Waste Technology Section
Predisposal Management of Radioactive Waste
Ongoing Activities
The Predisposal Management Unit encompases a wide range of activities, from generation to treatment and conditioning, and through to disposal. Therefore, the activities of the Unit are quite extensive and are divided into the following major topical areas:
Technical Guidance Documents
The pre-disposal program for 2008-2009 is focussed on Implementation of Sustainable Waste Management Strategies and Programmes. The program objective is to enable Member States to:
- formulate adequate waste management strategies,
- plan their needs, and
- implement necessary infrastructure in the short and long term.
On-going pre-disposal activities are addressing these needs by development of appropriate technical guidance in the following work areas:
Waste Management Strategies:
Policies and Strategies for Radioactive Waste Management
This guidance document is finalized by Disposal and Predisposal Units and published as NE Series guidance document No. NW-G-1.1 in June, 2009. This document:
- Highlights the main elements of national policy and strategy for safe management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste recognising that policies and strategies vary considerably depending on, among other things, the nature and scale of the generation of radioactive material in a country;
- Provides a support, resource and reference for those engaged in the development or updating of national policies and strategies for RWM;
- Relates to the contents of policies and strategies without addressing the development of national laws, regulations and guidelines, although their development is clearly related to the national policy and strategy;
- Indicates what might be contained in national policies and strategies but does not prescribe what the contents should be, since national policy and strategy have to be decided at the national level taking into account national priorities and circumstances.
The two documents that should provide additional guidance for implementation of Waste Management Strategy in Member States are under preparation in the Pre-Disposal Unit and the Disposal Unit. These documents are:
Radioactive Waste Assessment Methodology
- Provides practical guidance for longer-term planning of technical options for waste management activities by use of standardized, comprehensive considerations and methodologies for performing an assessment of local, national and regional waste inventories and forecasts, and the resulting waste management needs.
- Covers the full range of nuclear activities, including uranium mining, nuclear fuel cycle facilities, nuclear research reactors and research centres, nuclear power plants, RWM facilities, medical isotope production and usage facilities, industrial applications, and any other facility that may generate RW or byproducts (as defined by the regulations in a Member State).
Economics of Radioactive Waste Management
- Outlines a methodology for estimating the costs of RW management activities;
- Assesses the liability for specific WM strategy; and
- Provides examples of application of this methodology in a typical end-to-end evaluation of life cycle WM costs for alternative strategies
This document provides an evaluation of life cycle costs and liabilities for the management of wastes streams including, but not limited to, the management of legacy waste stored or disposed of in the past and newly generated RW from nuclear applications, nuclear power generation and associated nuclear fuel cycles, and closure and decommissioning of nuclear facilities including the WM facilities themselves.
These three documents will provide a solid basis for practical implementation of radioactive waste management strategies in a country or by an operating waste management organization.
Modular Processing and Storage Facilities
Previous work on Reference Design for a Centralized Spent Sealed Sources Facility, TECDOC-806 and Reference Design for a Centralized Waste Processing and Storage Facility, TECDOC-776 are going to be complemented with on-going work on new TECDOC on Modular Design of Processing and Storage Facilities for Small Volumes of Low and Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste and Disused Sealed Radioactive sources. The results of this work have been organized as an integrated package to support the needs in Member States. The integrated package should enable an Operator to:
- Select technical options for Waste Processing and Storage including Disused Sources based on current and forecasted waste inventory
- Justify selected technical options to reflect safety requirements and guides
- Develop technical specifications for procurement of detailed design and construction services for RW Processing and Storage including physical protection that contains adequate design descriptions of facilities to be designed and constructed
- Develop Safety Case and perform Safety Assessment
- List and summarize content of major operating procedures
- Develop licensing application for Regulatory Body authorization to design and construct (phase 1) and to operate (phase 2)
Long Term Storage
The technical document on Technical Conditions for Long-term Storage of Radioactive Waste is finalized for publication in 2009.
Waste Characterization
The initiative of promotion of network of laboratories, LABONET, for RW characterization is being pursued for implementation in 2009/10.
Waste Minimization and Treatment
New TECDOC on Organization and Technical Options for Waste Minimization during Operation and Maintenance was started in 2008 and is in the final draft form.
International benchmarking project on Minimization of Liquid and Solid RW Generated at NPP Sites (WWER Reactors) was started in 2007 and it will be implemented over a period of 5 years.
New TECDOC on Techniques and Technologies for the Reduction of Liquid and Gaseous Effluents from Nuclear Reactors was started in 2008. Initial draft is ready for final editing.
New TECDOC on Decay Storage of Radioactive Effluents from Medical and Other Institutional Applications and Monitoring during Discharge was started in 2009 and an initial draft has been prepared.
Waste Acceptance Criteria
New TECDOC on Characterization and Management of Mixed Waste was started in 2008. The first draft is prepared for CM in late 2009.
New TECDOC on Approach for WAC Development is starting in 2009:
- The most common definition of WAC includes only those requirements that are to be met by conditioned radioactive wastes and packages, to be accepted at an Interim Storage or a Disposal Facility
- WAC should be also set up for the different stages of the Predisposal activities in Waste Management
- Guidance to deal with Non-conformance and Non-Compliance has to be addressed
Quality Management
New TECDOC on Reference Quality Manual for the Operations of Small Scale LLW Processing and Storage Facilities was started in 2008 and an initial draft has been prepared.
The Radioactive Waste Management Registry (RWMR) software has been developed to assist Member States in the better implementation of their Quality Assurance (QA) programme. It is a working material for recording and processing of information on radioactive waste management activities. The application of this software is explained to Member States by organizing national, regional and interregional training workshops. Comments and requests of users are taken into consideration for revising and improving the software. Training materials and relevant documents for RWMR software applications are also continuously updated. More information about RWMR can be found by following the link:http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NE/NEFW/wts_information_RWMR.html
Innovative Technologies
New TECDOC on Processing of Waste from Innovative Types of Reactors and Fuel Cycles was started in 2007. This activity will continue for 5 years. The final report will be published in cooperation with INPRO in 2012.
New TECDOC on Mobile Processing Technologies and Systems for Radioactive Waste Management was started in 2008. The draft report is prepared for TM in late 2009.
High Level Waste
Work on best practices for the processing and conditioning of HLW, including SNF encapsulation was started in 2008. The draft report is prepared for TM in late 2009.
It is worthwhile to note that:
- The extent of the general knowledge in a Member State on treatment and conditioning of HLW to stable disposal ready waste forms is very limited.
- There are no recent IAEA publications on treatment and conditioning of HLW. The last publication on the subject matter is from 1992.
- The future work should provide an overview of the current technological state of art, and better understanding of the responsibilities required for the management of high level waste, its implications to the environment and its economic parameters.
Coordinated Research Projects
Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on ´Performance and Behaviour of Cementitious Materials in Long Term Storage and Disposal of Radioactive Waste¡ was started in 2007. The third Research Coordination Meeting (RCM) is planned to be held in 2010.
- The CRP involves 26 research organizations from 21 Member States.
- The objective of the CRP is to investigate the behaviour and performance of cementitious materials used for an overall waste conditioning system based on the use of cement, including waste packages, waste-form and backfill material, as well as interaction and interdependencies of these individual elements during long term storage and disposal, and understand the processes that can result in the degradation of their physical and chemical properties.
Technical Cooperation (TC)
Technical assistance through IAEA TC Programme was provided to pre-disposal activities for operational and decommissioning waste streams of Ignalina NPP in Lithuania, Chernobyl NPP in Ukraine and Bohunice A1 NPP in Slovakia. The common elements between these projects that are coming in focus for technical assistance are same type of reactor in Lithuania and Ukraine that are pursuing decommissioning in a similar timeframe, and a need to deal with problematic waste streams that are result of nuclear accidents in Bohunice A1 and Chernobyl Unit 4. Some joint training sessions have been organized for these projects in 2008/09. Initiatives are being taken to organize more common training sessions and workshops and to consider merging of scientific visits and expert missions.
Technical assistance through TC program was provided for the management of institutional (non-NPP) waste in Bangladesh, Belarus, Chile, China, Columbia, Croatia, Egypt, Korea, Lithuania, Mexico, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and Vietnam. The common elements in these projects are retrieval and processing of legacy waste, waste characterization, conditioning of liquid waste, and assistance in design and/or operation of waste processing and storage facilities.
The regional project on Quality Management of Radioactive Waste in Central and Eastern Europe provides adequate means for organization of on-job training course with standardized syllabus in Moscow SIA RADON for the younger operators of low level waste processing and storage facilities of participating Member States. It also provides an opportunity for organization of two workshops for operating waste managers devoted to common topics on various issues of management of either NPP waste or institutional waste in the region.
Training of Waste Management Operators
- Sharing of practical experience, and use of best practices, will continue to be developed and promoted through regional training courses and workshops
- Regional TC Projects provide the best mechanism for uniformed, standardized training for the waste operators.
- The training modules on waste management technologies for waste operators could be further developed based on standardized training syllabus already in use for operators from Russian speaking countries
- The chain of regional Centres of Excellence could be established as part of international networks in RWM to provide exposure to on the job training at the operating waste management facilities
The development of human capabilities for RWM in MS embarking on nuclear power would require:
- Development of IAEA syllabus for different levels of RWM training (operators, support technical staff, managers) and higher level education
- Establishment of network of designated regional training centres at existing research & development, utility institutes and universities
- Prerequisites for RTCs are existence of RWM facilities to demonstrate RWM technologies, experience in organization and execution of training at various levels, and on-going R&D cooperation with Universities
