In accordance with the law of 11 January 1991 and the royal executory decree of 16 October 1991, ONDRAF/NIRAS has been legally involved in managing the decommissioning of nuclear facilities on Belgium territory and is responsible, should the case arise, for implementing the actual decommissioning programmes at the operators' request.

Decommissioning covers all operations leading to the removal of a facility from the list of facilities classed as nuclear (and therefore subject to specific regulatory obligations and checks) because it no longer represents a radiological risk.

These operations are administrative and technical. The administrative operations include, in particular, producing decommissioning plans and obtaining release authorisations (authorisations to stop regulatory radiological inspections) from the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (AFCN). The technical operations include the following:

All these operations, which are performed with due consideration of the safety of the operators taking part and of the facilities and sites concerned, are intended to bring the residual radioactivity to a level permitting the release of the facility for unrestricted use. Since 2001, ONDRAF/NIRAS has been following the release criteria provided for in the royal decree of 20 July 2001 establishing the AFCN's competences (see the AFCN's website).

What is the current state of affairs?

In terms of decommissioning, a vast amount of experience has been accumulated, particularly through the dismantling of some of the former EUROCHEMIC pilot reprocessing plant's facilities, on Belgoprocess site 1 in Dessel. Other decommissioning works are also in progress. The decommissioning of around thirty former nuclear facilities or buildings located on Belgoprocess site 2 in Mol began in early 1998. In December 2002, eight of these facilities were decommissioned. The decommissioning works should continue on this site for several tens of year.

EUROCHEMIC

(Find out more on the Belgoprocess website)

On the CEN SCK's site, which is also in Mol, work is continuing on the dismantling of the experimental reactor BR3 (Belgian Reactor 3). This is the first time that a pressurised water reactor is being dismantled in Europe. Work began in 1989 and is scheduled for completion in 2009. The complete dismantling of reactor BR3 will help to prove the feasibility of such projects at this point in time. Ultimately, the techniques used could be transposed to the decontamination and dismantling of Belgian nuclear reactors in commercial use.) (To find out more see ACTUA No 40)

Le Belgian Reactor 3

The decommissioning of Belgian nuclear facilities will be the main source of the radioactive waste that ONDRAF/NIRAS will be managing in the future (see our "Inventory" section). Belgian has therefore opted resolutely for a strategy of minimising the volume of radioactive waste produced during decommissioning operations, through extensive decontamination and the recycling of decontaminated materials. As a result, ONDRAF/NIRAS predicts that around only 3% of all the materials present on a nuclear site will need to be managed as radioactive waste.

For more information about the state of affairs at European Union level see: The European Commission Website on Decommissioning of Nuclear Installations


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