LINKAGE BETWEEN POST-CLOSURE SAFETY CASE REVIEW AND THE AUTHORISATION PROCESS FOR RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL FACILITIES

摘要

The Environment Agency (the Agency) has responsibilities under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA93), for regulating disposal and storage of radioactive wastes in England and Wales, including regulation of the disposal site for UK solid low-level waste (LLW) at Drigg in Cumbria, NW England. To help inform the next review of the Drigg disposal authorisation, the Agency has required the operator, British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL) to submit a Post-Closure Safety Case (PCSC) which will assess the potential longterm impacts from the site. The Agency will review the PCSC, inter alia, to determine appropriate authorisation conditions and disposal limits. With the aim of using best practice to determine authorisation conditions, the Agency contracted Galson Sciences Ltd to undertake an international survey of authorisation procedures for comparable facilities in other countries. The overall objective of the review was to determine how PCSC review outputs may be used to support regulatory decisions. This paper provides an overview of the findings from the international survey, including discussion of: the authorisation process; information considered in the authorisation process; regulatory criteria; post-closure safety cases ; and, the regulatory decision-making process. In particular, the paper concentrates on issues that are regarded, from the Environment Agency’s perspective, as key points from the international survey pertinent to the future regulation of the BNFL Drigg disposal site. The paper also provides some initial views on how outputs from the PCSC review might be linked to the authorisation.