Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, Fourth Spanish National Report

The present document constitutes the Fourth Spanish National Report, submitted in compliance with the requirements of article 32 of the Joint Convention on Safety in the Management of Spent Fuel and Safety in the Management of Radioactive Waste, done in Vienna on September 5th 1997. This report will be examined during the review meeting of the Contracting Parties contemplated in article 30 of this Convention, which will begin in May 2012. The Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade (MITYC), the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) and the Spanish radioactive waste management agency Empresa Nacional de Residuos Radiactivos, S.A. (ENRESA) have participated in preparing the report. The report summarises the actions implemented, mainly from January 1st 2008 to June 1st 2011, although the information and data contained therein refer to those available as of December 31st 2010, unless expressly specified otherwise. The aim is for this report to be not only an explanatory document but also critical and appraising. In this respect, the criteria and directives used in drawing up the report have been as follows: As a starting point, the report has been drawn up taking into account the IAEA document INFCIRC/604 “Directives relating to the form and structure of national reports”, adopted by the Contracting Parties pursuant to article 29 of the Convention. Repetitions of the contents of the Third National Report have been avoided to the extent possible and emphasis has been placed on the progress made or novelties arising since that previous report. Consideration has been given to the comments and suggestions emerging during the process of reviewing the previous National Report. Both the reports by the Reporters to the Plenary and the summary report of the third Review Meeting were submitted to the Congressional and Senate Commissions on Industry, Tourism and Trade and to the Institutions concerned. In general, Section K identifies the aspects that it is considered should be improved and the measures planned in this respect. The terminology of the Convention has been used through out this report, except in those sections in which the corresponding clarifications have been expressly indicated. For the purposes of agreement with the Spanish standards, in the Spanish version, the term “residuo radiactivo” has preferably been used for radioactive waste, as a synonym of the term “desecho radiactivo” in the meaning given to it in article 2 of this Convention. It should be pointed out that in the Spanish legislation, and through out this report, what the Convention refers to generically as “nuclear facilities” corresponds not only to those installations that are known as “nuclear facilities” in national law – i.e., nuclear power plants, nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel manufacturing facilities, installations for the treatment of nuclear substances and installations for the storage of nuclear substances – but includes also, for reasons of safety in radioactive waste management, those “radioactive facilities” that produce, handle or store radioactive material.