Ethics of the Management of Low and Intermediate Radioactive Wastes Generated by Cernavoda NPP: A Challenge for the Romanian Specialists

This paper presents the design criteria and the prerequisites for the development of the Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant - RWTP which will comply with L/ILW Final Repository requirements to be built near Cernavoda NPP. The RWTP will be designed to satisfy the main performance objectives in accordance to IAEA recommendation and on basis of the Repository’s Waste Acceptance Criteria resulted from the local conditions. One of the most important technological aspect is related to the selection of technologies, which implies, on the one hand, the impact on present generation respectively incineration, radwaste transfer from the SS drums to CS drums, SS drums super compaction and spent filter cartridges cutting, and on the other hand, technologies that isolate for 300 years the tritium and C-14 in the Repository with impact for the next generations. The Saligny Repository will be commissioned in 2014 and in order to accept radwastes from Cernavoda NPP it is necessary that the radwastes are suitably treated for long–term radionuclides isolation. The conditions and requirements including many uncertainties and constraints reduce the possibilities to select the suitable treatment technologies for the Waste Treatment Plant designed for the radwastes generated by Cernavoda NPP, this selection being a critical case due to the limited storage capacity of existing Radioactive Waste Storage Facility. The necessary Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant implies a detailed analysis including ethical aspects of the selected technologies.