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BNI 80 comprises five facilities:
•
HAO North, fuel unloading and storage site;
•
HAO South, in which the shearing and dissolution
operations were carried out;
•
the filtrationbuilding,whichaccommodates the filtration
system for the pool of the HAO South facility;
•
The HAO silo, in which are stored the hulls and end-
pieces in bulk, fines coming essentially from shearing,
resins and technological waste resulting fromoperation
of the HAO facility from 1976 to 1997;
•
the SOC (Organised Storage of Hulls) comprising three
pools inwhich the drums containing the hulls and end-
pieces are stored.
Thedecommissioningof theHAOwas authorisedbyDecree
of 31st July 2009. The first stage in the work which aims
at carrying out the majority of the HAO South facility
decommissioningoperations is inprogress. TheHAONorth
facility, which is still inoperation, will be decommissioned
in a second phase.
TheWasteRetrieval andPackaging (RCD) project currently
under way in the HAO silo and the SOC represents the
first holdpoint in the decommissioning of the installation.
The civil engineeringworks concerning the construction
of the waste retrieval and packaging unit authorised by
resolution of 10th June 2014 continued in 2015. The
licensee alsoput inplace a seal between theR1unit situated
in BNI 117 and the retrieval unit.
ASNismoreover vigilantwith regard to the implementation
times for these operations,whichmust be completedbefore
31st December 2022.
Furthermore, BNI 80 formed the subject of aperiodic safety
review, the examinationof whichwill be finalised in2016.
BNIs 33 and 38
InOctober 2008, ArevaNCsubmitted three final shutdown
anddecommissioning authorisationapplications for BNI 33
(UP2-400), BNI 38 (STE2 and AT1 facility) and BNI 47
(ELAN IIB).
On completion of the technical examination of the files
submitted in 2008, ASN considered that the measures
defined byArevaNC for the decommissioning of BNIs 33
and38 showednothingunacceptablewith regard to safety,
radiation protection or waste and effluent management.
Nevertheless, this examination did reveal the necessity
for the licensee to provide a large number of additional
studies. Consequently, only those operations forwhich the
information in the safety cases was considered sufficient
could be authorised for BNIs 33 and 38.
The threedecrees authorising the start of the final shutdown
and decommissioning operations for the three BNIs date
from 8th November 2013. The decrees concerning
BNIs 33 and 38 only authorise partial decommissioning,
whereas thedecree concerningBNI 47 authorises complete
decommissioning of the installation.
The decrees for BNIs 33 and 38 required the licensee to
submit new files before 30th June 2015. The licensee
therefore submitted new complete decommissioning
application files for BNIs 33 and 38 in July 2015. It also
submitted the periodic safety review files for BNIs 33, 38
and 47. Concomitant examination of the periodic safety
review files and the decommissioning files will allow
the compatibility of the ageing control measures with
the decommissioning strategy envisaged by the licensee
–particularly theprojecteddurationof thedecommissioning
project as a whole – to be checked.
The operations carried out in 2015 essentially concern
the retrieval of the waste from the dissolvers in the High
Activity /DissolutionExtraction (HA/DE) facility, continued
removal of the glove boxes from the Intermediate-level
PlutoniumFacility (MAPu), oxalic acid rinsing of theHigh-
Level Fission Products (HAPF) facility and conducting
various investigations and radiological mappings.
The legacy waste of La Hague
The legacy waste to be retrieved and packaged on the
La Hague site comes from the reprocessing of spent fuel from
the gas-cooled reactors and the first spent fuels from the light
water reactors in the UP2-400 industrial plant between 1966
and 2004. This waste, which is primarily Intermediate Level
Long-Lived Waste (ILW-LL), essentially comprises graphite
sleeves, hulls and end-pieces, insoluble fines, saturated resins,
magnesium waste, waste contaminated with uranium and
plutonium, active effluent treatment sludge, solvents and
solutions of uranium-molybdenum fission products (PF UMo).
Today this waste is stored in several old-generation facilities
displaying varying levels of safety, but which are unsatisfactory
on account of their layout (buried or semi-buried), their design
(containment barriers), their earthquake design basis and
the nature of the waste stored in them. The waste must thus
be retrieved from the storage facilities using the retrieval
equipment planned for when these facilities were designed,
or using equipment to be designed if these facilities do not
have any. Once retrieved, the waste must be packaged with a
view to final disposal. Retrieval of this waste will also clear the
facilities of their waste allowing them to be decommissioned
and cleaned out in the context of the UP2-400 industrial plant
(BNI 33, 38, 47 and 80) decommissioning operations.
ASN resolution of 9th December 2014 governs the retrieval of
this waste.
UNDERSTAND
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CHAPTER 15:
SAFE DECOMMISSIONING OF BASIC NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS
ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2015