Spain

COOPERATION BETWEEN THE FUND AND THE COMPANY ENRESA

The cooperation of the Fund for financing the decommissioning of the Krško NPP with the Spanish company Enresa was established in order to train the Fund’s employees on radioactive waste disposal and the decommissioning of nuclear facilities, and the exchange of knowledge and experience arising from many years of business practice. The cooperation project with the company Enresa is led by the Sector for Coordination of the Preparation and Development of the Programme for Decommissioning and Disposal of RW and SNF from the Krško NPP.

During 2016, the employees of the Fund for financing the decommissioning of the Krško NPP visited the headquarters of company Enresa in Madrid and participated in the workshop together with the staff of the international department, the technology service of the international department and the investment department of Enresa.

During 2017, a visit was organised to the sites of the Jose Cabrera Nuclear Power Plant that is being decommissioned in the province of Zorita and the El Cabril repository for low and very low level radioactive waste in the province of Cordoba, and a workshop was organised for the employees of the Fund on the topic of the decommissioning, that is, the management of radioactive waste in Spain.

The Jose Cabrera nuclear power plant, Spain’s first nuclear power plant, began with its operation in 1968, with a 160 MWe PWR reactor, and shut down permanently on April 30, 2006, after 38 years. The Jose Cabrera NPP is in its advanced stage of decommissioning in which cutting and decontamination is carried out, followed by packaging and interim storage of decommissioned radioactive waste.

During the tour of the El Cabril site, the representatives of the Fund had the opportunity to visit two types of near-surface repositories, as well as other facilities such as laboratories for the testing and characterisation of radioactive waste, environmental monitoring, facilities for concrete container production, radioactive waste conditioning and concrete container filling. One type of near-surface repositories is an above-ground cassette-type repository in which filled concrete containers with low level radioactive waste are disposed of, while the other is a combined (partially buried) repository on a slope with a built embankment and impermeable substrate for very low level radioactive waste (from decommissioning). The site also includes a RW storage facility that does not meet the conditions for acceptance into the El Cabril repository because it contains long-lived radionuclides, which are planned to be disposed of in a deep geological repository.

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