On March 21, 2012, the Town of Spanish expressed interest in learning more about the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) site selection process to find an informed and willing community to host a deep geological repository for Canada’s used nuclear fuel (NWMO, 2010). This report summarizes the findings of an initial screening, conducted by Geofirma Engineering Ltd., to evaluate the potential suitability of the Town of Spanish against five screening criteria using readily available information.

This paper is a response to a request from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for CoRWM’s advice on the 2011 review of options for accelerating the geological disposal programme carried out by the Radioactive Waste Management Directorate (RWMD) of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

This country report on Canada contributes to the InSOTEC research programme’s Work Package 1.1 which maps remaining socio-technical challenges to the implementation of geological disposal of radioactive waste in fourteen countries in the EU and North America (www.insotec.eu). The aim of this country report is to provide an overview of the current situation of geological disposal of High Level radioactive Waste (HLW) and Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) in Canada.

This is the eighth CoRWM Annual Report. It summarises CoRWM’s scrutiny and advice for the financial year ending on 31 March 2012. It also contains the Committee’s views on the status of arrangements and plans for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive wastes in the UK at June 2012.

Fourth Review Meeting of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, Canada's Responses to Questions to its Fourth National Report

This report is part of the research project International Socio-Technical Challenges for Implementing Geological Disposal: InSOTEC (see www.insotec.eu), funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme. This report is a contribution to Work Package 1 of the project, which aims to identify the most significant socio-technical challenges related to geological disposal of radioactive waste. To achieve this objective, a comparative analysis of 14 national programmes will be performed.

The use of nuclear energy has a strong tradition in Slovenia. In 1949 the Institute Josef Stefan was founded, devoted to research in physics, with great emphasis on nuclear physics. A few years later (1966) the research nuclear reactor TRIGA started to work in the vicinity of capital city Ljubljana, to support its research.

1. Recognizing the importance of the safe management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, the international community agreed upon the necessity of adopting a convention with the objective of achieving and maintaining a high level of safety worldwide in spent fuel and radioactive waste management: this was the origin of the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (the “Joint Convention”), which was adopted on 5 September 1997 and entered into force on 18 June 2001. 2.

The year 2011 was the year that marked the global nuclear industry and influenced the attitudes and activities of many professional, scientific and commercial organizations and spurred public interest in this branch of industry. Probably the whole world reacted to the natural disaster that struck Japan and damaged the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, Slovakia not excluded.