Transcript 2011-05 - ENEF Prague

International Nuclear Forum
BULGARIAN NUCLEAR ENERGY
NATIONAL, REGIONAL AND WORLD ENERGY SAFETY
French Experience in Radioactive Waste Management
G. Cognet (CEA), G. Ouzounian (ANDRA)
VARNA (BULGARIA)
June 3rd, 2011
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French Energy Mix
French Electric Production
Other
alternative
Energy
0,9%
Wind
1,5%
French Energy consumption
Total (2009) :
519 TWh
(of which 45 exported)
Agriculture
2,4%
Others
7,7%
Hydraulic
11,9%
Fossil
Fuels
10,6%
Nuclear
75,1%
19,5%
40,8%
Industry
Housing
29,6%
Transport
Source : Bilan énergétique France 2009, Observatoire de l’énergie
50% of the primary energy still rely on fossil fuels
Nuclear energy represents 84 % of the electricity consumption
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The French nuclear fleet
- 58 PWR units (22 MOX)
» Operated by EDF
- 63 GWe installed
- Connections to the grid :
» Fessenheim in April 1977
» Civaux 2
in Dec. 1999
» Average age : 25 years
Average age of the nuclear fleets in the world
Designed to operate 40 years or more
France - EDF
Average : 29
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 ensures competitiveness of electricity
prices
 depends on the components : containment
structure and vessel can’t be changed
 60 years already approved or considered
in some countries (ex : USA)
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Research on Nuclear Waste Management
A 1st law in 1991: 15-years research program
 Partitioning
Area 1
 Conditioning &
long term interim
storage
Area 3
 Transmutation
 Geological repository
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Area 2
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The French nuclear fuel cycle
Today and tomorrow
GEN IV
Storage
Tomorrow
Today
Disposal
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Waste management : an industrial reality
Offer safe and economically viable technical solutions
for managing nuclear waste
In France
Separation
Act of June
Enhanced Separation
Transmutation
28th, 2006
• Save fissile materials
• Reduce toxicity
• Reduce thermal load
• Reduce volume
• Improve package performance
Vitrification & Conditioning
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Interim storage
Final Storage
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Nuclear wastes : an updated regulatory
framework
Law passed on June 28, 2006 on the sustainable
management of nuclear materials and waste :
 National Plan for managing nuclear materials and radioactive waste (PNGMDR),
 Stepwise program for Long-Lived Waste ; complementarity of various
approaches (partitioning and transmutation, geological repository and interim
storage)
 Specifies in particular the conditions and the roadmap to have a
retrievable geological repository in operation by 2025
Research from
Underground laboratory
(URL), in operation
Design project for HLL
waste disposal, in
progress
 Secured long term funding of radioactive waste management
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Radioactive waste classification in France
Very low level
Short-lived waste
Long-lived waste
Period ≤ 31 years
Period > 31 years
Waste from dismantling
(CSTFA in France since 2003)
Centre deoperations
Morvilliers
(waste from dismantling operations)
Low level
Intermediate
level
High level
Graphite, radiumbearing waste
Waste mainly from dayto-day operation of
NPPs
(Studies stage in France)
(CSFMA in France since 1992)
Waste from SF reprocessing plants
(Geological disposal facility in France to be commissioned in 2025)
HL vitrified waste : after reprocessing & cooling,
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French National Waste Inventory (2009)
Volume distribution:
1,150,969 m3
Including 62 nuclear-power
industry
Including 89% with a disposal
solution
Radiological distribution
Including HL (95% of radioactivity)
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ANDRA
Andra, the French National Radioactive Waste Management
Agency, was instituted by law in 1991 as a public industrial
and commercial establishment (EPIC). It is:
 independent from the waste producers
 placed under the supervision of the ministers in charge of
Research, Energy and the Environment
 responsible for the long-term management of all radioactive
waste produced in France
 it involves about 500 paid employees (2/3 engineers and
managers) and a budget of 180 M€
The Planning Act of 28 June 2006 concerning the sustainable
management of radioactive materials and waste provides the
framework for its action.
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ANDRA financing and locations
Andra’s financing originates
from:
 contracts with producers of
radioactive waste
 a special “research” tax collected by
the French Nuclear Safety Authority
(ASN) from basic nuclear installations
(INB)
 a State subsidy for its missions of
general interest (national waste
Inventory, collection of radioactive
items, clean-up of polluted sites with
defaulting responsible entity)
 growth investments through a 100 M€
fund for radioactive-waste
treatment and recycling
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Location of ANDRA facilities
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Existing disposal facilities
 Low-level and intermediate-level (LIL) short-lived
waste
 Very-low-level waste (VLL)
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Centre de la Manche Disposal Facility
A facility under monitoring in the Manche District
Closed in 1994 after reaching its maximum
disposal capacity, the
Centre de la Manche Disposal Facility
contributed for 25 years to the disposal
of about 527,000 m3 of low-level and
intermediate-level waste (LIL).
For several centuries, the facility and its environment
will be submitted to ongoing monitoring.
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Disposal facilities in the Aube District
Two operating surface-disposal facilities in the Aube District
 The Disposal Facility for LIL Waste (CSFMA) opened in
1992. Located in Soulaines (Eastern France), it is designed
to accommodate 1 million cubic metres of LL/IL SL waste,
consisting mostly of NPPs’ operational and maintenance
waste. Filled at 24.5% with 60 years of operation to go.
 The Disposal Facility for VLL Waste (CSTFA) opened in
2003 at Morvilliers. It is used to dispose of
650,000 m3 of VLL waste resulting from the dismantling
of basic nuclear installations. Filled at 27% with 15 years
of operation to go.
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The Disposal Facility for LIL-level Waste
in the Aube District (CSFMA)
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The Disposal Facility for VLL Waste
in the Aube District (CSTFA)
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Projects for disposal facilities
 High-level and intermediate-level long-lived waste
(HIL)
 Low-level long-lived waste (LL-LL)
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The Cigéo Project (Centre industriel de
stockage géologique)
The Cigéo (Industrial Geological Waste Repository) constitutes
a non-typical INB to be built underground and to remain in operation for more than
100 years
HA
MAVL
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An unsurpassed scientific and technical
knowledge
Andra already has an unsurpassed scientific and technical knowledge
on the geological disposal of radioactive waste in clay.
Underground
laboratory
HLW-cell excavation test
Drift-opening test
Emplacement or removal of HL
packages from the disposal cell
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Schedule of the Cigéo Project
In late 2009, Andra submitted proposals to the government
regarding the implementation and design of the repository.
The project is entering in the definition and construction phases
of the industrial geological repository (“Cigéo”).
Pursuant to the Planning Act of 28 June 2006, the three major
objectives of the project are now as follows:
to obtain the authorisation to create a repository on the basis of a robust
application to be submitted in 2015
subject to authorisation, to build the first necessary structures for
commissioning in 2025
to control costs
The French project will be the world’s first facility of that type to
be built in clay.
In order to succeed, the project must fulfil
various political, safety, economical and industrial challenges.
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Political challenges
The government validated in
March 2010 the 30-km2 zone proposed
by Andra for the implementation of
underground disposal facilities.
Andra is expected to propose a site for
the implementation of surface disposal
facilities:
Extra flexibility provided by a decline
Andra proposes to validate the
selected site after the public debate
scheduled late 2012/
early 2013.
Underground Laboratory
and its transposition zone
ZIRA
The reversibility conditions of the repository will be prescribed
by a future act (in 2016 ?), after the licence application is submitted,
but before the creation licence is granted.
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Safety and security challenges
In its capacity as contracting owner and INB operator, Andra is
responsible for design choices and their implementation, which
are bounding over the long term
Compared to existing facilities, the underground repository includes
specificities that do not allow for restricting the task to a simple
transposition of practices:
 Demonstration of the long-term safety of the facility over
1 million years
 For operational safety: management of the co-activity between
underground work at a depth of 500 m and nuclear operation
 No fire reference system (INB, tunnel) is applicable as such
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Economical challenges
Pursuant to the Planning Act of 28 June 2006:
 INB operators shall fund long-term charges and implement the
corresponding dedicated assets (Art. 20)
 The Minister in charge of Energy shall rule and make public the cost analysis
of the repository on the basis of an Andra estimate after consultation with
waste producers and ASN (Art. 14)
The cost of the repository is a total cost:
 Corresponding expenses are distributed over approximately 120 years
(investment, operation, taxes)
 Producers fund the system gradually as waste is being produced
Assessment made public in 2005:
 13.5 to 16.5 billion € (concepts and economic conditions in 2002, nondiscounted raw data over the operating period)
 ~1% of the power-production cost
State objective: to generate a new assessment for the public debate
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Industrial challenges
The Cigéo project is designed to provide France with a safe management
solution over the long term for all radioactive waste generated by the
French nuclear-power fleet
The content of the programme for the first operating section conditions
the investments to be made before 2025 and requires a close cooperation between the waste producers
 Industrial means also need to be developed by the producers on their own sites
with a view to destocking, conditioning, shipping and transporting the waste up to
the disposal facility
Andra and the waste producers have identified optimisation leads
 Andra has proposed to take into account those leads in the new assessment of the
repository cost committed by the State
 The study of those optimisation leads will in order to draft the creation-licence
application
 It is necessary to anticipate some flexibility in the future decree that will authorise
the creation of the repository in order to allow for design evolutions to take place
during the operating lifetime of the repository
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LL-SL waste and design concepts
(2012: report on possible solutions)
In late 2030, that LL/SL waste would represent about 6.75% of the total volume
and 0.007% of the overall radioactivity of French radioactive waste*. They include
mostly:
– radium-bearing waste (with a radium content) ≈
48,000 m3
– graphite waste (produced by older nuclear power
plants) ≈ 70,000 m3
– other LL-LL waste (bitumised waste, sealed sources,
etc.) ≈ 33.000 m3
For a conditioned volume of about 150,000 m3*
* Forecasts for 2030 according to the data found in the French National Inventory in late 2007.
“ Repository with intact cover ”
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“ Repository with reworked cover ”
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Waste treatment and recycling
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Recycling advantages
 Saves up to 25% in natural uranium
 Promotes energy independence through:
 Recovered Pu recycled into MOX fuel
 Recovered RepU recycled into ERU fuel
 Increased fuel price predictibility
 Optimizes Final disposal by Reducing
waste volume, radiotoxicity and heat load
Spent fuel
(Pu + MA + FP)
Natural
uranium
ore
FP
MA +
FP
Time
(years)
 Helps gain and sustain public acceptance
 Strengthens proliferation resistance
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Partitioning
France: Feasibility of
partitioning
Conception and test of
molecules
01
Qualification
U
Spent fuel
France: Evaluation
report
Technological
demonstration of
process
Pu
NP
Am Cm
04
Industrial
stage: ~ 2030
Actinides
RETRAITEMENT
REPROCESSING
+ Partitioning
Very selective molecules
Partitioning performances > 99 %
FP
Glass
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Transmutation
France: Evaluation
report
France: Feasibility of
transmutation
98
91
Gain in radiotoxicity,
reduction compared to
open cycle
Physics
04
01
scenarios
and systems
Industrial
stage: ~ 2050
Integral recycling of plutonium and
minor actinides
Recycling of plutonium
ECRIX ( 2,75 g of Am)
Open cycle
Time (years)
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Conclusion
In spite of the recent Fukushima accident, the use of nuclear energy
still remains a need for many countries. Nuclear has the potential
to contribute even more by the Gen IV technologies in the future
Safety is of course an absolute priority. It relies in particular on
continuous improvement taking into account operational feedback
and the results of R&D
Waste management is a key issue for public acceptance. France has a
great experience in this field
International cooperation must be developed to share the best practices
and assure no release of radioactivity outside the nuclear sites under all
circumstances
R&D and cooperations are keys for an optimal energy future in Europe :
sustainability and competitiveness
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