Session: 10-03 R&D - Decommissioning & Regulatory Issues

Paper Number: 108631

108631 - Prioritisation of Needs and Opportunities for Promoting Circular Economy When Managing Materials and Waste Arising From Nuclear Decommissioning 

The Euratom HARPERS “HARmonised PracticEs, Regulations and Standards in waste management and decommissioning” project aims to establish and clarify the benefits and added value of a more aligned and harmonised regulations and standards for prioritised topics related to decommissioning and initial phases of radioactive waste handling, including shared processing facilities between Member States (MS).

HARPERS is a 3-year project gathering 26 partners from 13 European countries. The project consists of a strategic, a regulatory framework, and three technical Work Packages (WP). Among these, Work Package 4 (WP4) aims at addressing the most important conditions and opportunities for promoting Circular Economy approaches when managing materials and waste arising from nuclear decommissioning across Europe.  The HARPERS project has a two-phase approach: the first phase involves engaging with Stakeholders to assess needs and pros/cons for harmonisation and to identify priority areas for deeper analysis. The second phase will pursue deeper engagement with Stakeholders to further assess the highest ranked priority areas in the three technical Work Packages. In Phase 2 the industry and business impacts resulting from the project findings will be also evaluated.

Circular Economy concepts and principles aim to minimise waste and make more efficient use of available resources through, e.g., design considerations, careful operations and by recovering and regenerating products at the end of a facility lifecycle. Efficient and sustainable waste management focusing on waste reduction, reuse and recycling would ensure that valuable materials are reinjected into the market. The Circular Economy approach will result in a more efficient and effective decommissioning in terms of environmental impacts and primary resource consumption. In this context, differences in national regulatory requirements translate into different prerequisites for achieving circularity.

HARPERS WP4 aims at identifying the priority areas and establishing and clarifying the benefits and added value of more aligned and harmonised regulations for Circular Economy consideration.  It will also identify the main obstacles and challenges preventing the implementation of Circular Economy approaches at European level. The outcomes will provide Member States, the European Commission and other interested stakeholders with guidance on implementing the principles of the Circular Economy facilitating the safe reuse and recycling of materials.

For the prioritisation of needs and opportunities for Circular Economy considerations, first a detailed list of topics (challenges/needs - related to harmonisation of practices, regulations and standards for Circular Economy) has been developed within WP4, based on the input of the different partners (representing different types of organisations) and on a gap analysis conducted by reviewing existing literatures (including strategic research agendas, state of the art reviews, position papers and other reports of past and on-going projects). The topics in WP4 were clustered into 7 main categories and discussed with interested external stakeholders during dedicated on-line workshops conducted in January and February 2023.

Criteria for the prioritisation of topics, based on drivers relating to societal impacts, actor-specific impacts, scientific impacts and financial impacts, have been developed and, after a preliminary analysis of the data collected during the on-line workshops, a set of priority topics has been identified to move to Phase 2.

This work presents the preliminary results obtained from the prioritisation of needs and opportunities for promoting Circular Economy approaches when managing materials and waste coming from nuclear decommissioning.

Presenting Author: Federica Pancotti Sogin SpA

Presenting Author Biography: Ms Federica Pancotti is a Chemist with more than 15 years background in the field of decommissioning and radioactive waste management. During her career she was involved in many different activities. In the first 8 years she worked in Nucleco (leading company in the management of radioactive waste and the remediation of nuclear and industrial sites) as Chemical Laboratory Manager first and then as Liquid Treatment Plant Manager.
In 2011 she moved to Sogin where she started working in the Engineering Department as responsible for Chemical and Process Unit. In 2016 she became responsible for the Technological Innovation Unit. In this role she is involved into the identification, in a national or international scenario, of innovative approaches and solutions in order to apply new technologies in the Sogin decommissioning projects. She actively participates to different Horizon Euratom projects.