CNE2 Activities
The period from July 2010 to October 2011 is CNE2’s fourth full year of activity and forms the subject of this, its fifth report. Between the end of June and December 2010, the Board presented report no. 4 to various organisations, including the Opecst and ministerial departments. A Board delegation visited Bar-le-Duc to present this work to the members of the Clis (local information and monitoring council) of Meuse/Haute-Marne.
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This fourth year also saw half of the Board’s members replaced in July 2010. Visits and special work sessions were held for newly appointed members with the help of Andra and the CEA.
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The Board followed the same working method used in previous years. Members of the Board, all of them volunteers, conducted 13 hearings. These included 8 full-day sessions in Paris and 2 at the Meuse/Haute-Marne laboratory at Bure/Saudron, in addition to other supplementary meetings. They received 88 people from Andra, the CEA and academic and industrial institutions in France and abroad. These hearings, each of which brought together an average of around 50 people, were also attended by representatives of the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), Areva, EDF, the Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Institute (IRSN), and the Central Administration. The Board spent half a day hearing about the various theoretical research actions of the CNRS Pacen programme.
This year, the Board visited the Stocamine site, as well as the Masurca and Leca-Star facilities at the CEA in Cadarache.
During a research visit to Germany, the Board visited the Asse and Gorleben sites. At the Bundestag, it met with two MPs from the German Green Party ("Die Grünen"). They reminded us that they consider deep geological disposal of nuclear waste as the best solution. Their current concern is finding one or more sites of good geological quality to use for disposal. They see the Gorleben site as a possible candidate where scientific studies should be pursued.
To prepare this report, the Board held a 2-day pre-seminar session during its visit to the CEA in Cadarache, and 4 internal meetings, one of which was a 5-day residential seminar.
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This report is organised to reflect the two complementary aspects of R&D on the management of radioactive waste and materials: partitioning and transmutation, and the storage and disposal of LLHL and LLIL waste. This year, the Board decided to go into detail on the subject of the potential impact of transmutation of actinides on the disposal of the waste produced in the future, in a set of reactors suitable for multirecycling. This question is dealt with in two chapters of the report.
The Board continues to observe the overall international situation, and this year devoted an entire hearing to the different visions of the nuclear cycle held throughout the world. This hearing took place a few weeks before the accident in Fukushima.
