ASN Report 2015

the vessel anomalies for the EPR under construction in

Flamanville to be brought to light. Additional in-depth

tests are to be carried out. They will make it possible

to reach a decision on the acceptability of the parts

concerned with respect to the safety requirements.

These observations also led to the initiation of a process

to review the quality of ESPN manufactured by Areva

over the past ten years.

However, implementing this regulation proved to be

more complex than had been anticipated, as illustrated

by the problems with evaluating the conformity of the

replacement generators for reactor 3 at Le Blayais. In

April 2015, work was started by ASN jointly with the

Ministry responsible for the Environment and the

industrial firms concerned in order to deal with these

problems in depth and allow full application of the

regulations, modified by the Order of 30th December

2015, which more specifically introduces a transitional

systemwhich comes to an end on 31st December 2018.

Eventual decommissioning of the current nuclear

fleet will generate a very large quantity

of very low level waste, which could be disposed

of locally

Decommissioning of a Basic Nuclear Installation (BNI)

is a lengthy and complex operation involving risks,

which must be anticipated as of the design of the

installation with preparations being made as soon as

its final shutdown is decided.

The main BNI licensees will have to carry out major

decommissioning programmes in the coming years.

EDF, which is already faced with the decommissioning of

installations which have been shut down for several years,

must now prepare for the eventual decommissioning of

the fleet of reactors currently in service. This will result

in an influx of radioactive waste, further increasing the

need to boost long-lived waste storage capacity, pending

the availability of disposal facilities. The large quantities

of very low level waste will also raise a new question:

to limit waste traffic, might it not be better to envisage

several regional disposal facilities, rather than a single

centralised one? ASN considers that this point needs

to be evaluated and debated.

For its part, CEA is faced with the need to decommission

numerous installations situated in civil or defence-

related BNIs. The corresponding operations have

fallen significantly behind schedule in recent years.

Together with the Defence Nuclear Safety Authority,

ASN considers that such a situation is prejudicial to

safety and that the means necessary to remedy this

situation must be deployed.

The operations begun by Areva on its La Hague site,

to collect and package legacy waste, will also require

considerable resources.

Long-lived waste disposal is behind schedule: storage

capacity has to be re-assessed

For long-livedwaste, underground disposal is the solution

offering the best level of safety for the time-scale being

considered. It is therefore considered internationally

to be the reference solution.

The repeated extensions to the time needed for the

preliminary design studies for the long-lived waste

disposal project confirm the difficulty involved in such

projects. It would in particular appear:

•

that the schedule set by the Act covering development

of the Cigéo project needs to be set back by five years;

•

that the choice of a disposal site for Low Level, Long-

LivedWaste disposal (LLW-LL) is still posing a problem.

Waste producers must reassess their storage capacities

to provide the overall management system for these

wastes with enoughmargin to deal with the uncertainties

surrounding the actual availability of disposal solutions,

without compromising nuclear safety. This essential

extension of short-term storage capacity should not

however deflect attention from the goal of long-term

disposal.

In this respect, the studies for deep geological disposal

of high and intermediate level long-lived waste are

continuing, in particular with regard to the reversibility

aspect, which addresses a two-fold requirement:

•

adaptability of the installation to scientific and

technological advances, as well as to the consequences

of any changes in energy policy or industrial choices,

which could lead to the disposal of non-reprocessed

spent fuels;

•

recoverability of the waste already emplaced, for a

fixed period of time.

Legislative definition of the technical requirements linked

to reversibility is a prerequisite for the creation of a

disposal facility creation authorisation application file.

Radiation protection in the medical field

remains a key issue

Regulation of dose management in medical imaging

remains a major objective, in particular for computed

tomography, owing to the significant contribution by

this type of examination to the exposure of the French

population, and for interventional radiology, owing to

the major radiation-protection issues for the patients

and professionals concerned by these rapidly developing

procedures.

With regard to interventional radiology, ASNobserves that

certain urgent measures, which have been recommended

for several years now, have still not been fully applied in all

the medical structures concerned: increased numbers of

medical physicists, training of the users, means allocated

to persons competent in radiation protection, quality

assurance and audits of professional practices. ASN

EDITORIAL BY THE COMMISSION

ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2015