ASN Report 2017

406 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 14  - Nuclear research and miscellaneous industrial facilities September  2017. Since then, ASN has observed that the Ganil was effectively in conformity. The Ganil identified delays in the implementation of the measures to comply with the requirements resulting from the periodic safety review. In 2017, it therefore requested a modification of the deadlines for six of the ten requirements. This application is currently being reviewed by ASN. In 2016, the Ganil modified its organisation by creating a team dedicated to nuclear safety studies for ongoing and future projects. ASN is remaining closely attentive to the resources devoted by the Ganil to nuclear safety, so that the requirements are met rigorously and the projects are run efficiently. 2.2 The High Flux Reactor (RHF) at the Laue-Langevin Institute The RHF (BNI 67), located in Grenoble and operated by the Max von Laue-Paul Langevin Institute (ILL), supplies neutrons used for scientific experiments in a large variety of fields. This reactor was authorised by the Decree of 19th June 1969, modified on 5th December 1994 following the reactor block replacement. This reactor has a maximum power of 58.3 MWth and operates continuously for 50-day cycles (or about four cycles per year). The reactor core is cooled by heavy water contained in a “reflective tank”, which is itself immersed in a light water pool. ASN considers that the safety level of the ILL installations is satisfactory, although it did however observe several deviations from the regulations in terms of safety management. ASN therefore expects ILL to reinforce its organisation with respect to the requirements of the regulations. In 2017, the ILL continued to install “hardened safety core” back-up systems (see box opposite) and to reinforce its facility. This work is primarily in response to the undertakings made as a result of the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident. This work, which requires shutdown of the reactor, should continue at the beginning of 2018. In 2017, the ILL notified two significant events with no consequences for safety, workers or the environment (blockage of a spent fuel during transfer to the permanently submerged part of the spent fuel pool, with minor contamination of one level of the reactor building). ASN is expecting ILL to significantly improve its management of the periodic checks and tests required by the regulations or by its operating baseline requirements. Since 2016, the ILL has notified seven significant safety events concerning incomplete performance of periodic checks and tests with deadline overruns. On 6th February 2018, ASN served the ILL with formal notice to modify its organisation in order to ensure compliance with the regulatory requirements concerning the modifications of its facility. ASN will be particularly vigilant with respect to the implementation in 2018 of the new integrated management system at the ILL, for which deployment started in 2017. Significant improvements to the material modifications management process are in particular expected, with the implementation of a system for classification of material modifications and reinforcement of the corresponding preliminary risk assessments. Finally, the ILL transmitted the facility’s periodic safety review report at the end of 2017. 2.3 European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) installations The CERN is an international organisation whose role is to carry out purely scientific and fundamental research programmes concerning high energy particles. A tripartite agreement signed by France, Switzerland and CERN came into effect on 16th September 2011. ASN and the Federal Office of Public Health (OFSP), the Swiss radiation protection oversight organisation, jointly contribute to verifying safety and radiation protection requirements at the CERN. The joint actions concern transport, waste and radiation protection. In 2017, ASN and the OFSP continued to examine new facilities and modifications submitted to them by the CERN, more particularly a facility for waste storage and sorting, as well as the experimental Medicis and n-TOF facilities. ASN also examined the methods for characterising packages of radioactive substances intended for carriage on the public highway between the various CERN sites. A joint visit by the two authorities was also carried out on the topic of waste management. Finally, at the beginning of 2017, the licensee notified ASN and OFSP that a monthly dose received by a worker’s extremities (hands) had been exceeded during operations to recover an isotope on the GLM separator of the Isolde experiment (11.8 mSv for a limit of 10 mSv). This event is currently being examined by the OFSP. 2.4 The ITER project ITER (BNI 174) will be an experimental installation, the purpose of which is scientific and technical demonstration of controlled thermonuclear fusion energy obtained with magnetic confinement of a deuterium-tritium plasma, during long-duration experiments with a significant power level (500 MWe for 400 s). This international project enjoys financial support from China, South Korea, India, Japan, Russia, the European Union and the United States, who make in-kind contributions by providing equipment for the project via the domestic agencies. The headquarters agreement between ITER and the French state was signed on 7th November 2007 and the creation of the BNI was authorised in November 2012. The facility is currently under construction on the Cadarache site (Bouches-du-Rhône département ). Owing to the delays in the progress of the project and certain R&D work necessary for its design, ASN set regulations for the new strategy of gradual commissioning of the facility up