MAJOR TOPICS

(a) Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management (Joint Convention)

In their paper, Kawakami and Okubo [1] share their experiences in preparing the National Report for presentation to the Joint Convention. The major issues covered are the reporting of uranium mining waste, provisions for decommissioning and environmental impact assessment. A comparison is made of the requirements of the Convention on Nuclear Safety in relation to those of the Joint Convention; the major differences are: (i) the Joint Convention covers diversified facilities due to the variety of categories of waste and their management requirements (in contrast with the relatively well defined and common nuclear reactor facilities), (ii) the safety precautions needed for waste can be optimized in relation to waste amounts and character-istics (in contrast with nuclear reactors), and (iii) a long term perspective is needed in radioactive waste management in view of disposal of long lived waste

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(in contrast with the finite time for consideration for nuclear reactors). The authors have concluded that the Joint Convention is effective in promoting waste safety and in bringing harmony and conformity in the use of safety standards globally, and that the review meeting of the Joint Convention is a useful platform for sharing information/experience on licensing/regulation, on legal frameworks and on practices in radioactive waste management.

(b) Import/Export of Irradiated Fuel and Products of their Reprocessing Lavrinovich and Kislov [2] have indicated that the ratification process for the Joint Convention is in progress in the Russian Federation. In their paper, they cover the important topic of import and export of irradiated fuel and the products of reprocessing. The basis for the import of irradiated fuel to the Russian Federation is an annual limit approved jointly by the regulatory bodies, national and local governments with an environmental impact analysis as a precondition. The paper describes two options for irradiated fuel import, namely, (i) temporary storage with subsequent obligatory return to the country of origin, and (ii) temporary storage with planned future reprocessing. The return of the products of reprocessing is also covered; the basis for this is the radioactivity equivalence of the imported fuel assemblies taking natural decay during storage into account.

(c) National Regulations and Licensing Procedures

Three papers describe the formulation of regulatory systems for radioactive waste management in Croatia, Indonesia and Slovakia.

The paper by Kubelka et al. [3] presents the status of spent radiation source management in Croatia. A. The initiative to develop a joint repository and the preparation of regulations for the import/export of radiation sources are described.

Pandi et al. [4] address the present regulation relating to licensing in Indonesia. The paper includes a description of the regulatory system and its licensing documents.

The development of new regulatory requirements for radioactive waste management, necessitated after the recent joining of the European Union by Slovakia, is covered by Konecny and Homola [5]. The authors describe the preparation of new sets of regulations on (i) radioactive waste and spent fuel management, (ii) shipment of radioactive waste, (iii) licensing documentation, (iv) quality management, and (v) periodical assessment of safety. Three acts are being prepared, namely, on environmental impact assessment, including

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provisions for hearings for citizens in local and neighbouring municipalities, provision of radiation protection and a State fund for decommissioning.

(d) International Cooperative Efforts on Waste Safety

The paper by Kosako et al. [6] presents details of cooperative activities in nine Asian region countries on the safe management of radioactive waste.

Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Vietnam are the participating countries. The scope of this initiative covers (i) spent radiation source management, covering the exchange of views on how to respond to problems technically and institutionally and to develop recognition of the importance of spent radiation source management, (ii) management of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), involving the preparation of regulatory guides and the adoption of a graded approach, and (iii) dissemination of information through publications.

(e) Radioactive Waste Disposal

The two papers on this topic cover two entirely different categories of waste, namely, the near surface disposal of conditioned low level waste (LLW) and the geological disposal of high level waste (HLW).

Osmanlioglu [7] presents the current situation in relation to the interim storage of conditioned sealed sources in Turkey. The adopted disposal strategy includes retrievable storage of long lived radionuclides, disposal in vaults/

boreholes/large diameter wells located in clay and tuff formations at a depth of 20–80 m.

In a paper on the Japanese HLW programme, the concept of a Requirement Management System (RMS) is described (Sakabe et al. [8]). The necessity for implementation of this tool arises from the long term nature of the programme and includes documentation of fundamental needs and constraints, recording of changes in requirements and the historical record of project decisions and factors that influenced them.

(f) Waste Safety Assessment — Case Studies

Two papers describe approaches adopted in the safety assessment of waste management processes and practices.

In the paper of Oh et. al. of the Republic of Korea [9], the use of treated uranium containing sludge, containing nitrates of Na⁺, NH⁺₄ and Ca⁺⁺ , as a liquid fertilizer is evaluated. In the proposed process, traditional adsorption

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and ion-exchange mechanisms are superimposed on a third driving force: the electrical potential on activated carbon fibres.

The paper by Yahaya et. al. [10] describes a study conducted in Malaysia to establish the suitability of using incineration for disposing of NORM contaminated oil sludge waste. The oil sludge contains ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, ²²⁶Ra and

40K. Incineration of this oil sludge is carried out in a rotary kiln at 1150°C. The increase in exposure to the workers and the environment due to this practice has been found to be insignificant.

2. CONCLUSION

The papers of Session IIa cover a wide range of topics and issues pertaining to the global waste safety regime. The papers identify many significant topics and issues which could benefit from further review and discussion during the conference, for example, the development and implemen-tation of integrated decommissioning and radioactive waste management plans, the use of IAEA Waste Safety Standards, the import/export of irradiated fuel and products of reprocessing, international cooperative efforts on waste safety and national regulations, and licensing procedures for radioactive waste management, especially for spent radiation sources.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank A. Nair for help in the preparation of this paper.

REFERENCES

[1] KAWAKAMI, Y., OKUBO, M., IAEA-CN-135/32, these Proceeding.

[2] LAVRINOVICH, A.A., KISLOV, A.I., IAEA-CN-135/44, these Proceedings.

[3] KUBELKA, D., SVILICIC, N., KRALIK MARKOVINOVIC, I., TRIFUNOVIC, D., IAEA-CN-135/77, these Proceedings.

[4] PANDI, L.Y., SINAGA, D.C., ROHMAN, B., IAEA-CN-135/45, these Proceedings.

[5] KONECNY, L., HOMOLA, J., IAEA-CN-135/23, these Proceedings.

[6] KOSAKO, T., SUGIURA, N., OKOSHI, M., IAEA-CN-135/76, these Proceedings.

[7] OSMANLIOGLU, A.E., IAEA-CN-135/9, these Proceedings.

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[8] SAKABE, Y., et al., IAEA-CN-135/49, these Proceedings.

[9] OH, W.Z., KIM, G.N., JUNG, C.H., LEE, K.J., IAEA-CN-135/29, these Proceedings.

[10] YAHAYA, R., MAJID, A.AB., YASIR, M.S., ABU BAKAR, S., IAEA-CN-135/30, these Proceedings.

PANEL

Session IIa