The Assessment of the Waste Management Plan to Decommissioning of Cernavoda NPP for Environmental Impact Reduction

Abstract

Most of the radioactive wastes generated in Romania, are due to nuclear activities related to power generation at Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant NPP Unit 1 and Unit 2. It is provided to construct 2 new Units, in the next period. In Romania, the Nuclear Agency & Radioactive Waste - AN&DR, has established the strategy on low and intermediate level waste disposal and has as objective the commissioning of Final Repository for Low and Intermediate Level Waste – DFDSMA, until 2019. This facility, is in the responsibility of AN&DR. On the other hand, wastes arising from Cernavoda NPP must be treated, in order to achieve the acceptance criteria of DFDSMA. Corresponding Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant - RWTP is in the responsibility of Cernavoda NPP. The main requirement for the RWTP is the necessity to achieve the treatment and conditioning of radioactive wastes that arise both, from NPP operation and from future decommissioning activities of the nuclear facilities, such as to comply with the acceptance criteria of DFDSMA. According to existing requirements, it is necessary to elaborate a Decommissioning Plan, in order to obtain the authorization for construction of the new units. The Decommissioning Plan of Cernavoda NPP will imply the development of a Waste Management Plan, based on existing waste treatment technologies. Taking into account that, the radioactive waste management represents about 43%, comparative with decommissioning activities, which represents only about 35% from total budget of decommissioning, of a CANDU 6 NPP Unit, the paper will present the methodology developed, in order to obtain the optimum Waste Management Plan, taking into account the reduction of environmental impact.