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Prospects for the NPP Krško Radioactive Waste Management

Croatia adopted Strategy of radioactive waste, used sources and spent fuel management in 2014, and its Law on radiological and nuclear safety was accordingly modified in 2015. The Strategy foresees (though with some flexibility) and the Law declares decidedly that Croatia will establish a Center for radioactive waste management, in which all necessary facilities for storage and subsequent disposal of the Croatian share of the NPP Krško radioactive waste and spent fuel will be developed. However, Slovenia and Croatia have recently agreed that a long-term dry storage for spent fuel will be established on the NPP premises by the year 2019. Therefore, only the issues of low and intermediate level waste (LILW) are addressed here. In Slovenia, the LILW repository site Vrbina in Krško municipality was officially confirmed in 2009. Based on the 2013 investment program for a silo-type disposal facility, preparation of the repository project documentation was contracted with a national engineering company in 2014. Slovenian repository concept has been developed in two variants: one for the Slovenian LILW only, and the other intended to accept the Croatian share of LILW from the NPP as well. In the summer of 2015 Slovenia for the first time made an official offer to Croatia to use Vrbina repository for that purpose. However, the Croatian Strategy also does not preclude the option of management of all LILW from the NPP in Croatia. Therefore, present plan of activities for the third revision of the NPP radioactive waste and spent fuel management program outlines hypothetically symmetrical LILW management options: all in Slovenia, or all in Croatia, or one half in each country. So, what shall it be? This paper discusses the prospects for each of the three above mentioned options. The major problem of the Slovenian disposal plan is its high cost, mostly due to high compensations to the local community, which will be hard to finance without Croatian participation. The simplest solution of the problem would be to exploit legal opportunities for preventing Croatian import of the NPP waste. The major problem for the Croatian intent to manage the NPP waste in Croatia is the belated decision to do so. Furthermore, after such decision had been declared in the Croatian Strategy, it was not followed by an appropriate range of activities that could make its realization feasible.

radioactive waste management, Croatian RWM strategy, NPP Krško

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