The Sellafield site has had its own on-site licensed landfills for disposal of waste throughout the operation of the plant, initially in trenches within the Separation Area in the 1950s (before development of the LLWR) and then in mounds built up on the coastal fringe and on the northern perimeter of the site. Two sites remain in operation, the south landfill site and the Calder Plain landfill extension. These primarily receive low level radioactive soil (BNFL, 1976-2004).

On-site waste disposal has been undertaken at other sites in the UK (notably Hunterston and Dounreay in Scotland), but this practice has not been widespread within UK nuclear licensed power generation sites.

This is the iconic steel sphere on the north coast of Scotland. It was built between 1955 and 1958 and was the first nuclear reactor in the world to supply electricity to a national grid in 1961. It was cooled with a eutectic mixture of sodium and potassium (NaK) and produced 14 MW. It was shut down in 1977.

Early decommissioning included removing the conventional electrical generation installations, removal of the fuel and destruction of the secondary circuit NaK. There was then a lengthy period of care and maintenance during which numerous theoretical studies and large off-site and on-site practical experiments were carried out to investigate a way in which to decommission the reactor. The major challenges were how to remove, treat and destroy the 57 tonnes of highly contaminated (400TBq) primary circuit NaK and then remove the uranium and plutonium breeder fuel elements that had provided the blanket around the core. Both challenges are among the most hazardous and difficult in NDA’s UK decommissioning programme.

During the period 1999-2008, the original plant used to destroy the primary NaK was refurbished and revalidated along with major refurbish­ment of the DFR infrastructure. A successful campaign of destroying the NaK started in 2009 and is nearing completion. The process involves react­ing the NaK with an aqueous solution of NaOH in a comprehensively monitored and controlled reaction vessel and then neutralisation of the aqueous waste stream produced with HCl. The radioactive caesium is removed from this waste stream by ion exchange plant using hexacyanofer — rate inorganic resin. The decontaminated salty water is discharged to sea through the site’s low level liquid effluent treatment plant (LLLETP). The contaminated ion exchange medium is then stored as solid ILW.

The internal surfaces of the reactor and the 9 km of heat exchanger circuit pipework require the residual NaK to be removed. A tightly controlled wash out process utilising water vapour and nitrogen, or a dry process associated with dismantling could be possible methods.

Special equipment has been designed and manufactured to cut out the remaining uranium and plutonium breeder elements. When removed, they will be treated and packaged in the specifically designed shielded cells that have been constructed as a new facility abutting the sphere. The packaged breeder fuel will then be transferred to Sellafield for reprocessing.

There is then a programme of decommissioning the pipework, NaK processing vessels and the reactor vessel itself in the period up to the 2020s. The current strategy is for the sphere itself to be demolished unless a future viable initiative emerges for it to be retained as a historical industrial herit­age monument.

The AEA, as amended, provides a statutory basis for the NRC to relinquish to individual states portions of its authority to license and regulate byprod­uct materials (radioisotopes), source materials (uranium and thorium), and certain quantities of special nuclear materials. Of the 50 states, 37 have entered into agreements with the NRC to assume this responsibility.

The role of the Agreement States is to regulate most types of radioactive material in accordance with the compatibility requirements of the AEA. These types of radioactive materials include source material (uranium and thorium), reactor fission byproducts, and byproduct materials as defined in Section 11 e of the AEA, and quantities of special nuclear materials not sufficient to form a critical mass. The NRC, under its own internal practices, periodically reviews the performance of each Agreement State to ensure compatibility with its regulatory standards.

Agreement States issue radioactive material licenses, promulgate regula­tions, and enforce those regulations under the authority of each individual state’s laws. The Agreement States conduct their licensing and enforcement actions under direction of the governors in a manner compatible with the licensing and enforcement programs of the NRC.

Canada must also demonstrate how it continues to meet the obligations under the terms of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel

Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (IAEA, 1997) . The Joint Convention is based on IAEA guidelines and standards. The Joint Convention is an international agreement, governing all aspects of nuclear fuel waste and radioactive waste management. There­fore, for the management of used nuclear fuel, uranium mines and mills and RAW, facilities must be designed, operated, and decommissioned in order that Canada can demonstrate it meets the obligations of the Joint Convention.

WAC have been established for the LILW disposal facility at Vaalputs. The WAC are important in the RAW management chain as they determine the treatment and conditioning processes and requirements for waste streams which will form the final waste package for disposal. The WAC for some of the waste, especially in situations where end-points have not yet been decided upon, have not been finalized. Since the WAC dictate the waste treatment and conditioning processes, generic WAC are therefore assumed.

20.1.4 General requirements

1. Waste will be managed in accordance with the Necsa waste management system [10].

2. Each waste generator shall prepare a facility-specific waste management programme which must be accepted by pre-disposal operations (PDO)

[3].

3. All waste streams shall be listed and described in the facility waste management programme. New waste streams shall only be accepted after being included in this programme and accepted by PDO.

4. The collection, segregation and pre-treatment of waste at the generator shall take cognisance of the Necsa Waste Management Plan. This entails the alignment of the respective waste streams generated with the waste management processes and disposal end-point envisaged for each respective waste stream.

TRIGA Mark-II, the first Korean research reactor (KRR-1), started opera­tion in 1962, and the second, TRIGA Mark-III (KRR-2) located in Seoul, has been operational since 1972. These two research reactors, located at the former KAERI site in Seoul, were permanently shut down at the end of 1995. As a replacement for the TRIGA research reactors, the 30 MWth multipurpose HANARO research reactor was constructed in 1995 located at KAERI in Daejeon and has operated successfully since then. The D&D of KRR-1 and 2 research reactors was started in January 1997. The decommissioning plan, environmental impact assessment and decommis­sioning design were carried out in 1998. In July 1998, all SF from the TRIGA Mark-II and III reactors was safely transported to the US. At the end of 1998, the decommissioning plan was submitted to the Ministry of Educa­tion, Science, and Technology for licensing, and the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) reviewed it in 1999. The report of their review was considered in January 2000 by the Expert Group for Environmental Radia­tion, one of the four groups of the Nuclear Safety Commission, and the recommendation made by that Expert Group was submitted to the Com­mission for its final approval. At the moment, KRR-2 has been completely dismantled, whereas the decommissioning of KRR-1 was started in 2011 and will be completed by the end of 2014.

Radioactive wastes from the decommissioning of KRR-1 and 2 were classified according to their characteristics and radioactivity levels, packed into 200 L drums or 4 m3 containers and stored in the reactor hall of the KRR-2 according to the process scheme of radioactive waste treatment from decommissioning sites, shown in Fig. 21.12 Radioactive waste gener­ated from KRR-1 and 2 contains 60Co and 152Eu as major radionuclides in the activated waste and 60Co and 137Cs in the case of the contaminated waste. The current status of KRR-1 and 2 is shown in Fig. 21.13, and complete D&D of both will be performed within a few years later.

In accordance with the basic principle in the Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy, the ‘Act for Deposit and Administration of Reserve Funds for Reprocessing of Spent Fuel from Nuclear Power Generation’ was estab­lished requiring operators to place funds for spent fuel reprocessing in a fund administration corporation. The objective of ‘the Act’ is to ensure the proper implementation of spent fuel reprocessing, disposal of radioactive wastes generated from reprocessing and decommissioning of the reprocess­ing facilities. The reserve fund held by the 10 utility companies at the end of March 2007 was a 1,390 billion yen. As a part of its waste management plans, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) designated the ‘Radioactive Waste Management Funding and Research Center’ as a non­profit ‘fund administration corporation’ (October, 2005) that is supervised by the METI through supervisory orders and on-the-spot inspection.

SF generated in power reactors is sent to reprocessing facilities after a period of on-site cooling and storage. SF has historically been reprocessed overseas in accordance with contracts with British and French companies, with the exception of a portion reprocessed by the Tokai reprocessing plant of the JAEA. However, considering the national need, JNFL con­structed the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, based on operational experience accumulated at the Tokai reprocessing plant and on overseas technologies and experience. The plant underwent active testing using SF in 2008 and started operation in 2008. Storage of SF in the plant storage facility started in 1999, and export of SF to foreign reprocessing plants ended in July 2001.

The Law for Regulation of Nuclear Source Material, Nuclear Fuel Mate­rial and Nuclear Reactors (Reactor Regulation Law) was amended in 1999 to incorporate provisions on interim SF storage. Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japan Atomic Power Company (JAPC) jointly established the ‘Recycle Fuel Storage Company’ to prepare for commercial operation of the first interim fuel storage facilities planned for 2010. In March 2007, the company applied for a licence to construct and operate the Recycle Fuel Storage Center at Mutsu city, Aomori Prefecture, and the licence application is now undergoing the safety examination.

SF from research reactor facilities has been, and is to be, returned to the US, UK or France, or is to be reprocessed or stored in Japan.

The Pu recovery policy operated by Russia meant that in 1999 there were no substantial inventories of wastes containing >1% Pu (Jardine et al., 1999). Recovery of Pu from wastes led to the generation of waste streams contain­ing <200 ppm Pu which were suitable for cementation and near-surface burial. However, there are some HLW sludges which contain significant concentrations of Pu and various immobilization methods (e. g., vitrifica­tion) are being investigated.

As mentioned earlier, as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland are plan­ning the construction of new NPPs, this must go hand in hand with develop­ment of waste management systems compatible with available equipment and storage and disposal facilities. Experience gained at existing NPPs yielded a number of findings, which can be used to build new waste manage­ment systems for these new NPPs. Firstly, it was found that any improvement to waste management systems after start-up of operation of the NPP is very costly and sometimes impossible. This concerns primarily the management of liquid waste. Secondly, it was determined that the bituminisation technol­ogy can provide good waste form properties, but the technology itself requires additional measures to reduce the risk of fire and relatively complex waste liquid pre-treatment to prevent the crystallisation of boric acid.

Both the Czech and Slovak Republics and Poland have launched several scientific projects concerning the development of new waste management technologies (Vokal et al., 2007, Hanusik et al., 2008, Noferi, 2009). The results suggest that implementation of new waste management technologies (new liquid waste treatment systems, new conditioning technologies such as polymer encapsulation or embedding of waste in ceramic materials) could significantly improve the waste management systems, but their imple­mentation will require much effort and money.

In the Czech Republic a programme of deep geological disposal of SF is under way and in the Slovak Republic and Poland is under preparation, but all face many problems connected primarily with finding acceptable sites for location of the repository.

In June 2008, having identified 3,115 boroughs with a potentially favourable geology for the repository for long-lived low-level waste, ANDRA sent a call for volunteers through an information document to the mayors of the municipalities concerned. At the end of 2008, more than 40 municipalities declared themselves candidates to analyze the opportunity of such a repository. In June 2009, based on an analysis conducted by ANDRA, the government chose two of them (Auxon and Pars-les-Chavanges in the Aube Department) in which to conduct thorough geological and environ­mental investigations. However, under pressure from opponents, both municipalities withdrew from the project in July and August 2009. In June 2010, in the National Plan for the Management of Materials and Radioac­tive Waste (PNGMDR, 2010), the State set new guidelines for the project: based on further studies on knowledge, treatment and conditioning of LL-LLW, ANDRA must submit to the government (no later than 2012) a report outlining possible management scenarios for these wastes.