Browse by: "L"
Index
Title Index
Year Index
With almost 70% of the operating nuclear power reactors over 30 years of age, countries around the world are assessing whether to allow reactor operation past the 50 60 year mark and potentially up to 80 years. Ensuring a proper legal framework for the long term operation (LTO) of nuclear power reactors is a key component of such considerations.
The aim of this report is to provide insights into the various laws, regulations and policies that contribute to different countries' approaches to LTO. By collecting information from more than 20 NEA member and non member countries, this report highlights both commonalities among approaches as well as possible reasons for variations. Ultimately, the information gathered can serve as a vital resource for future exchanges respecting the legal aspects of LTO, with a view to further development and strengthening of the collective understanding of these issues.
The long-term safety of deep disposal of radioactive waste is strongly dependent on the performance of the geological setting. The geology fulfils important safety functions including isolating the waste from human contact or intrusion, providing a stable physical and chemical environment, insulating against external disturbances, and preventing or delaying the transport of radioactive materials away from the waste. Thus, a sound understanding of the geology's history and evolution is central in supporting assessments that examine the long-term performance and safety of deep disposal. This conference proceedings examines how geoscientific arguments and data are compiled and linked to create a unified description of the geological setting to support a safety case. It also examines practical aspects and limitations in collecting, linking, extrapolating and communicating such information.
As the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) accident illustrates, many challenges have to be faced in maintaining safety over the long term in a damaged NPP following a severe accident. These comprise maintaining and monitoring a stabilised and controlled state of the damaged plant; implementing provisions against further failures; evaluating the plant damaged state from a physical and radiological standpoint and ranking related risks; preparing and achieving fuel retrieval (either fuel assemblies stored in spent fuel pools or fuel debris from damaged reactors); and managing safely plant recovery and accident waste. All these actions are to be conducted protecting plant personnel from radiation exposure.
This status report reviews knowledge and experience gained through long-term management (LTM) of the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi accidents, by identifying and ranking main issues and knowledge gaps. It also reviews the existing regulations and guidance, practices, technical bases and issues considered in member countries of the Nuclear Energy Agency regarding LTM of a severely damaged nuclear site.
Finally, it proposes recommendations and areas for future investigation to enhance LTM of an NPP as regards necessary knowledge and provisions development, particularly for the optimisation of management of contaminated cooling waters.
The existing nuclear fleet remains the largest low-carbon source of electricity generation in OECD countries. In 2021 the average nuclear power plant had already been operating for 31 years and some 30% of reactors worldwide were already operating under long-term operation conditions. The long-term operation of this existing nuclear capacity will be essential over the next decade to keep decarbonisation targets within reach. At the same time, by keeping the long-term-operation option open, countries could also reap a wide-range of socio-economic benefits including more affordable and secure electricity supply. Nevertheless, an increasing number of reactors are being shut down earlier than expected due to policy decisions and increasing market pressures in some regions.
In light of these trends, this study takes a holistic approach to identifying the key enablers for long-term operation of nuclear power plants. The attractiveness of long-term operation lies in its technical maturity, cost-competiveness and ease of implementation: it is a high-value option to support the energy transition while minimising potential risks along the way.
Low-level radioactive waste (LLW) arises in the normal operation of nuclear power plants and fuel cycle facilities, as well as from the use of radioactive isotopes in medicine, industry and agriculture. This report sets out the costs of operating disposal sites for LLW in OECD countries, as well as the factors that may affect the costs of sites being developed. This publication will be of special interest to experts in the field of radioactive waste management and economics of the nuclear fuel cycle.