another vital issue. Where will there be
international storage places of nuclear fuel? ÒRussia is suitable for this
function as all the nuclear materials are federal propertyÓ, said Alexander Rumyantsev, the head Federal Atomic Agency of Russia.
Vladimir Putin also said while being in Krasnoyarsk that he didnÕt see any
problems in importing spent fuel to Russia. ÒIf that could be done strictly
observing necessary regulations and technologies, if everything will be done to
solve ecological problems, especially those concerning nuclear pollution, this
decision is righteous and well-takenÓ. /www.iranatom.ru/
The largest repository of spent nuclear fuel is
in Zheleznogorsk on the territory of the mining
combine where weapon plutonium was produced. Irradiated fuel from reactors of
VVER type is disposed here. And these types of reactors are in feign nuclear power stations as well, in Bulgaria, Hungary
and Ukrain.
The mining combine in Zheleznogorsk
was supposed to be the international storage place in case Russia received the
right to construct it. According to IAEA the international; storage place
should concentrate as much as possible in one place potentially dangerous
nuclear materials providing security. Rumyantsev
claims that Zheleznogorsk storage area is now ready
to receive 8 tons of spent nuclear fuel and at present is being reconstructed
to enlarge the storage space. /www.iranatom.ru/
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Management An
IAEA Source Book, & IAEA Bulletin 40.1, 1998
- McCombie, C
& Chapman, N. 2002, Regional & International Repositories: not if,
but how and when, WNA Symposium.
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