RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT IN LITHUANIA IMPLEMENTATION AND STRATEGIES

Algirdas Vaidotas Deputy Director Radioactive Waste Management Agency (RATA)

Nuclear Power in LITHUANIA



There is only one Nuclear Power Plant in Lithuania. It is situated in the North-East of Lithuania near the borders of Latvia and Belarus, on the bank of Dr k iai Lake Almost all workers of the NPP live in Visaginas, a town built for services of the NPP Initially, there were plans to build 4 water-cooled graphitemoderated channel type reactors RBMK-1500 with electric power of 1500 MW each. However, only 2 of them were completed and operated That time Ignalina NPP has been producing about 80% of the total electricity production in Lithuania
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Mai iagala

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History of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant



Construction of the first unit was started in 1978. It was finished in 1983 In 1986 installation of the second unit was in finalization stage, however, after accident at Chernobyl its operation was postponed till August 1987 The Unit 1 was shut down for decommissioning in December 2004, while the Unit 2 was stopped in 2009
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Radioactive Waste in Lithuania

 RadWaste is generated in industry, medicine, research institutions, however, more than 99% comes from use of nuclear energy  Lithuania is a country of open fuel cycle  There are no mining, enrichment, fuel production as well as reprocessing activities in the country
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PRODUCERS
99%

Nuclear facilities (Ignalina NPP) Sm all-scale producers

1%

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Estimated Waste Volumes

Operational waste: Decommissioning waste:

Spent fuel -17000 assemblies Spent fuel - 5000 assemblies (in reactors pools) (in dry storage facility) Stored solid waste - 30000 m3 Equipment - 130000 tons of steel Bituminized waste - 14000 m3 Reactor - 4000 tons of steel Waste to be cemented (ion4000 tons of graphite exchange resins) - 6000 m3 Buildings - 1000000 m3 of concrete and 200000 tons of steel
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Decommissioning of Ignalina NPP

 Preliminary decommissioning plan was produced in 1999 where three options of dismantling had been considered: immediate dismantling, safe enclosure and entombment  In 2002 the Government of Lithuania adopted immediate dismantling strategy in order to mitigate social, economic and environmental consequences
 In this case experienced NPP specialists get involved in the work and the responsibility for decommissioning is not shifted an the future generations  In total, dismantling activities will take about three decades
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Decommissioning and Radioactive Waste

 The initial phase of decommissioning includes:
 introduction of the new waste classification  retrieval and characterization of operational waste accumulated in storage facilities  construction of new solid waste conditioning facility  construction of spent fuel storage facility  construction of storage facilities for long lived and short lived wastes

 It was expected that dismantling of the NPP will be completed in 2030 and that the main work will be done by the NPP staff
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Waste categories in Lithuania

 Spent Fuel  Long Lived
 intermediate level  low level

 Short lived
 intermediate level  low level  very low level

 Exempted waste (free release)

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NATIONAL POLICIES AND STRATEGIES

National Radioactive Waste Management strategy aproved by the Government in 2002. (updated in 2008) Basis of the Strategy was analysis of international practices and feasibility studies performed by Swedish company SKB in 1998. The Strategy sets out the goals and tasks for radioactive waste (including spent nuclear fuel) management. Also SWOT analysis was done.

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NATIONAL POLICIES AND STRATEGIES

1. 2. Main objectives: To achieve a high level in nuclear and radiation safety in management of spent fuel and radioactive waste. To improve the radioactive waste management infrastructure, which shall be based on modern technologies, strive to minimize activity and volume of radioactive waste. Informing the Lithuanian public to achieve a better understanding of the main radioactive waste management principals (justification, optimization, limitation) and acceptance of waste management projects.

3.

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NATIONAL POLICIES AND STRATEGIES

A national waste management strategy includes arrangements for: 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 upgrading the existing facilities; establishment of new waste treatment and storage facilities; construction of a disposal facilities and of a repository for spent nuclear fuel and long lived radioactive waste; regulatory control; creation, change and renewal of legal acts; performance of scientific recharges, that explore new radioactive waste management technologies; organizational and financial provisions; public information.

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Council Directive 2011/70/Euratom

Contents of national programmes according to Council Directive
2011/70/Euratom

(a) the overall objectives of spent fuel and radioactive waste management; (b) the significant milestones and clear timeframes for the achievement of those milestones in light of the over-arching objectives of the national programme; (c) an inventory of all spent fuel and radioactive waste and estimates for future quantities, including those from decommissioning, clearly indicating the location and amount of the radioactive waste and spent fuel in accordance with appropriate classification of the radioactive waste; (d) the concepts or plans and technical solutions for spent fuel and radioactive waste management from generation to disposal; (e) the concepts or plans for the post-closure period of a disposal facilitys lifetime, including the period during which appropriate controls are retained and the means to be employed to preserve knowledge of that facility in the longer term;
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Council Directive 2011/70/Euratom

f) the research, development and demonstration activities that are needed in order to implement solutions for the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste; (g) the responsibility for the implementation of the national programme and the key performance indicators to monitor progress towards implementation; (h) an assessment of the national programme costs and the underlying basis and hypotheses for that assessment, which must include a profile over time; (i) the financing scheme(s) in force; (j) a transparency policy or process as referred to in Article 10; (k) if any, the agreement(s) concluded with a Member State or a third country on management of spent fuel or radioactive waste, including on the use of disposal facilities.

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New projects for modernization of waste management at INPP are undergoing

B1 Interim spent fuel storage facility (ISFSF) B2 Solid waste retrieval and preliminary treatment facilities B3/4 Solid waste management and storage facilities B10 Free release measurement facility B19 Landfill facility for short-lived very low level waste B25 Near surface repository for low- and intermediate-level short-lived radioactive waste During this projects decommissioning waste, waste from old storage facilities located at INPP site will be retrieved and treated according new classification and waste acceptance criteria. Exact inventory will be known after implementation of modernisation of radioactive waste management at Ignalina and during implementation of decommissioning projects.
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AFTER UPDATED FACILITIES AT IGNALINA NPP

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National strategy on radioactive waste management

 Disposal of short lived wastes Two repositories will be constructed:
 for Very Low Level Waste; up to 60 m3  for Low and Intermediate Level Waste; about 100 m3

 Storage of SF and other long lived waste Facilities will be constructed to store:
 22 000 assemblies of the spent fuel and  for 6 500 m3 of long lived waste
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Disposal facility for very low level waste

 Similar landfills are operational in Sweden and France  Unconditioned waste is disposed here  Will consists of 3 modules containing 20000 m3 each  Should be operational in 2012

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ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW NEAR SURFACE REPOSITORIES

A new repository with concrete vaults will be developed to dispose LILW Project started in 2002 from conceptual planning, site selection, EIA: 2003-2007 Detailed technical design: 20092012, capacity 100 000 m3 Start of construction 2012 Similar repositories are operational in France, Spain, Slovakia

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Spent Fuel Storage

 Dry Spent Fuel storage technology ensuring safety during next 50 years is applied in Lithuania  New storage facility located in the proximity of the NPP is under construction  German company GNS elaborated CONSTOR containers suitable for RBMK fuel storage
 Safe storage time is up to 50 years
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Spent Fuel Storage (2)

 The first storage facility for SF with CASTOR RBMK-1500 and CONSTOR RBMK-1500 type casks was commissioned in 1999  In 2005 GNS-RWE NUKEM GmbH consortium started to implement new project
 New storage facility located in the proximity of the NPP is under construction
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DESIGN OF SPENT FUEL STORAGE FACILITY

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1. SF-filled casks 2. Protective concrete wall 3. Empty cask storage site 4. Control point building 5. Bridge crane 6. Personnel building 7. Sewerage building 8. Transformer substation 21 9. Security system

CONSTOR CASK

Developer and Supplier is the German company GNS

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General view of the SF storage facility with 202 CONSTOR containers to be constructed

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Future strategy
 Lithuania in ~2030 should start selection of a site for geological repository
 if international practice is the same  there is no new advanced technologies applicable

 In addition, possibilities to prolong storage time in the storage containers are to be investigated
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Shared European Solution for Radioactive Waste

 For European countries with only small amounts of waste to manage, constructing their own repository is a major challenge, practically and economically  The obvious solution is for countries to share in the development of one or more regional repositories  A multinational working group has been established in 2009 to study the feasibility of setting up a not-for-profit European Repository Development Organisation (ERDO) that would implement one or more shared geological repositories in Europe
 WG members are nominated by the appropriate Government level organisations

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Shared European Solution for Radioactive Waste (2)

 The ERDO-WG will generate over the next 1-2 years the decision input needed for Governments to decide whether to proceed with the formal establishment of the ERDO
 The ERDO would continue over the next 10 or more years  It will also work with local communities that are interested in the project and wish to become actively involved in its development.  Potential host countries would be volunteers

 The following countries currently participate in the ERDO-WG: Austria, Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia  The ERDO will operate as a sister organisation to the advanced national disposal programmes towards safe, secure and societally accepted geological disposal

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION !

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