Preparation for tritiated waste management of fusion facilities: Interim storage WAC

Abstract

Considering the high mobility of tritium through the package in which it is contained, the new 50-year storage concepts proposed by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) currently provide a solution adapted to the management of waste with tritium concentrations higher than the accepted limits in the disposals. The 50-year intermediate storage corresponds to 4 tritium radioactive periods i.e., a tritium reduction by a factor 16.This paper details the approach implemented to define the waste acceptance criteria (WAC) for an interim storage facility that not only takes into account the specificity of tritium provided by the reference scheme for the management of tritiated waste in France, but also the producers’ needs, the safety analysis of the facility and Andra’s disposal requirements. This will lead to define a set of waste specifications that describe the generic criteria such as acceptable waste forms, general principles and specific issues, e.g. conditioning, radioactive content, tritium content, waste tracking system, and quality control. This approach is also a way to check in advance, during the design phase of the waste treatment chain, how the future waste could be integrated into the overall waste management routes and identify possible key points that need further investigations (design changes, selection of materials, etc.): the results obtained are shown. It supports the nuclear operator to ensure the compliance of the future waste packages with the disposal acceptance criteria.