Development of the nuclear energetic, nuclear research activities and the decommissioning of some nuclear installations leaded to production of radioactive waste of different types and activity levels. The safe management of radioactive waste resulted from the operation as well as those resulted from the decommissioning of nuclear installations implies activities extremely complex and costly.
Taking into account the possible impact of radioactive waste on the protection of workers, population and environment, and also the fact that the decommissioning and final disposal of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste are delayed with respect to the use of radioactive materials it is then necessary to use a general strategy concerning the safe management of radioactive waste and decommissioning of nuclear installations and radiological installations that generate radioactive waste.
Considering that each nuclear authorization owner is responsible for their generated radioactive waste, an important step in the management of the radioactive waste is the characterization activity. It has to be correlated with a database making, containing data about all radioactive waste that was produced and the associated radionuclides inventory, for the purpose of safe and friendly towards environment disposal.
One of the partners of this project is IFIN-HH, whose participation is given by the need of decommissioning the VVR-S nuclear research reactor. The decommissioning activities lead to the production of radioactive waste that has to be characterized along the whole cycle of their handling and disposal.
By applying the methodology of characterization, based on nondestructive and destructive methods, the results obtained will provide us with the scaling factors, correlating the gamma, alpha and beta emitters. As soon as these factors are experimentally determined for each waste stream, the radionuclides inventory for any radioactive waste resulted from that stream can be measured using only nondestructive techniques, less complicated and cheaper than the destructive techniques.
Thus, the main goal of the project is the characterization of the radioactive waste, resulting in a full knowledge of the radionuclides inventory. Nondestructive methods are used for radionuclides easy to be measured (gamma emitters), whereas by destructive methods the measurement of the full radionuclides inventory (alpha, beta and gamma emitters) is accessible.
Out of the institutions joint into the project, the main beneficiaries will be those which produces themselves radioactive waste by specific activities (SCN Pitesti and IFIN-HH Bucuresti). The National Agency for Radioactive Waste (ANDRAD) will be also an important beneficiary.
DISSEMINATION OF RESULTS
Intellectual property: the rights of intellectual property generated by the project results will belong entirely to the institutes, centers, RD units, partners in the project development, function of its contribution to the common work.
The results that do not generate intellectual property rights will be largely disseminated.
Manufacturing and vending property: It is the responsibility of the Project Manager, who is also the beneficiary of project results.
Rights of results dissemination: they belong to the project manager and partners. The dissemination method has been established with all partners, having in view that the beneficiary of the results is, after all, the civil society. It is foreseen the large-scale dissemination of results by publishing in national and international journals and reporting in Web pages, CD-ROMs, Protocols and manuals. The results will be communicated at scientific events, and the data will be published in national and international journals.
The proposed methodologies of characterization can lead to a considerably decreasing of the costs of radioactive waste disposal, no matter which one of the two above described situation will first occur. This happens mainly because:
a more complete characterization of radioactive waste will allow a better distinction between the inoffensive wastes and those having a real, high radioactive risk; till a more complete characterization will become available, it often happens that preventively, the inoffensive waste, with a low risk, to be subject to the same (very expensive) treatment as the waste with high risk potential.
Once the scaling factors for some specific waste streams are known, the characterization of waste resulted from that streams will be much cheaper than at the moment when the scaling factors are not yet measured.
The social impact of the Project
A more complete and cheaper characterization of radioactive waste than nowadays will facilitate, to a great extent, the final disposal tasks of radioactive waste, confronting now the society.
The completion of this project respects the applicable regulations concerning the safe disposal of radioactive waste, so that no harm will affect the working and living environment. Furthermore, thanks to the above described economical mechanisms, a medium and long-term positive effect is expected to occur on the environment, by a proper management and easier final disposal of the radioactive waste, in maximum condition of safety.
