NEW FACILITIES, REASSESSMENT OF EXISTING FACILITIES AND DECISION MAKING ON UPGRADING SAFETY OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL FACILITIES

摘要

The session, involving contributions from 11 countries, comprised three invited presentations, a report on five contributed papers, and a panel discussion. Two of the invited presentations dealt with the reassessment and upgrading of existing facilities from the viewpoint of the regulator and imple-menter, respectively. The third presentation was devoted to regulatory review and licensing in a more generic way, based on the conclusions reached in the IAEA's ASAM programme. In the generic presentation, it was stated that the regulatory review of safety cases and safety assessments is essential for credible decision making on the licensing or authorization of radioactive waste disposal facilities. The regulatory review process typically includes ensuring that the disposal facility will not cause any adverse impacts, providing assurance that the safety assessment has been conducted adequately, verifying that the results of the safety assessment comply with regulatory requirements, ensuring that measures to mitigate possible impacts have been identified and ensuring that uncertainties have been identified and taken account of. The whole process must be transparent. Some potential difficulties in conducting regulatory reviews were raised, including issues of project and programme management, limited resources for reviews, conflicts due to multiple regulatory agencies and difficulties in assessing the potential long term behaviour of systems.