International Conference on the Management of Spent Fuel from Nuclear Power Reactors 2019: Learning from the Past, Enabling the Future

In the name of sustainable development: socio-legal challenges of nuclear energy and spent fuel management.

27 Jun 2019, 16:00

35m

Poster Track 7: Challenges in an integrated approach for the back-end system (including storage, transport, recycling and disposal) Track 7 Poster Session

Speaker

Dr Priyanka Jawale (Department of Law, SPPU (University of Pune), Pune, India)

Description

The spent fuel management of nuclear power reactor has two major concerns regarding storage and disposal. Law should comment specifically on the maximum duration of storage of spent fuel and it should ensure that no extended storages will deemed to be de facto disposal. The radioactive waste has potential to extend over several thousand years, it’s always better to have sound spent fuel management schemes so that the future generations won’t be burden by the debts of our generation. Retrieving spent fuel as a further resource will address issues associated with its disposal and security. Majority of laws have future applicability but while drafting nuclear energy/ radioactivity related laws we should provide a clause giving a window for applying technical and safety related advances with retrospective effect to the past activities. Or we should come up with legal principles which are retroactive (retroactive here would like to propose as those incidences which happened in past and still continue to do the same actively) [1]. Due to this new development in the spent fuel management, radioactive waste management will be applicable to the old storage, disposal or mining sites to have new outlook. Regulatory authorities should not only focus on present and future prospects but also required to do reviews of their past operating experiences and lessons learned through their policies. Better risk management is beneficial for shaping public perceptions, supporting spent fuel sites and its acceptance. Improved spent fuel management will not only beneficial for present population but it will also protect the rights of third and fourth generations. This paper also comments on the socio legal requirements across the back end of the fuel cycle. It also comments on necessary improvements in waste management from recycling activities, accident tolerant fuels, and political conflicts among the drivers.

Peer reviewing

Paper

Accepted on 27 May 2019 by Amparo Gonzalez-Espartero

Paper files:

• IAEA-CN272-112_Priyanka_Jawale_India.docx