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Silo 130
Further to the licensee’s postponement of waste recovery
from Silo 130 because of its outdated design and
uncertainties as to the resistance of its civil engineering
structure over time, ASN issuedprescriptions on 29th June
2010 requiring that the licensee take compensatory
safety measures, to be implemented before mid-2012.
As thesemeasures had not been taken by ArevaNCbefore
mid-2012, ASN served formal notice on the licensee to
perform these operations before 9thDecember 2013 in a
resolution of 26thMarch 2013. Following an inspection
of silo 130, ASN lifted the formal notice in 2014. An
exercise simulating a leak from silo 130 was also carried
out by the licensee in 2014, at the request of ASN, and
confirmed the ability of the licensee’s organisation to
manage such a situation.
Old fission product solutions stored
in the SPF2 unit in the UP2-400 plant
Topackage fissionproducts fromreprocessing of gas-cooled
reactor fuel, in particular that containing molybdenum
(UMo FP), the licensee has opted for cold crucible
vitrification. The package thus produced is calledCSD-U
(UMo standard waste package).
The use of the cold crucible with legacy solutions was
authorised by an ASN resolution of 20th June 2011.
In 2013, the first CSD-Us were produced but the cold
crucible then became unavailable owing to a technical
problem. It was restarted in 2015.
Other legacy waste recovery
and packaging projects
For the other lower-priority legacy waste recovery and
packaging projects, the following events in 2015 are
worthy of note:
•
continuedR&D studies on the packaging processes for
GCR and low granulometry type wastes;
•
end of operations to recover drums frombuilding 119;
•
the application for authorisation to transfer the elution
columns and strontiumtitanate capsules to improve the
safetyof the storage conditions andperforminvestigations;
•
lifting of the hold point for recovery of non-fixed
contamination waste from the Parc aux Ajoncs in the
ASN resolution of 28th September 2015.
ASN oversees the recovery of legacy waste
at La Hague
In the light of the points mentioned in the box opposite,
ASN has since 2012 been drafting a resolution on the Waste
Recovery and Packaging programme (RCD) aiming more
specifically to regulate the progress and performance of
this programme according to the safety implications of the
operations. The preparation of this draft resolution entailed
Areva NC being called to a hearing by the ASN Commission
on 17th June 2014, during which ASN recalled that it would
be particularly attentive to compliance with the deadlines
concerning the RCD programme. The resolution concerning
the legacy waste recovery and packaging operations was
signed by the ASN Commission on 9th December 2014
following consultation of the public and the local information
committee.
At ASN’s request, Areva NC defined the safety priorities
for these RCD operations:
• Priority 1 storage (highest priority):
-- in BNI 33: tanks 2720-10, 2720-20 and 2720-30
in the SPF2 unit;
-- in BNI 38: silo 130, silos 550-10 to 15
in the STE2-A unit and 550-17 in the STE-V unit;
-- in BNI 80: the HAO Silo;
• Priority 2 storage:
-- in BNI 33: settling tanks 1 to 5 in the “cladding
removal” unit and 6 to 9 in the HA/DE unit, pits 217.01
and 217.02 of the “cladding removal” unit and the
Organised Disposal Pool (SOD) for gas-cooled reactor
structural waste;
-- in BNI 38: silo 115;
-- in BNI 80: pools S1, S2 and S3 for Organised Hulls
Disposal (SOC);
• Priority 3 storage :
-- in BNI 33: area 791 in the plutonium intermediate level
facility (MAPu);
-- in BNI 38: pits 2 and 26 in the North-West zone,
the pit in building 128, building 119, the
Parc aux Ajoncs
and the trenches in the North-West zone;
-- in BNI 47: the elution columns and strontium titanate
capsules;
-- in BNI 118: tanks 6523-50 and 6610-20 in the STE3
and MDSA units.
TO BE NOTED
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CHAPTER 13:
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE INSTALLATIONS
ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2015