ASN considers that initial experience feedback from the decommissioning carried out by the licensees, including the working of the internal authorisations system, is on the whole satisfactory.

The feasibility of total decommissioning nonetheless depends on the creation of appropriate channels for all the decommissioning waste produced, in particular the graphite waste, which remains a subject of concern for ASN (see chapter 16).

Finally, ASN is satisfied that the 28 June 2006 act on sustainable management of radioactive materials and waste, in particular its article 20, gives due consideration to the procedures for financing the management of radioactive waste and decommissioning. ASN will be involved in defining scenarios and hypotheses and more generally in dealing with the various aspects of the estimation methodology, which is satisfactory.

In 2007, ASN intends to further adapt the regulations to take account of experience feedback gained in previous years. The following are therefore planned:

• preparation of a regulation tailored to decommissioning, pursuant to the TSN act which implements the principles established in 2003;
• formalisation of the methodology and principles for assessing the safety of installations being decommissioned;
• formalisation of the procedures for delicensing BNIs following complete decommissioning;
• initiation of a process to look at the treatment of polluted soils in BNIs, based on experience feedback from licensee pilot worksites, consistent with the overall approach to non-BNI polluted soil treatment;
• evaluation of the processes leading to internal authorisations at the main licensees and incorporation of experience feedback into the corresponding review guides.

As early as possible, ASN also aims to review the decommissioning decree applications from the nuclear licensees, of which there are about ten for 2007-2008. Against this backdrop, regulation of the decommissioning of the UP2-400 plant in La Hague, which is a particularly large project, will be a priority.

The regulations for operations linked to BNI decommissioning was redefined in 2003 after a revision process of several years, in order to encourage the licensees to carry out decommissioning of the closed installations as early as possible.

This process was considerably simplified by considering that the life of an installation was on the whole governed by two decrees, the first covering operations and the second covering the final shutdown and decommissioning of a BNI, whereas beforehand, several decrees had been necessary to regulate the various stages of decommissioning. These principles were also incorporated into the nuclear transparency and safety act of 13 June 2006 and will be included in the decrees implementing the act.

The licensees thus submitted numerous final shutdown and decommissioning applications for their installations. Since the first application was submitted, about twenty decrees have been published in the Official Gazette and a further twenty are currently under review.

Feedback from decommissioning either completed or in progress confirms the technical feasibility of complete decommissioning and places these complete decommissioning operations in a regulation that is both clear and flexible enough to adapt to the changing nature of decommissioning operations. This framework, which is enshrined in law, should lead the licensees to envisage all of the operations up to and including delicensing of the installation and each step in decommissioning can itself be the subject of particular authorisations under the terms of the decree.

Experience feedback from the first decrees also shows that it is possible to issue authorisations covering several decades, such as those intended for the decommissioning of Superphénix, or for periods of only a few years, such as those intended for smaller research facilities (the Strasbourg University reactor for example).

ASN ensures that these decommissioning operations conform at all times to an overall, coherent safety approach taking account of safety and radiation protection constraints both in the choice of scenarios and the main steps involved and in the criteria initiating decommissioning of each of the installations of the main nuclear licensees.

ASN also asked EDF, CEA and COGEMA to produce dossiers giving an overall description of the their strategy and schedule for decommissioning of the many shut down installations, giving safety and radiation protection justifications. In 2004, ASN concluded its review of EDF’s overall decommissioning strategy for the first generation reactors and in 2007 and 2008 will adopt a stance on the overall decommissioning strategy for the CEA and COGEMA civil installations.

2006 was marked by numerous new applications for final shutdown and decommissioning decrees, in particular those for the Grenoble STED/STEL and the LAMA, clearly indicating that this CEA centre as a whole will soon be completely delicensed.

EDF also requested final shutdown and decommissioning of four older generation reactors: Bugey in the Lyons area, Saint Laurent A1 and A2 and Chinon A3 in the Centre region, meaning that 7 of the 9 reactors of this generation have now requested complete decommissioning.