Session IIa: THE GLOBAL WASTE SAFETY REGIME
THE GLOBAL WASTE SAFETY REGIME
Chairperson: K. Higashi (Japan) Members: A.-C. Lacoste (France)
L. Baekelandt (Belgium) K. Raj (India)
Y. Ito (Japan)
M.V. Federline (United States of America)
K. HIGASHI (Japan): Perhaps M.V. Federline, who attended the First Review Meeting of Contracting Parties to the Joint Convention, could give us her views regarding the Joint Convention.
M.V. FEDERLINE (United States of America): I consider the Joint Convention process to be extremely important. I am helping with the preparation of my country’s report for the Second Review Meeting, and I have seen how the exercise has brought together agencies which often do not cooperate with one another as closely as they should and has improved our understanding of various radioactive waste management issues.
The Review Meetings enable Contracting Parties to put forward different approaches. This is important since, as was clear from some of the papers summarized by the Rapporteur, K. Raj, different countries have different national strategies, reflecting social, cultural or political differences. At the Review Meetings, we shall be able to consider the strengths and weaknesses of those approaches.
As regards the question of increasing the number of parties to the Joint Convention, in my country the establishment of a geological repository and the control of radioactive sources are currently the two top priority issues. In most other countries there is only one top priority issue — the control of radioactive sources. I believe that, in order to substantially increase the number of parties to the Joint Convention, we must bring that issue to the forefront and seek solutions within the Joint Convention framework.
I also believe that we must be flexible in the Joint Convention process, which must be a ‘level playing-field’ as between countries with extensive nuclear activities and countries without. The resources required in preparing
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for Review Meetings can be substantial, but in my view the Joint Convention process can over time evolve so as to enable countries without extensive nuclear activities to participate more easily in and benefit from Review Meetings.
A.-C. LACOSTE (France): I agree with M.V. Federline. If we want to keep the Joint Convention alive, we must be flexible and ensure that its
‘incentive convention’ character is emphasized. We must not impose stringent conditions on newcomers. For example, we must not insist that they endeavour to comply from the very outset with the relevant IAEA Safety Standards. Such insistence would deter many countries from becoming parties to the Joint Convention.
Y. ITO (Japan): I think it is important to introduce greater flexibility into the Joint Convention process through a graded approach as regards the preparation and review of national reports.
I also think that countries which have been parties to the Joint Convention for a considerable time and have experience of the Joint Convention should help newcomers.
K. HIGASHI (Japan): Could A. Lavrinovich tell us about the situation regarding the Joint Convention in his country?
A. LAVRINOVICH (Russian Federation): We signed the Joint Convention some years ago, and I hope that our Parliament will ratify it before the end of this year. The rather long delay between signing and ratification was due to, among other things, difficulties associated with the administrative reform that has been taking place in the Russian Federation.
In the Russian Federation there is a lot of ‘historical’ radioactive waste, and in some cases we are not sure of its location. I hope that in the preparation of our national report for the Second Review Meeting we shall focus success-fully on this problem.
As regards the IAEA’s Safety Standards, in developing our nuclear regulatory system we have found them very helpful. We use them a great deal.
A.-C. LACOSTE (France): A. Lavrinovich just spoke of ‘using’ the IAEA’s Safety Standards. I prefer to speak of ‘using’ them rather than
‘applying’ them, for the following reason. There are countries which do not use the standards at all and countries which apply them by incorporating them directly into their regulations, and a wide range of countries somewhere between those two extremes — for example, countries which use the Standards as a reference. It is for each country to decide what it will do with the Standards, and we must bear that in mind.
So far, we have not made much use of the Standards in France, but we recently started using them in an exercise, involving the heads of 17 European regulatory bodies, aimed at the setting of common reference levels for the
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safety of nuclear power plants and the safety of radioactive waste storage facilities.
L. BAEKELANDT (Belgium): I believe that the IAEA’s Secretariat is drawing up a questionnaire based on IAEA Safety Standards to facilitate the preparation of national reports pursuant to the Joint Convention. It has already done something similar in the area of transport safety — on the basis of the IAEA’s Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material it has drawn up a questionnaire to facilitate the conduct of TranSAS (Transport Safety Appraisal Service) missions to countries requesting the Secretariat to organize such missions.
K. HIGASHI (Japan): In your presentation, you spoke briefly about an IAEA questionnaire exploring the use of the safety standards. Could you expand on what you said earlier?
L. BAEKELANDT (Belgium): It is difficult to give a summary of the results, because not many countries have so far responded and because the questionnaire related to several standards, and the fact that a particular country applies a particular standard does not automatically mean that it is applying all the other standards.
One has to be very careful when interpreting the results. For example, all the responding countries stated that they were using the safety guide on the application of clearance and exemption, but some of them are not making full use of it as they have their own numbers. They probably all use the same radio-logical criterion, 10 µSv/a, but they do not all use the numbers given in the safety guide.
A.-C. LACOSTE (France): What L. Baekelandt just said shows how careful one must be with the concept of ‘application’. The concept of ‘use’ is more suited to what is a complex situation.
K. RAJ (India): Through my interaction with the IAEA’s Waste Safety Standards Committee (WASSC) I have found that many countries are using IAEA Safety Standards in the formulation of their own standards. India is using them in that way, as are more and more other developing countries.
C. PESCATORE (OECD/NEA): I agree with A.-C. Lacoste that one should speak of IAEA Safety Standards being ‘used’ rather than ‘applied’. The replies to the Safety Standards questionnaire show that the regulatory function is closely connected with national policies and national legislation, which reflect the national culture. Given the great diversity of national cultures, even in areas such as stakeholder involvement, it is difficult to bring about the application of internationally harmonized standards by a large number of countries.
A.-C. LACOSTE (France): I hope nobody thought I meant to say that IAEA Safety Standards should only be used, not applied. I was simply
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speaking in light of the actual situation — in most cases they are only being used. This is partly due to cultural factors which we should take into account.
L. BAEKELANDT (Belgium): For many countries it is impossible to apply IAEA Safety Standards directly by incorporating them into their national regulations because the Standards are not available in their national official language. In the case of Belgium, they are not available in one of its official languages, so we simply use them as a reference.
Y. ITO (Japan): There are very many IAEA Safety Standards and related documents, and it is therefore important that they be made available in a user friendly manner. I understand that the IAEA Secretariat is looking into how the hierarchy of documents can be presented in a more user friendly form on an IAEA web site. If it is doing so, I hope that it will finish the job soon.
K. HIGASHI (Japan): What role can be played by networking and knowledge sharing in this area?
C. PESCATORE (OECD/NEA): Both my organization and the IAEA provide forums for knowledge sharing. This is important not only for networking but also for advancing the state of the art. In addition, it is important for helping to ensure that there will be future generations of nuclear safety experts.
Ideas evolve over time. We do not now look at nuclear safety in the way we looked at it, say, 15 years ago, which we should bear in mind when talking about IAEA Safety Standards, some of which were drafted a long time ago.
Our two organizations also assist in resolving immediate problems, for example, through IRRT (International Regulatory Review Team) and other peer review missions to requesting countries.
In my view, it is essential not to try imposing detailed procedures on others given the diversity of national cultures to which I referred just now, although harmonization may be possible within a fairly small group of countries — perhaps, for example, the countries whose regulatory bodies belong to the Western European Nuclear Regulators’ Association (WENRA).
I think it is particularly important not to try imposing detailed procedures on others in cleanup situations where ‘standards’ are being developed with the help of local stakeholders. Such ‘standards’ will differ from place to place, but why not?
There are many ways of promoting the Joint Convention. One way is to provide countries with suitable information. The United States of America made such information available to African countries at the meeting in Ouaga-dougou, Burkina Faso. That was mentioned earlier — and that information was obtained from documents produced by OECD/NEA and the IAEA.
A.-C. LACOSTE (France): I should like to draw attention to two recent developments.
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Firstly, an increasing amount of regional cooperation is taking place through bodies such as WENRA. I welcome that as I believe that, besides cooperation at the global and bilateral levels, there is a need for more regional cooperation.
Secondly, there is an increasing demand for IRRT missions organized by the IAEA. So far, the requests for such missions have been made primarily by what one might call ‘emerging nuclear countries’, but I believe a number of countries very advanced in the nuclear field — for example, Germany, the United Kingdom and the USA — are thinking of making requests. France has already requested an IRRT mission, which will take place early in 2007.
In my view, both these developments will contribute to networking, particularly between the members of IRRT teams and the regulators who host them.
M.V. FEDERLINE (United States of America): Further to what C. Pescatore said about cleanup situations, I would mention that I recently visited Port Hope, Canada, and was very encouraged by what I saw there.
Three communities have got together and are conducting a cleanup, developing their own standards in the process. It has worked out very well at Port Hope, and I believe that this is a success story which should be widely publicized.
Y. ITO (Japan): Regarding regional cooperation, I should like to recall the proposal made in the opening address of K. Hirose, Director General of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. His proposal was that the Asian Nuclear Safety Network Programme, which was launched by the IAEA in 2001 and of which Japan is a major supporter, be expanded to include the waste management area.
In Asia there are several countries with very active nuclear power programmes and several nuclear power plants under construction, and still more countries where extensive use is also being made of ionizing radiation in medicine, industry and agriculture. These countries attach great importance to safety in the management of radioactive waste, and we believe that expanding the Asian Nuclear Safety Network Programme to include waste management would both help to increase the number of parties to the Joint Convention and promote the use of IAEA Safety Standards. In our view, three activities which might be launched immediately are the exchange of information on the use of the relevant IAEA safety related documents, the development of a database of relevant laws and regulations, and the development of a database for the safety evaluation of disposal facilities.
K. HIGASHI (Japan): Perhaps A. Lavrinovich could say a few words on the subject of regional cooperation.
A. LAVRINOVICH (Russian Federation): I think there is considerable scope for regional cooperation in the field of spent fuel management, with
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countries which are very advanced as regards nuclear fuel cycle technology helping countries which are less advanced.
The Russian Federation has started taking back spent research reactor fuel which was produced there, and that will be a big contribution to safety.
D. LOUVAT (IAEA): I should like to clear up misunderstandings that have arisen about IAEA Safety Standards and the Joint Convention, about what is and is not legally binding and about what is applied and what is used.
The only obligations under the Joint Convention are an obligation to produce a national report and an obligation to attend the Review Meetings.
There is no obligation to apply or use IAEA Safety Standards, which are not the only means of achieving a high level of safety. You can demonstrate that you have achieved a high safety level without the help of those Standards.
IAEA Safety Standards are used, and in the course of being used they are also applied. They may be used by any State, but a State which wishes to receive technical assistance through the IAEA must apply them. My understanding is that the IAEA Board will not approve a technical assistance project involving the use of a radioactive source in the case of a State which does not have a regulatory infrastructure in place able to control radioactive sources and protect the public from harm due to such sources.
As regards IAEA Safety Standards, there is nothing at the Safety Requirements level which cannot be accommodated by any IAEA Member State, whatever the sociopolitical context.
J.T. GREEVES (United States of America): Under the Joint Convention there is an obligation to produce a national report and an obligation to attend Review Meetings, but there is no obligation to stand up and present one’s national report. The production of a short national report — say, one of ten pages — need not be onerous, but defending it in front of an audience can be intimidating. Perhaps it could be agreed that countries which have just acceded to the Joint Convention will not have to defend their national reports in a formal setting — simply present them in a kind of poster session.
Such an approach might raise the number of countries party to the Joint Convention to about the level reached in the case of the Convention on Nuclear Safety.
A.-C. LACOSTE (France): It should be borne in mind that several of the 54 countries party to the Convention on Nuclear Safety are not countries with nuclear power plants but ones situated close to such countries which participate in Review Meetings in order to learn more about possible emergency situations.
As regards the Joint Convention, in order to prepare a national report you need to determine what the radioactive waste issues in your country are, and in many countries that is not easy. It is not easy to find out what has
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happened in one’s hospitals, industrial enterprises and so on. As a first step, you must establish a radioactive waste inventory. Then you have to write a report, which presupposes that there is some kind of radiation protection authority — which is not the case in some countries. Finally, somebody must defend the report at a Review Meeting. This can represent a huge effort.
An approach like the one just suggested by J.T. Greeves might be the answer. Another possibility might be help with the preparation of national reports provided by other countries or by the IAEA. A further possibility might be the preparation of a regional report covering several countries — a process from which the countries new to the Joint Convention could learn.
At all events, what is asked of countries which are thinking about acceding to the Joint Convention must not be too difficult. Otherwise the results of their cost–benefit analysis will be negative and they will decide not to accede.
P. METCALF (IAEA): I think we sometimes forget that the Joint Convention is supposed to be an ‘incentive convention’ and that review meetings are supposed to help parties to the Joint Convention. Perhaps newcomers would be less intimidated if, before review meetings, groups of parties got together in order to discuss the preparation of national reports.
A.-C. LACOSTE (France): Perhaps one could make it possible for countries to attend review meetings as observers.
I would like to add that I participated in all three review meetings of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Nuclear Safety that have taken place so far, and I can say that the quality of the reporting at successive meetings has improved enormously.
M.V. FEDERLINE (United States of America): Before the Ouagadougou meeting, the IAEA together with the sponsoring countries, produced a ‘tool kit’ for the participating countries so that these would understand what they should prepare. Is that ‘tool kit’ still available?
D. LOUVAT (IAEA): It is available via a link on the IAEA web site to the US Department of Energy web site.
We also have a CD-ROM made at the Ouagadougou meeting which will be made available on request — addressed to K. Hioki in the IAEA’s Division of Radiation, Transport and Waste Safety.
L. JOVA SED (IAEA): Regarding the Safety Standards questionnaire referred to earlier, the results obtained with it are very interesting, but it must be borne in mind that the replies came from IAEA Member States which are represented in WASSC — that is to say, mainly from developed countries.
If we had sent the questionnaire to all IAEA Member States, the overall response would probably have been more in favour of the IAEA’s Safety Standards as over 90 Member States have participated in the IAEA model
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projects for strengthening regulatory infrastructures, and most of the experts visiting those countries within the framework of the model projects used the relevant IAEA Safety Standards as reference material.
I.G. CROSSLAND (United Kingdom): There was talk earlier about cleanups in connection with which local stakeholders develop their own safety
‘standards’. What do you do, however, if the local stakeholders want the dose levels to be reduced to below what is reasonable or call for retrievability and monitoring at the expense of passive safety or post-closure safety? Surely you need international standards for such situations.
K. RAJ (India): That is a very important point.