Update on spent fuel and HLW management in Spain

Full text: According to strategy adopted in the fifth General Radioactive Waste Management Plan (GRWMP) of 1999, ENRESA, the agency responsible for radioactive waste management in Spain, has implemented, together with the NPP operators, different spent fuel storage technologies to manage the overall inventory (around 7,000 tU) expected to be generated in the country. In the nineties, all the spent fuel NPP pools were re-racked as an initial stage to provide additional At-Reactor capacity. The next steps were, and will be directed, towards using dry spent fuel storage technologies. In this latter respect, the major milestones achieved and plans are the following ones: - For the first plant requiring additional out of pool capacity, the TRILLO NPP (KWU design), a dual-purpose cask known as the DPT cask, was designed and licensed in Spain. The two first units have already been loaded in 2002 and a campaign of 6 more loads is scheduled to take place in 2003; - A massive Cask Storage Building has been constructed in the site to host the 80 casks that will be needed during the expected plant's operating lifetime. The startup licence was issued in May 2002; - The JOSE CABRERA (ZORITA) NPP will stop its operation by April 2006, three years ahead of its original schedule. As a part of the decommissioning activities, the spent fuel stored in the pool will be evacuated to a dry storage system. ENRESA is currently studying the possible alternatives to manage the total spent fuel inventory (almost 400 fuel assemblies). An Away-From-Reactor Spent Fuel and HLW Centralised Storage Installation is foreseen to be available by 2010. It will collect all the spent fuel and some medium and high active wastes generated in the country, together with glasses and other HLW that will come back to Spain from previous reprocessing contracts. Finally, different studies and demonstration projects are being developed related to the deep geological disposal. (author)