Annual Report 2010 on Radiation and Nuclear Safety in the Republic of Slovenia

In 2010, there were no events that posed a serious radiological threat to the population in Slovenia. There were also no particularities in relation to the services of radiation practices and operators of radiation facilities.
The Krško NPP operated without shutdowns and production was interrupted only for the annual outage. In 2010, the power plant produced 5.7 TWh in total and achieved 89.9% availability. The nuclear power plant had no major problems during the September floods, when the Sava river otherwise seriously threatened settlements in Posavje.
In the special laboratory, Hot Cell, which is part of the Jožef Stefan Reactor Infrastructure Centre in Brinje near Ljubljana, there was a slight fire in October. This was quickly extinguished by employees, and no radioactive discharges into the environment resulted.
In the former Žirovski Vrh uranium mine, the remediation of the Boršt mill tailing is still in process. It was prolonged due to additional works on the decontamination of areas near the tailing and reactivation of the landslide on which the tailings depository is situated. Ambient radiation is reducing each year because of the successful remediation.
The siting of the future repository for low- and intermediate-level waste in Vrbina near Krško was carried out very slowly. Unfortunately, the planned date of commencement of its operation is moving forward.
In November, a shipment of spent nuclear fuel was in transit through Slovenia from Serbia to Russia, and no difficulties were encountered. With this transit, several years of assistance offered by Slovenia to the international community in solving this shipment problem reached a successful conclusion.
The National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia adopted a new Law on Liability for Nuclear Damage, with which Slovenia joined the list of countries with the best arrangements in this area.
The Slovenian Government has adopted an updated National Plan for Protection and Rescue in case of nuclear or radiological accident, in which improvements have been introduced on the basis of incidents in the past and international experience.
In August 2010, Slovenia applied for admission to the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), after it became a full member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration concluded an agreement with the Italian authorities for nuclear safety on early exchange of information in case of radiological emergency and cooperation in the field of nuclear safety. With this, Slovenia has concluded such agreements with all neighbouring countries.