Since 1980, the National Agency ONDRAF/NIRAS has been responsible by law for the safe management of all radioactive waste produced in Belgium, including decommissioning waste. In 1991, its responsibility was extended by Royal Decree of 16.10.91 to the field of decommissioning, its main specific assignments being: • The collection and evaluation of data (physical and radiological inventories) from nuclear plants; • The approval of decommissioning programmes, including decommissioning cost evaluations and mechanisms of funding. Already in the early 90s, ONDRAF/NIRAS started with the implementation of its own integrated data processing system, recording the physical and radiological inventories of nuclear plants and allowing the evaluation of the quantities of decommissioning materials and waste as well as of the decommissioning costs of the plants. In 1997, the law on the inventory of nuclear liabilities of 12.12.97 completed and enforced the decree of 1991, stating that the agency will: • Draw up a register specifying the location and condition of all nuclear facilities and all sites containing radioactive substances on Belgian territory; • Estimate the cost of decommissioning and cleaning up these facilities and sites; • Evaluate the availability of sufficient funds to carry out these future or ongoing operations; • Update the inventory every five years. As a result, during these last few years, ONDRAF/NIRAS had to deal with an increasing amount of decommissioning data (submission of inventories, new decommissioning plans and also a first batch of five-yearly revisions) concerning a larger diversity of facility types (enlargement of activities to “smaller” licensees, like universities, hospitals, etc). Simultaneously and consequently, ONDRAF/NIRAS faced the need to integrate a larger range of field-experienced decontamination and dismantling techniques, performed by different decommissioning companies, in order to obtain more refined and “pertinent” cost evaluations. For the same purposes, it appeared necessary to consider alternative waste processing possibilities, especially for very low-level waster arising from decommissioning activities. In 2000, ONDRAF/NIRAS started to upgrade its Decommissioning Management System (DMS) in order to enhance the quality of the database (integrity, intrinsic validity, extrinsic validity, completeness and accuracy) and simultaneously to develop the flexibility and the abilities of the evaluation functions. This paper presents and describes the latest version of the ONDRAF/NIRAS DMS (the data model, interface facilities, and the calculation and reporting possibilities) putting emphasis on experience gained and on some of the first lessons learned. The two first sections of this paper give an overview of the National Agency’s main missions and outline the information and data collection process in the framework of decommissioning and inventory. Indeed, the context in which the updated DMS was developed and the difficulties encountered during the data collection process should inform the reader about the way the upgrading of the data system has been thought out and the alternatives the National Agency had to deal with. In the third section, the main functionalities of the DMS modules are set out in concrete terms, the main modules being: • The “Inventories” module, recording their physical and radiological inventories for the sites that fall within the scope; • The “Techniques” module, integrating measurement, decontamination, dismantling and special recycling techniques, as well as their unit cost elements; • The “Waste” module, integrating standard and special waste categories, their packaging, transportation and processing possibilities, as well as their unit cost elements; • The “Nominal Forecast” module, linking an inventory to selected techniques and waste costs, associated with the “best estimate” reference calculation scenario; • The “Scenario” module, dealing with the storage and evaluation of alternative scenarios (pessimistic or optimistic ones, deferred dismantling, etc). The last section focuses on experience gained through developing the upgraded DMS and putting it into operation. Some potentialities of the upgraded DMS are also discussed.
The safe management of a country’s radioactive substances in both the short and the long term implies a cost to its present society and necessitates financial resources to cover these costs. Once they are needed, these financial resources may prove to be insufficient or even completely lacking, leading to a nuclear liability. By virtue of article 9 of the Belgian law of 12th December 1997, the Belgian Government wishes to avoid the occurrence of such nuclear liabilities. This law charges ONDRAF/NIRAS, the Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials with the mission to draw up a register of the localisation and the state of all nuclear sites and all sites containing radioactive substances, to estimate the costs of their decommissioning and remediation, to evaluate the existence and adequacy of the provisions for financing these future or current operations and to update the resulting inventory of nuclear liabilities on a five-yearly basis. This paper outlines the methodology put in place by ONDRAF/NIRAS to accomplish this assignment and highlights some of the results of this exercise. It than focuses on the main recommendations ONDRAF/NIRAS made to the Belgian Government on the field of avoiding potential nuclear liabilities.
The safe management of a country’s radioactive substances in both the short and the long term implies a cost to its present society and necessitates financial resources to cover these costs. Once they are needed, these financial resources may prove to be insufficient or even completely lacking, leading to a nuclear liability. By virtue of article 9 of the Belgian law of 12th December 1997, the Belgian Government wishes to avoid the occurrence of such nuclear liabilities. This law charges ONDRAF/NIRAS, the Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials with the mission to draw up a register of the localisation and the state of all nuclear sites and all sites containing radioactive substances, to estimate the costs of their decommissioning and remediation, to evaluate the existence and adequacy of the provisions for financing these future or current operations and to update the resulting inventory of nuclear liabilities on a five-yearly basis. This paper outlines the methodology put in place by ONDRAF/NIRAS to accomplish this assignment and highlights some of the results of this third inventory. It then focuses on the main recommendations ONDRAF/NIRAS made to the Belgian Government on the field of avoiding potential nuclear liabilities.
Since 1980, the Agency is responsible by law for the safe management of all radioactive waste produced in Belgium, including decommissioning wastes. By the law of 11 January 1991 and the implementing Royal Decree of 16/10/1991, ONDRAF/NIRAS has been entrusted with a mission concerning the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. This mission involves the collection and assessment of data concerning decommissioning forecasts for nuclear facilities, the approval of facilities’ decommissioning programmes, the establishment — in consultation with operators — of financing conditions for decommissioning, as well as the implementation of these programmes on request by the operator, or in the case of its failure to do so. This is the case for the company Best Medical Belgium SA located at Fleurus (MDS Nordion SA, till April 2011), which produced radioisotopes for medical applications and went bankrupt in 2012. These installations have been entrusted to ONDRAF/NIRAS. A plan of action was developed for taking-over the operations in the framework of remediation and decommissioning. Steps have been taken to integrate his new role as a nuclear operator. The installations of Best Medical Belgium SA are now referred to as the “O/N - Site Fleurus.” Nuclear facility operators, or any person requesting to operate a nuclear facility, are obliged to provide ONDRAF/NIRAS, under their responsibility and in due time, with all the necessary information concerning these facilities’ decommissioning forecasts, the nature, quantities and dates of transfer of the resulting waste, and the financing conditions for these facilities’ decommissioning. In order to make the necessary funds available for decommissioning a nuclear facility when it will be shut down, operators are obliged to establish provisions during the facility’s active life. These provisions are calculated in such a way that the total amount established at the time of the final shutdown covers all costs resulting from the facility’s final phase, namely the preparation of decommissioning, decontamination, more or less long-term maintenance, dismantling, treatment, conditioning and disposal of waste produced during this phase. In order to face to multiple and repeated evaluation processes, the Agency, already in the early 90’s, started with the implementation of its own integrated data processing system, recording the physical and radiological inventories of nuclear facilities, and allowing the evaluation of the quantities of decommissioning materials and wastes as well as of the decommissioning costs of these facilities. The cost evaluations cover all decommissioning activities from final shutdown of the facility until final release from nuclear control, as well as conventional demolition and site restoration if required. Beside the information related to the inventories, the database involves so called auxiliary tables integrating unit prices of the various decontamination and dismantling techniques, unit rates for radioactive waste processing, interim storage and final disposal.
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