Year
1992
Abstract
The policy in France for final disposal of radioactive waste calls for isolation of high level vitrified waste and transuranic waste in deep geological formation. A single underground repository will accommodate both waste types. Vitrified HLW is currently being stored in vaults located at the reprocessing sites, where there is 40 years of storage capacity. In a country where there are 56 nuclear power plants in operation and five under construction, where over 12,500 MTHM of spent fuel have been reprocessed, where more than 300 cask shipments are routinely made every year to the La Hague reprocessing plant, where the siting of the second LLW disposal facility did not raise any major problem, the preliminary work at four candidate sites for HLW waste laboratories was suspended in February 1990 following violent public protests. The government imposed a moratorium on any further exploratory drillings before the Parliament has debated and voted on a Waste Bill. The government in effect needed the legislator's help in getting public acceptance for the repository program which is essential for the \"continuity, coherence and safety\" of a nuclear program that supplies three fourths of France electricity. The Parliamentary Office for the Assessment of Science and Technology Options, set up on the model of the U.S. Congress' Office of Technology Assessment, and later on the College for the Prevention of Technological Risks, a committee of sages created to advise the Industry and Environment ministers, issued reports that helped pave the way for the Waste Bill which passed into law on December 30, 1991.