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

Paper Number: 110250

110250 - Towards a Harmonised Application of the International Regulatory Framework in Waste Management and Decommissioning​ 

Euratom Council Directives and IAEA Safety Standards provide the basis for the underlying legal and regulatory framework in radioactive waste management and decommissioning. However, the implementation of international safety standards and European Union (EU) directives can vary from one country to another as they are adapted to local considerations and national policies. These national differences can create difficulties in interpreting and comparing waste management practices between Member States (MS) and establishing consistent and coherent waste management policies and implementation strategies at the European scale. Moreover, this lack of commonality may contribute to sub-optimal waste management outcomes in terms of safety, economics, sustainability and innovation as well as public acceptance.

A greater convergence and harmonisation of national standards would allow for increased international cooperation among all relevant actors in nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste management and could lead to expanded international market opportunities and more rapid adoption of advanced and/or emerging technologies. Alignment and harmonisation based on EU standards would also be advantageous towards enabling more robust comparisons of the efficiency, suitability and limits of available techniques being used in similar conditions.

The 3-year Euratom project, “HARPERS: HARmonised PracticEs, Regulations and Standards in waste management and decommissioning,” aims to establish and clarify the benefits and added value of more aligned and harmonised regulations, practices and standards in decommissioning and radioactive waste management, including possibilities for shared processing, storage and disposal facilities between MS. The HARPERS project aims to reinforce the activities of the NFRP-2018-6 European Joint Programme on Radioactive Waste Management (EURAD, in particular with the ROUTES WP), NFRP-2019-2020-10 Pre-disposal Treatment of European Radioactive Waste Streams (PREDIS) and NFRP-2018-5 Stakeholder-based Analysis of Research for Decommissioning (SHARE)  projects. HARPERS will also connect with the wider European Community through, e.g., SNETP, NEA, IGDTP, IAEA, ENSREG, ERDO, DigiDecom, and will encourage interaction between different national programmes.

Identifying relevant regulatory differences across MS and assessing the rationale for these differences and establishing the potential for their harmonisation relative to cross border services/facilities, moving to a circular economy and implementation of advanced technologies are the primary focuses of the HARPERS project. Obstacles and issues preventing the implementation of a more common regulatory framework will be established. Furthermore, the project will evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats with respect to harmonisation of the identified regulatory differences and produce reports on harmonising regulatory systems in Europe.  A TECOP (Technical, Economic, Commercial, Operational, or Political) analysis will identify a multitude of potential changes, which will be reviewed further in terms of strategic impacts for stakeholders across all MS. The high-level benefits of more aligned and harmonised regulations are related to 1) greater business opportunities, 2) better understanding between diverse groups serving wider markets, 3) improved cost efficiency, 4) waste minimisation and 5) improved final disposability of waste. Realisation of these high-level benefits would contribute to enhancing the overall safety and economics of the nuclear sector. The project, which launched in June 2022, will run for three years and includes 26 organisations from 13 countries. It will strive to have wide stakeholder engagement including regulatory agencies, governments, researchers and industry to meet its objectives.

Presenting Author: Réka Szőke Institute for Energy Technology (IFE)

Presenting Author Biography: Réka Szőke is Principal Scientist at Institute for Energy Technology in Norway. She is the Administrative Manager for the IAEA Collaborating Centre for Digitalization of Knowledge Management for Nuclear Decommissioning, the Technical Coordinator for the HARPERS EURATOM project and responsible for several activities in the OECD Halden Reactor Project. During her 15+ years career she also worked at the Centre for Energy Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Réka has a strong background in material science and nuclear chemistry and holds a PhD from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary.