Speaker
Description
Achieving stakeholder recognition of the role of nuclear technologies in delivering United Nations sustainable development goals is significantly dependent upon building confidence in the safety of radioactive waste management, decommissioning, environmental protection and remediation.
A major regulatory issue of particular interest is how to achieve a balance between:
• the need for regulatory flexibility that allows adaptation of regulations to a wide variety of prevailing and evolving circumstances, and
• the need to provide precise and detailed requirements and criteria that give clarity to and confidence in the safety standards.
It is also recognised as important not to deal separately with the transition from operational to decommissioning status; dismantling activities; site remediation; waste treatment; waste transport; interim storage, and final disposal. There are very strong strategic, technical and stakeholder linkages. An integrated methodology, supported by an appropriate regulatory framework, is needed to provide clear goals in a step-wise process that may take years to complete. This is especially important at complex sites. By complex, we mean sites that comprise: facilities in development or operation, with others in decommissioning; long-standing contaminated areas; and old disposal areas. Among the complexities is the proportionate management and regulation of other hazards arising alongside the radiological.
This paper will describe recent developments in the area, based on shared national experience from the DSA’s bilateral regulatory cooperation programs with Ukraine and other countries, as well as DSA’s engagement with the IAEA’s EUCAS program, and NEA expert groups. The paper will conclude with recommendations for continuing international cooperation.
