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ONDRAF/NIRAS, responsible management of radioactive waste

Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials

ONDRAF/NIRAS is working for youOur mission? To protect you!An integrated management systemA glance atthe futureToward sustainable solutionsONDRAF/NIRAS and its main partnersWould you like to know more?

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Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials

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ONDRAF/NIRAS is in charge of managing all the radioactive waste produced in Belgium on a daily basis. In so doing, it takes care of developing and applying sustainable solutions, which can guarantee the protection of humans and the environment, now and in the future.

Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials

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The ginkgo biloba is the oldest known living tree species in the world. It is believed to have

appeared on Earth almost 300 million years ago. The ginkgo biloba, which is characterised

by its exceptionally long life, is also known for its extreme resistance. ONDRAF/NIRAS

has chosen the ginkgo biloba as a symbol to represent the sustainability of the solutions

it implements.

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ONDRAF/NIRAS is working for youAll human activity inevitably generates waste in variable quantities and forms. Household dustbins contain all kinds of waste: paper, cardboard, fabric, glass, metal, plastic, organic waste, chemical products. The variety of industrial waste is even wider. But one type of waste is not another. Besides waste which could be described as ordinary, there is a category of waste which citizens find themselves much less often faced with: radioactive waste. This waste has the specific feature of emitting more or less significant quantities of ionising radiation, which makes it a group apart. Some of it deserves special attention owing to the intensity and danger of the radiation it emits.

Radioactive waste must be subject to very specific precautions. It needs to be isolated, confined, and appropriate protection systems have to be placed between it and living beings. All these measures have to be maintained over periods, which, for some waste, may be as much as hundreds of thousands of years.

This is where ONDRAF/NIRAS comes in. The legislator created the Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials to manage all the waste produced in Belgium and ensure that it will never harm humans or the environment.

This management requires very specialist knowledge in scientific and technical fields as varied as chemistry, physics, geology, civil engineering, mining engineering, mechanical engineering and metallurgy. Over time, other competences have been included among the basic professions to cover disciplines which have become inseparable from sustainable management, such as economics, ethics and sociology.

In order to succeed with its mission, ONDRAF/NIRAS relies on a team which includes about hundred collaborators. Men and women who work every day to meet the huge challenges raised by the responsible management of radioactive waste, challenges of a universal nature which, consequently, are of concern to us all.

Jean-Paul MinonGeneral Manager of ONDRAF/NIRAS

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Our mission? To protect you!Every day, each one of us produces about 1 kg of household waste, that is some 350 kg per year, per inhabitant. The production of industrial waste alone represents 3 500 kg per year, per inhabitant, namely ten times as much.

It is often forgotten that the production of radioactive waste is considerably less: in Belgium, it is barely 250 g per year, per inhabitant, namely 1 400 times less than household waste and 14 000 times less than ordinary industrial waste. Radioactive waste mainly comes from:• use in medicine, agriculture and industry, of the properties of radioactivity,• the generation of electricity from nuclear power, and• the end-of-life dismantling of nuclear facilities.

In some cases, the radiation they emit is of such nature and intensity that the waste represents a real danger for humans and the environment. Radioactive waste is broken down into three groups according to its level of radioactivity. Thus, there is low-level waste, medium-level waste and high-level waste.

Here it is interesting to highlight a specific feature of the physical phenomenon of radioactivity: the activity of any radioactive element decreases over time. The speed of radioactive decay is characterised by what is called the element’s half-life. The half-life is the period at the term of which the radioactive element’s initial radioactivity is halved.

Managing radioactive waste thus also means managing decay. To that end, radioactive waste is broken down into two sub-groups:• short-lived waste, that is waste which contains mainly radioactive elements with a half-life lower than or equal to 30 years;• long-lived waste, that is waste which contains significant quantities of radioactive elements with a half-life greater than 30 years.

The combined consideration of the two fundamental parameters of radioactivity level and the half-life of radioactive elements leads to the definition of three categories of radioactive waste: • category A waste, namely short-lived low- and medium-level waste (this represents 82% of the total volume and just 0.5% of total radioactivity);• category B waste, namely long-lived low- and medium-level waste (this represents 12% of the total volume and 2% of total radioactivity);• category C waste, namely short- or long-lived high-level waste (this represents just 6% of the total volume, but 97.5% of total radioactivity. It also generates significant amounts of heat).

ONDRAF/NIRAS’s entire management system is designed to provide answers adapted to the specific demands of each of the three afore-mentioned categories of waste. Each category requires specific management practices and safety measures.

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Carefully inventoried waste

Selective sorting and characterisation

Transport

Processing

Temporary storage

Long-term management

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Carefully inventoried waste

Selective sorting and characterisation

Transport

Processing

Temporary storage

Long-term management

2As long as the radioactivity of waste has not reached, through natural decay, a level lower than the limits set by the nuclear safety authority, it is necessary to take measures designed to prevent the radioactivity from harming humans and the environment. This obligation lies at the very heart of ONDRAF/NIRAS’s mission. To that end, the organisation has set up an integrated management system which comprises a succession of clearly defined operations.

An integrated management system

Carefully inventoried wasteONDRAF/NIRAS’s management system has been designed to provide solutions adapted to the level of risk of each waste category. The organisation has set up a system for coding radioactive waste, which takes account not only of its radiological properties, but also its physicochemical properties. A specific management chain corresponds to each family or group of families. Understanding waste means, above all, knowing what it contains. But, it also means showing the ability to anticipate what future production will be: what waste has to be managed in the future, how much and in what form? By combining its knowledge of existing

waste with its forecasts for future production, ONDRAF/NIRAS carefully builds and maintains its qualitative and quantitative inventory of radioactive waste.

Selective sorting and characterisationIn order to be admitted into ONDRAF/NIRAS’s management system, each item of waste must meet a certain number of “entry conditions” which, in particular, take account of the specific constraints and limits of the management chain to which it is destined: these are the acceptance criteria. Waste producers’ strict compliance with these acceptance criteria not only improves the safety, but also the effectiveness of its management. For every batch of waste which he asks to have collected, the producer has to draw up a series of descriptive documents outlining their physicochemical and radiological characteristics, the documentary file. Acceptance

is the operation whereby, after examining the documentary file and controlling the waste’s physical conformity, ONDRAF/NIRAS agrees to take charge of it.

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TransportThe transport of radioactive waste is entrusted to certified companies which use vehicles and packaging adapted to the type of waste transported: simple plastic bags or polyethylene bottles for

low-level waste, metallic drums sealed with a lid for medium-level waste, or imposing reinforced containers with steel sides up to 25 cm thick for high-level waste.

ProcessingAny installation or method used for the characterisation, processing, conditioning or storage of radioactive waste must have been qualified beforehand by ONDRAF/NIRAS which, in this manner, ensures its capacity to produce, characterise or store the radioactive waste in accordance with the applicable acceptance criteria. For producers who do not have the necessary equipment, ONDRAF/NIRAS has processing and conditioning facilities at its site in Dessel-Mol for turning unprocessed waste into a solid, compact and stable final product. The waste’s initial volume is reduced by evaporation, compaction or even incineration, and residue from these operations is placed in a container, generally a metallic drum.

According to its type, the residue is immobilised in a cement, concrete, or even glass matrix which, when it solidifies, blocks the radioactive substances.

Temporary storageONDRAF/NIRAS has dedicated infrastructures for storing conditioned radioactive waste. The unloading and positioning of packages is carried out using remote-controlled handling systems. The thickness of these buildings’ walls varies according to the waste’s

radiological characteristics: from a few dozen centimetres for low or medium radiating packages up to thicknesses of about two metres for strongly radiating waste.

Long-term managementNo long-term management solution is operational as of yet in Belgium, but the preparation of solutions is making good progress. Within the next five years, ONDRAF/NIRAS should start operating a first facility, at the Dessel site, for the surface disposal of short-lived low- and medium-level waste, namely category A waste. The selection and implementation

of a long-term management solution for category B and C waste will take more time, but significant progress has been made over the past decade.

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A glance at the future

For thirty years, ONDRAF/NIRAS has been studying all possible solutions for equipping the country with truly sustainable long-term management solutions. A sustainable solution must not impose excessive burdens on future generations. Therefore, the storage of radioactive waste is only a temporary solution because, if this solution were to be prolonged, it would result in very heavy burdens of surveillance and maintenance over long periods. The safest way to manage radioactive waste in the long term involves isolating it from humans and the environment for as long as is necessary.

Category A waste (short-lived low- and medium-level waste) has characteristics which make it perfectly compatible with a surface disposal facility. Subject to the setting up of a combination of strong barriers and the organisation of appropriate monitoring after closure of the repository, category A waste may remain there safely for several hundred years, namely the time needed for their radioactivity to decrease, through natural decay, to a level sufficiently low for the waste to no longer be considered as a radiological risk.

On 23 June 2006, the Council of Ministers gave the green light to continue developing the integrated surface disposal project for category A waste on the territory of Dessel municipality. This project is qualified as integrated because it brings together, in one complex, the actual disposal project as well as a series of initiatives which offer the local communities real added-value. This disposal project has been developed in close collaboration with local representatives within the partnerships created with the municipalities concerned. The participative process, successfully initiated at the end of the 1990s, is still fully operational.

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Future surface disposal modules for the cAt project

Representation of a possible future geological repository

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In order to be able to carry out its mission in full, ONDRAF/NIRAS must have a final solution for all the radioactive waste for which it is responsible. It is agreed on an international level that the disposal of category B and C waste (high-level and/or long-lived waste) in deep and stable geological formations constitutes a very safe long-term management solution considering the extremely long periods during which the waste in question continues to be dangerous, namely for hundreds of thousands of years.

The rocks studied on a worldwide level are mainly salt, granite and clay. Since 1974, Belgium has been examining the possibility of disposing of category B and C waste in a deep clay layer, making it a pioneer in this field. Research work carried out by ONDRAF/NIRAS over the past decades, in close collaboration with the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre in Mol, and numerous engineering firms, research centres and Belgian and foreign universities, aims to ensure that the disposal of category B and C waste in a deep clay layer is a technically feasible solution and that it is able to guarantee the safety of humans and the environment in the very long term.

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Toward sustainable solutions

Science and technique

Artificial barriers are able to ensure the confinement of waste for hundreds of years, natural barriers, such as clay in the case of deep disposal, for hundreds of thousands of years. Understanding, modelling and assessing the physicochemical mechanisms which come into play in the long history of a repository require extremely high levels of expertise. ONDRAF/NIRAS surrounds itself with scientists and experts well-known in the very large number of disciplines involved in order to help it to refine the solutions which it proposes: surface disposal for category A waste and deep disposal for category B and C waste. In this context, the HADES underground laboratory, in operation over the past thirty years, and situated at a depth of 250 metres in the Boom Clay in Mol, is an exceptional working tool.

Ecology and safety

The solutions implemented should guarantee, under all circumstances, the protection of operators, the population and the environment. This requirement can only be met by isolating waste behind a series of barriers with multiple and complementary functions, and by applying the principle of passive safety, a principle according to which the safety of the facility no longer relies on human interventions. For the surface disposal of category A waste, this protection is ensured by the waste package itself, the monolith in which the package is immobilised, the reinforced concrete structures of the disposal facility and, finally, the covers which will be laid over the facility at the end of operations.Although the long-term management option for category B and C waste is disposal in a deep argillaceous formation, most of the long-term safety will be based on the high level of confinement offered by clay.

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The development of sustainable solutions for the long-term management of radioactive waste is much more than a simple technical issue, even if the scientific and technological challenges which these solutions involve are considerable. A solution is only sustainable if it is able to reconcile the four inseparable dimen-sions of environmental issue:• science and technique• ecology and safety• economy and finance• ethics and society

Finding a long-term coherent and acceptable balance between these four dimensions is the first goal of ONDRAF/NIRAS’s programmes.

SustainableSafe Equitable

Feasible

Acceptable

Environment and safety

Science and technique

Economy and finance

Ethics and society

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Economy and finance

According to the legislation in force, management costs are charged, at cost price, to the waste producers in accordance with the polluter pays principle. ONDRAF/NIRAS has developed the appropriate financial mechanisms which ensure that, whenever needed, it will have sufficient resources to cover its costs both today and in the future. One particular difficulty is being able to estimate, with sufficient precision, the organisation’s expenses over several decades, even over a century, timescales rarely considered in the history of industry or finance.Radioactive waste producers are making provisions which will serve to finance the long-term management of their waste. Thus, future generations will not have to support either the obligations or the financial costs of industrial practices from which they would not have benefited. For that matter, the cost for present generations must remain bearable.

Ethics and society

The long-term management of radioactive waste remains a very sensitive issue. Any solution designed to be sustainable must, first and foremost, be acceptable to the community.Almost fifteen years ago, in the frame of its disposal project for category A waste, ONDRAF/NIRAS successfully launched a participative method enabling the active association of the local population in the decision-making process. Partnerships have been created on a voluntary basis with the communities concerned and have given rise to an integrated project, namely a project which, on a technical level, offers a sustainable solution for managing category A waste, whilst also generating real added value for the communities receiving this repository on their territory.

In the same spirit of transparency and exchange, ONDRAF/NIRAS wants to set up, as soon as possible, a flexible and transparent step by step participative process enabling all the stakeholders to play an active role in the implementation of the long-term management solution which will be decided for category B and C waste.

Whatever the solution chosen, ONDRAF/NIRAS will do its utmost to preserve at every step the essential balance between the four fundamental dimensions of any sustainable undertaking: technique, the protection of humans and the environment, the economy and ethics. This commitment guarantees that the solution implemented will be technically feasible, safe, equitable and acceptable.

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In order to succeed with its missions, ONDRAF/NIRAS relies on the skills and expertise of many partners.

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ONDRAF/NIRAS and its main partnersBelgoprocess This is the subsidiary company of ONDRAF/NIRAS which ensures the technical operations necessary for the processing and temporary storage of radioactive waste. Belgoprocess is based at ONDRAF/NIRAS’s site in Dessel-Mol and operates the agency’s facilities devoted to the management of radioactive waste. Belgoprocess is also in charge of the dismantling of nuclear facilities which have been shut down, the remediation of contaminated buildings and grounds and the decontamination of materials and structures.

GIE EURIDICE GIE EURIDICE, an economic interest group created by ONDRAF/NIRAS and SCK•CEN, assesses the safety and feasibility of radioactive waste disposal, thus contributing to the national disposal programme managed by ONDRAF/NIRAS.

SCK•CEN SCK•CEN is the federal centre in charge of studying specific applications in nuclear science and technology. The centre is active in fields of interest to society, such as nuclear safety and radiological protection. SCK•CEN also carries out research on radioactive waste disposal in the frame of the national disposal programme managed by ONDRAF/NIRAS.

Local partnerships Openness, transparency and a spirit of collaboration are part of the essential values of the integrated surface disposal project for category A waste. From the outset, the partnerships created by ONDRAF/NIRAS and the municipalities concerned have been closely involved in the project’s development. The principle of “designing and realising together” perfectly applies throughout the disposal facility’s implementation phase. STORA (STudie en Overleg Radioactief Afval – a study and consultation group on radioactive waste) in Dessel and MONA (Mols Overleg Nucleair Afval – a consultation group on radioactive waste) in Mol are very committed, alongside ONDRAF/NIRAS, to the implementation of the integrated disposal project for category A waste.

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Consult our website www.ondraf.beor our secondary websites www.ondraf-cat.be and www.ondraf-plandechets.be, respectively devoted to these wide-ranging subjects which are, on the one hand, the disposal of category A waste, and, on the other hand, the search for a long-term management solution for category B and C waste (only available in French and Dutch).

You can also visit our information centre Isotopolis (www.isotopolis.be) in Dessel or the GIE EURIDICE (www.euridice.be) infrastructure in Mol.

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Would you like to know more?

Isotopolis Isotopolis is ONDRAF/NIRAS’s information centre. It is situated in Dessel, next to the Belgoprocess nuclear site where radioactive waste is processed, conditioned and stored. Isotopolis is designed for all people interested in the subject and, as a priority, for 15 to 18-year old teenagers.A permanent exhibition enables visitors to learn more about the slightly mysterious world of nuclear waste. This exhibition is based on the following three themes:• radioactivity,• everyday management of radioactive waste,• long-term management of radioactive waste.Guides are there to welcome and accompany visitors, conduct various educational experiments in front of them and answer all their questions.A visit to Isotopolis lasts about two hours and includes a visit to a processing-conditioning facility and a low-level radioactive waste storage building at the Belgoprocess site.

Isotopolis Gravenstraat 73, 2480 DesselTel. +32 14 33 40 31isotopolis@belgoprocess.bewww.isotopolis.be

GIE EURIDICE GIE EURIDICE’s demonstration hall in Mol hosts a permanent exhibition devoted to research activities on the possibility of disposing of category B and C radioactive waste in deep clay layers.Using educational boards, models and prototypes, the exhibition shows the present state of research and experiments devoted to this technical option, especially research carried out over the past thirty years in the HADES underground laboratory situated in the clay layer at a depth of 225 m below the GIE EURIDICE site. It is also possible to visit the HADES underground laboratory on request.The exhibition is open to people over 18 years of age. Groups are welcome provided that they include between 5 and 20 people.Guides accompany visitors and answer their questions.

GIE EURIDICE Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol Tel. +32 14 33 27 70jrypens@sckcen.bewww.euridice.be

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Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials

ONDRAF/NIRASAvenue des Arts 14

1210 BrusselsBELGIUM

Tel. +32 2 212 10 11Fax +32 2 218 51 65

www.nirond.be