Joint Convention Questions Posted to Hungary 2006
Joint Convention Questions Posted to Hungary 2006
Joint Convention Questions Posted to Hungary in 2006
Joint Convention Questions Posted to Hungary in 2006
The development of radioactive waste repositories involves consideration of how the waste and the
engineered barrier systems will evolve, as well as the interactions between these and, often relatively
complex, natural systems. The timescales that must be considered are much longer than the timescales
that can be studied in the laboratory or during site characterisation. These and other factors can lead to
various types of uncertainty (on scenarios, models and parameters) in the assessment of long-term,
Second Review Meeting, Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, written questions submitted to Luxembourg
Luxembourg has signed the Joint Convention on 1st October 1997 and is a Party thereof since 19 November 2001. The Convention entered into force on 21 June 2001. Luxembourg has no nuclear power plant, no other fuel-cycle facility, no research reactor and no other facility generating radioactive substances. Thus many requirements of the Joint Convention do not apply to Luxembourg. It further has no spent nuclear fuel and no high level radioactive waste on its territory.
The European Atomic Energy Community (“Euratom”) is a regional organisation, as referred to in Article 39(4) of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. It became a party to the Convention on 2 January 2006. This report is submitted in compliance with Articles 30 and 32 of the Convention for the Second Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties, to be held in Vienna from 15 to 26 May 2006.
Spent fuel in Sweden emanates mainly from four commercial nuclear power plants. In addition there is one material testing reactor and one research reactor. The radioactive waste originates from the nuclear power industry as well as medical use, industry, research and consumer products.
News item from NEI summarizing siting process for nuclear waste repositories in Sweden, Finland and France.
Luxembourg has signed the Joint Convention on 1st October 1997 and is a Party thereof since 19 November 2001. The Convention entered into force on 21 June 2001. Luxembourg has no nuclear power plant, no other fuel-cycle facility, no research reactor and no other facility generating radioactive substances. Thus many requirements of the Joint Convention do not apply to Luxembourg. It further has no spent nuclear fuel and no high level radioactive waste on its territory.
History shows that the search for sites for radioactive waste management facilities has been marred by conflicts and delays. Affected communities have often objected that their concerns and interests were not addressed. In response, institutions have progressively turned away from the traditional “decide, announce and defend” model, and are learning to “engage, interact and co-operate”. This shift has fostered the emergence of partnerships between the proponent of the facility and the potential host community, as shown in a recent NEA study.
Over the past forty years, the development of the technology needed to isolate radioactive waste in underground rock systems has been found to be a formidable problem. This is especially the case in connection with high-level waste (HLW) after its removal from operations in nuclear power plants. There is also the additional problem of isolating low- and intermediate-level waste (LILW).
The first worldwide review of geological problems in radioactive waste isolation was published by the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in 1991 (Witherspoon, 1991). This review was a compilation of reports that had been submitted to a workshop held in conjunction with the 28th International Geological Congress that took place July 9Ð19, 1989, in Washington, D.C.
The report begins with a consideration of the factors which have led to a growth in the use of dialogue processes, a clarification of key concepts and a classification of dialogue processes. A description of recent and current activities in Europe and North America is followed by discussion of the relationship of processes and contexts. This then leads to an identification of the key aims and evaluation criteria which will be used in the design of dialogue processes to be conducted in subsequent phases of the project.
During the 1990s, nuclear waste programmes in nearly every concerned country met many difficulties. Nuclear waste management was seen as a technical issue, and the local communities were only involved in the last stage of the decision-making process when almost all components of the decision were already fixed. The management of high level radioactive waste is now recognised as a complex decision-making process entailing technical, ethical, social, political and economic dimensions where no solution can be reached solely on the basis of technical considerations.