Removal: An Alternative to Clearance

This presentation shows the differences between the application of clearance and removal, both being procedures for materials leaving radiation protection areas permanently. The differentiation will be done on the basis of the German legislation but may be also applicable for other national legislation. For clearance in Germany two basic requirements must be given, i.e. that the materials are activated or contaminated and that they result from the licensed use or can be assigned to the scope of the license. Clearance needs not to be applied to objects in Germany which are to be removed only temporarily from controlled areas with the purpose of repair or reuse in other controlled areas. In these cases only the requirements of contamination control apply. In the case of removal it must either be proved by measurements that the relevant materials are neither activated nor contaminated or that the materials result from areas where activation or contamination is impossible due to the operational history considering operational procedures and events. If the material is considered neither activated nor contaminated there is no need for a clearance procedure. Therefore, these materials can be removed from radiation protection areas and the removal is in the responsibility of the licencee. Nevertheless, the removal procedure and the measuring techniques to be applied for the different types of materials need an agreement from the competent authority. In Germany a maximum value of 10% of the clearance values has been established in different licenses as a criterion for the application of removal. As approximately 2/3 of the total mass of a nuclear power plant is not expected to be contaminated or activated there is a need for such a procedure of removal for this non contaminated material without any regulatory control especially in the case of decommissioning. A remarkable example is NPP Stade where in the last three years more than 8600 Mg were disposed of by removal and only 315 Mg were released by clearance, even before the decommissioning licensing procedure was finished.