Spanish regulatory experience in the decommissioning program of Vandellos 1 Nuclear Power Plant

Nuclear facilities are subject to a system of prior authorization by the competent authorities before they come into service and to subsequent regulation and control during their operating life. All the facilities that stop operating, for technical or financial reasons or because they are compelled to, remain subject to this regulatory control system as long as the competent authorities consider that their residual radioactivity represents a potential source of radiological hazard to the individuals affected or entails an unacceptable environmental risk. The decommissioning of nuclear facilities is the final stage of their life cycle. This stage is part of a general strategy of environmental restoration, which must necessarily be followed after the suspension of certain industrial activities that have to some extent affected the environment. In Spain the decommissioning of facilities is considered a further step or stage of their life cycle in which, in principle, the whole regulatory framework in force during the previous stages of their life - siting, construction, operation, etc. - remains applicable. The law setting up the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) states that one of its functions is to issue reports to the Ministry of Economy in advance of the resolutions adopted by that Ministry on the granting of licences for the decommissioning of nuclear and radioactive facilities. However, the old regulations on nuclear and radioactive facilities, in force up to the end of 1999, included no specific references that might serve as a regulatory framework for licensing the decommissioning process of such facilities. All facility decommissioning projects initiated in Spain up to that date, including Vandellos 1 Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning Plan, were licensed according to an approach worked out specifically for each one. (authors)