| Decommissioning in Italy (The Decommissioning and Dismantling of Nuclear Facilities in OECD/NEA Member Countries - Italian National fact sheet by ANPA)
1 - Present Status of the Italian nuclear installations
2 - Legal and Regulatory Framework 3 - The initial strategy 4 - Government strategy change and the role of SOGIN 5 - Current programs and main issues 6 - The management of radioactive wastes and spent fuel 7 - The National repository 8 - Funding
6. The management of radioactive wastes and spent fuel
6.1 Waste classification Technical Guide no. 26 issued by ANPA (now APAT) classifies radioactive wastes in three categories according to their radiological characteristics: - First category wastes are those that, within a few months or in a few years as a maximum, decay to a radioactivity concentration lower than the values for disposal into the environment specified in accordance with Italian legislation. Wastes of this category are mainly generated in biomedical and in research activities.
- Second Category wastes are those that, in a time period varying from a few decades to a few centuries, decay to a radioactivity concentration in the order of some hundreds of Bq/g. Second category wastes are typically produced in nuclear facilities during plant operation and in a few biomedical, industrial and research activities; this category also includes parts of wastes arising from plant decommissioning.
- Third Category wastes are identified as that not belonging to the previous categories. Waste of the third category needs a thousand or more years of decay to a radioactivity level of some hundreds of Bq/g. Third category includes high level waste arising from industrial spent fuel reprocessing, and waste arising from plutonium handling facilities (MOX fuel fabrication). The spent fuel to be directly disposed of belongs also to Third Category.
The Guide provides also detailed criteria for the safe management of category 2 wastes, while generic indications are provided for category 3 wastes.
6.2 Waste inventory The present inventory of Italian radioactive waste can be summarised as follows: - Low and Intermediate Level Wastes:
- ~ 25.000 m3, stored at the sites of origin (power plants, experimental fuel cycle facilities, research centres, etc), and mainly not conditioned;
- ~ 500 ton/year, annual generation;
- ~ 50.000÷60.000 m3 to be shipped to the national repository, including those produced by the dismantling of the nuclear plants;
- High Level Wastes:
- ~ 9.000 m3 produced by the dismantling of the nuclear plants and other installations;
- ~ 75÷150 m3 vitrified wastes back from the reprocessing of spent fuel;
- ~ 60÷70 dry storage casks
6.3 Spent fuel inventory and management
Since the beginning of nuclear activities, Italy had pursued the reprocessing option using foreign reprocessing facilities.
The adoption of the reprocessing option was justified by the strong involvement of Italy in the fast reactor program. In this connection, "service agreement" contracts were stipulated by ENEL with BNFL.
After the political decision to stop all nuclear power activities in Italy, the shipments abroad of spent fuel for decommissioning were practically suspended.
At present, the inventory of spent fuel present in Italy, coming from the dismissed Nuclear Power Plants and plants of the fuel cycle, can be summarised as follows: - ~ 230 ton U-Pu from NPPs,
- ~ 60 ton U-P from the ENEL participation to “Superphenix”,
- ~ 4 ton U-Pu from ENEA plants.
SOGIN position is that existing contracts with BNFL shall be maintained. The fuel not covered by these contract should be preferably stored in dry metallic casks on-site and as soon as possible transferred to the National site. However, for specific situations other options are considered, such as a new reprocessing contract with BNFL or other companies.
The same option will be applied to other minor quantities of spent fuel.
6.4 Reinforced safety and security provisions
The increased concerns about the international situation and specifically about potential terrorists attacks to sensitive targets, including nuclear installations, the Italian Government has taken specific initiatiatives, i.e.:
– Declaration of the status of emergency for nuclear installations related to the increase in safety for storage and disposal of radioactive wastes (Prime Minister Decree February 14, 2003).
– Urgent provisions for the disposal, in conditions of the greatest safety, of the radioactive materials displaced in the nuclear plants and stored in different sites of the Italian Regions (Prime Minister Order, March 7, 2003 n. 3267). With the Order SOGIN chairman has been nominated as Special Government Commissioner for Safety until December 2003 and SOGIN has been indicated as the operating organization to put in place the orders of the Commissioner.
An important step has been achieved in July/August with the transfer to SOGIN of the licenses of the ENEA and FN installation in decommissioning. | 
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