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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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