Setting the Stage for International Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities International Workshop Proceedings (2008) / Chapter Skim
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2 International Monitoring of Storage and Disposal Facilities: The Potential Role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)--Bruno Pellaud*
2 International Monitoring of Storage and Disposal Facilities: The Potential Role of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)--Bruno Pellaud*
Pages 3-10
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From page 3... ...
Large nuclear countries, such as the United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom, have not yet succeeded in bringing into operation suitable disposal facilities. Small countries, in particular Finland and Sweden, have overcome the corresponding technical and political hurdles to achieve the objective of a truly closed nuclear fuel cycle -- uranium ore out of geological formations, waste back into geological repositories.
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From page 4... ...
The United States has expressed no interest in storing or disposing of foreign fuel whatsoever, having already been confronted with major public opposition to the repatriation of highly enriched uranium fuel from the research reactors exported by U.S. companies over the past decades.
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From page 5... ...
All participating countries would presumably be signatories to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, the major legal instrument prevailing in that field. The joint convention applies to spent fuel and radioactive waste resulting from civilian nuclear reactors and applications and to spent fuel and radioactive waste from military or defense programs, if and when such materials are transferred permanently to and managed within exclusively civilian programs or when declared as spent fuel or radioactive waste for the purpose of the convention by the contracting party. The convention also applies to planned and controlled releases into the environment of liquid or gaseous radioactive materials from regulated nuclear facilities.
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From page 6... ...
i) The joint convention does not envisage an international verification system to ensure that national waste facilities respect the safety requirement spelled out in the convention, whether or not a national facility contains foreign waste.
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From page 7... ...
With a strong chemical industry, Switzerland has a long experience in bidirectional international transfers of toxic waste -- with the import and export of various kinds of waste and ensuing optimization and specialization of disposal facilities. All such transfers occur under the stringent regulations of the international Basel Convention with special rules applying to transfers within the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
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From page 8... ...
However, in the case of the nuclear weapons states, the supplying countries would certainly want to ensure that nuclear waste transferred under a storage/disposal agreement would not be diverted to the host country's weapons program. The IAEA monitoring could deal with the following areas, with a scope depending on the bilateral transfer agreement concluded between the parties: • Technical design -- proper international design standards.
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From page 9... ...
IAEA publications include many details about the requirements for setting up a firm legal basis that will create the necessary trust of the international partners.11 As already noted, the intergovernmental arrangements should refer specifically to international legal instruments in order to help create a smooth legal overlap between giver and recipient countries, for example, the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, referred to above. A number of detailed legal questions will need to be settled between the partners, such as long-term liability (whether it is the responsibility of the host country or a shared responsibility)
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From page 10... ...
and the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, performing here an agency service to its member states. In practical terms the agency would set up ad hoc internal teams, with personnel drawn from these two departments, with the occasional involvement on a personal basis of some safeguards inspectors and with safeguards technical support.
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