Status and Trends in Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management
Status and Trends in Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management is a collaborative project between the IAEA, the European Commission and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, with the participation of nuclear industry organization the World Nuclear Association, that aims to consolidate and complement the information gathered from different initiatives around the world. The objective of the Status and Trends in Spent Fuel and Radioactive Waste Management series is to be the authoritative publication that systematically and periodically summarizes the global status and trends of programmes and inventories for spent fuel and radioactive waste management. The first in the series was published in January 2018, and covered the situation up to the end of December 2013. This is the second edition and covers the situation up to the end of December 2016.
This publication provides an overview of current global inventories of spent fuel and radioactive waste, current arrangements for their management, and future plans for their ultimate disposal where appropriate. Spent fuel is generated only by States operating nuclear power plants or research reactors, whereas radioactive waste is generated in all States producing or using radioactive material in, for example, medicine, industry and research and the nuclear fuel cycle. It is the intention to update this publication at regular intervals, following the reporting schedule for the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.
Institutional, organizational and technical aspects of spent fuel and radioactive waste management are explored, including legal and regulatory systems; organization of waste management activities and associated responsibilities; and strategies and plans for ongoing management of different types of spent fuel and radioactive waste, from its generation through conditioning and storage to disposal. This publication compiles the quantities of spent fuel and radioactive waste that currently exist and explores forecasts for the coming decades. Significant trends and the corresponding challenges in the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste are also discussed.
Inventory estimates of spent fuel and radioactive waste in the world are based on information in the National Profiles provided by 38 participating Member States and provided on the web site accompanying this publication. Data are supplemented by published reports to the Joint Convention. For most cases, the information provided corresponds to the end of December 2016; the data are based on information from States accounting for almost 95% of all nuclear power reactors in the world. On this basis, there is an estimated 265 000 tonnes of heavy metal (t HM) of spent fuel in storage worldwide and 127 000 t HM of it has been sent to be reprocessed. The current total global inventory of solid radioactive waste is approximately 38 million m3 , of which 30.5 million m3 (81% of the total) has been disposed of permanently and a further 7.2 million m3 (19%) is in storage awaiting final disposal. More than 98% of the volume of solid waste is classified as being very low or low level waste, with most of the remainder being intermediate level waste. In terms of total radioactivity, the situation is fully reversed, with approximately 98% of the radioactivity being associated with intermediate and high level waste. This publication also provides volumes of liquid radioactive waste, both disposed of and in storage.
It is evident that significant progress has been made globally in formulating national policies and strategies and in implementing legal and regulatory systems that define responsibilities for the ongoing safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste. Most States expect to dispose of their waste in facilities located on their territories, with the main focus of international cooperation being on technology development. Disposal facilities for VLLW and LLW are already in operation in several countries. However, in many others, particularly those with small volumes of radioactive waste, disposal options still have to be developed. The most important remaining challenge is the development, public acceptance and long term funding of disposal facilities for high level waste and spent nuclear fuel considered as waste. Significant progress has been made in a few countries, such as the construction licence for a deep geological disposal facility that was granted in Finland in November 2015.
