French government okays bill endorsing reprocessing, repository

French government okays bill endorsing reprocessing, repository

London (Platts)--29Mar2006

France's Council of Ministers on March 22 approved a landmark nuclear waste
policy act that was submitted to parliament the same day. Debate on the
measure is set to begin April 6, according to industry minister Francois Loos.

The legislation establishes deep-geologic disposal as the "reference solution"
for high-level and long-lived radwastes, and sets goals of licensing a
"reversible" deep geologic repository by 2015 and opening that facility by
2025.

It does not designate a site for the repository, but at present the only
candidate is in a clay formation near Bure in eastern France, and the bill
doesn't require a second candidate site.

The bill also establishes spent fuel reprocessing and recycling of usable
materials as France's policy, so as to reduce the quantity and the toxicity of
wastes to be disposed of underground. It also foresees interim aboveground
storage of wastes that "cannot be recycled," Loos said at a press conference
following the Council of Ministers session.

Six antinuclear groups, including the National Coordination against Burial of
Radioactive Wastes, Greenpeace, and Sortir du Nucleaire, called immediately
for major mobilization against the legislation, which they said the government
wants to rush through the National Assembly and the Senate.

Francois Dose, who represents the district around Bure in the National
Assembly, said in a note posted on his Internet site that he feared the
government would push the bill through under an accelerated procedure. He said
that would be "lamentable" given the long time scale involved in radwaste
management. Dose's opposition Socialist Party (PS) has submitted its own draft
waste legislation, but under French law the government's bill is the basis for
the parliamentary debates.

Loos said there was so far no decision to use the "urgent" procedure, which
cuts short parliamentary debate by allowing only one reading of a bill in each
chamber. But observers said it could be a tight squeeze to get the
controversial waste bill through both houses by "the end of summer," as
President Jacques Chirac has called for. Loos said the "urgent" procedure
decision would depend on how debate goes in parliament.

The waste legislation is the culmination of 15 years of research undertaken
under the country's first waste management act, passed on December 30, 1991.
That act called for the parliament to revisit the issue formally within no
more than 15 years. The government doesn't want to let the issue drag out
until the end of this year, when legislators will be preoccupied with national
elections scheduled for next spring.

Target dates
The waste bill differs from the 1991 act in its programmatic nature, Loos
noted March 22. It stipulates formal periodic planning in a National Plan for
Management of Radioactive Waste and Reusable Materials and sets target dates
for choosing solutions for managing several different types of waste.

Most notably, perhaps, beyond the goal of a deep repository by 2025, the bill
calls for operation by 2020 of a prototype reactor to test transmutation of
long-lived radioelements?as Chirac called for early this year.

It sets a target of 2008 for having "procedures for disposal of disused sealed
sources in existing or new centers" as well as "new solutions for interim
storage of tritium wastes." Solutions for management of wastes containing
technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material are to be
ready by 2009. Proposals for final management of reusable
materials?essentially, irradiated nuclear fuel?in the event their owners
decide not to recycle them are to be ready by 2010.

The bill doesn't give a target date for a new long-term interim storage
facility, though it foresees a possible need for such a facility, whose
construction and operation would be conferred to Andra.

The bill doesn't provide for any further formal intervention of the parliament
in decision-making on siting or construction of a deep repository, though the
parliament would be kept informed of progress in all waste fields by various
reports.

Nor does it mention the need for a second waste laboratory, a facility some
members of parliament say is required by the 1991 law. There is also no
provision for a laboratory to study long-term interim storage, a measure
recommended by the recent national debate on radwaste management. Loos said
there was no need for a second laboratory because outside experts who reviewed
the French waste program?essentially the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency?had said
long-term storage "wasn't necessary," that deep geologic disposal was the
world's "reference technical solution," and that the Callovo-Oxfordian
argilite (clay) layer being investigated by Andra at Bure had great promise as
a repository host formation.

The government's bill contains provisions for financing local development
around the site of a deep repository. They are based on the existing
"accompaniment" measures around the Bure laboratory, via the Public Interest
Group, GIP, that manages the development fund, with priority to zones less
than 10 kilometers (about 6.2 miles) from the main repository entrance.

The development measures would be financed by a special waste tax levied on
producers.

Heretofore, the GIP has been financed directly by Andra, leading to charges
that the waste agency was "showering" the region with money to buy acceptance
of a repository.

A second waste tax, also on producers, would finance a special fund within
Andra to continue research and design studies into interim storage and deep
disposal of wastes.

Waste producers would be required to constitute dedicated asset funds covering
all projected waste liabilities, and to report every three years on how they
calculate those liabilities. The bill gives the administration the authority
to require producers to keep their waste funds at the required level.

The bill reconstitutes the independent scientific panel charged with reviewing
the French high-level and long-lived waste management program?currently known
as the National Scientific Evaluation Committee, or CNE?and renews the mandate
of the CLIS, the Local Information and Monitoring Committee that follows
Andra's work at Bure.

The major difference in the Socialists' bill appears to be a requirement for a
long-term interim storage center to be in operation by 2016.The PS bill would
also require parliamentary approval before licensing of any deep geologic
repository, while the government's bill would allow it to be licensed by
decree.

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