"The storage in France of imported
radioactive wastes is forbidden..." So what?
If the distribution of fuels reprocessed in the past
tilts in favor of foreign customers, the same is true of the quantity
of wastes from reprocessing, and stored or disposed of on the national
territory. Indeed, the question of the return of foreign wastes remains
current, since the status quo is continuing. The balance sheet may be
quickly drawn up:
- five shipments of vitrified wastes to Japan
-one in 1995, 1997, 1998, and two in 1999- or 272 canisters of vitrified
wastes in 5 TN 28 VT type containers and 7 TN 20 VT type containers
(manufactured by Transnucléaire, a subsidiary of COGEMA, containing
28 and 20 canisters of vitrified wastes respectively), corresponding
to the reprocessing of around 360 tons of spent fuel (or one eighth
of what has been processed);
- two shipments of vitrified wastes to Germany
(1), one TN 28 VT in 1996, and two Castor
220/28 (a German-designed transport container analogous to the French
TN 28 VT) in 1997, corresponding to the reprocessing of around 110
tons of spent fuels (or less than 3% of what was processed);
- two shipments of vitrified wastes to the
Belgoprocess site in Dessel, Belgium (2),
on 5 April and 17 November 2000, or two TN 28 VT corresponding to
the reprocessing of 72 tons of spent fuel or 12% of what was reprocessed
(see also the box on that issue: "Conflict
over the return of vitrified waste to Belgium").
Compared to the 8,451 tons of foreign fuels reprocessed
up to Dec. 31, 1999, the returns of wastes are late and infrequent.
Not only does COGEMA not respect article 3 of the law of 30 December
1991, which stipulates that "the storage of imported radioactive
wastes (...) is forbidden beyond technical delays necessitated by
reprocessing", but it has also chosen the option of the "curie-swap",
which consists of managing the return of foreign waste in terms of activity
and not of volume, which is also against the law, insofar as wastes
that are clearly identifiable as physically imported would remain on
French soil. Therefore, COGEMA may be considered to have been in an
illegal situation for years, since the first foreign contracts were
signed at the beginning of the 70s, and only a small fraction of highly
active waste has been returned, not to mention wastes of medium or low
activity that compose the largest portion of the volume and of which
not a single gram has been returned.
There is still no solution to the situation of the
shipments to Germany, since the scandal of the contaminated shipments,
revealed by WISE-Paris in April, 1998. Although the German government,
in January 2000, gave a green light on principal to the resumption of
certain shipments within six months, it was clear that in fact no shipment
could occur before the end of Expo 2000, the world fair that took place
between June and October 2000 in the city of Hanover. Given the security
needs for the two events–the latest shipment of waste to the site
of Gorleben in Lower Saxony necessitated the deployment of around 30,000
police personnel in all of Germany–it is obvious that the earliest
possible date was November 2000. In fact, another problem has been added,
which is the reconstruction of a rail bridge over the Jeetzel River,
indispensable for the passage of casks weighing over 100 tons each.
An alternative route by highway has been rejected for reasons of security.
It goes through forests considered to be the favorite action terrain
for opponents. An early return of German waste is not foreseeable before
spring 2001.
An analysis carried out in October 2000 by the GNS
company, which manages reprocessing contracts for German nuclear operators,
reveals the current schedule for the return of wastes:
- 124 casks with highly radioactive waste to be sent from La Hague
to Gorleben in Germany at the rate of 12 (or 2 shipments of 6 casks
each) per year between 2001 and 2010 and 4 in 2011;
- 305 casks containing compacted wastes of medium activity to the
intermediate disposal site of Ahaus at the rate of 24 casks per year
(raised progressively from 6 to 24 between 2008 and 2012) until 2022.
The GNS accounting contains nothing about the other
types of wastes generated to the present time, that is the cemented
and bituminous wastes of medium activity as well as cemented so-called
low activity wastes visibly destined for permanent–and illegal–disposal
in France. In fact, until 1989, all of the so-called low activity
wastes from reprocessing at La Hague were buried in the final repository
Centre de Stockage de la Manche (CSM).
The French government finds itself in a delicate
situation: on the one hand, it must enforce the law; on the other, it
supports the commercial interests of COGEMA. The legally private company
with a majority of public capital is accused of "putting the
lives of others in danger", in particular by the storage of
foreign waste, in the framework of a complaint made by the Green regional
counselor Didier Anger and the local association CRILAN in 1997. Although
the first suit was brought in 1994, it was the second appeal to the
legal system that led to an examination of COGEMA and a much tougher
investigation, including the seizure of documents at COGEMA headquarters
in September 1999. The present position of Lionel Jospin’s government
is that it is desirable for Germany first to resume accepting shipments
of waste from La Hague before resuming shipments of irradiated fuels
in the other direction. This position reflects the mounting pressure
in the legal case in process. It does not really put the German utilities
in trouble in the short term. Their capacities for disposing of irradiated
fuel are still sufficient. And supplementary capacities are under construction
or in the advanced planning stage on the reactor sites. But the French
government position is not transferable to other countries insofar as
the near totality of fuel under contract has already been delivered
to La Hague, or even is already processed.
(1) It appears that a shipment of conditioned hulls
and nozzles, that is so-called intermediate level waste, occurred (date
not specified) to Germany and a shipment of cemented technological wastes
(date not specified) to Belgium, according to the "Second Commission
on the application in the Member States of Directive 92/3/EURATOM of
3 February 1992 on the supervision and control of shipments of radioactive
waste between Member States and into and out of the Community", Council
of European Union, 11.01.1999
(2) Idem
Previous
page 
To
be continued (The plutonium stocks — The growth continues)
Back
to contents
