The Federal Agency for Nuclear Control said in a statement that current proposals deal only with the principle of geological disposal. “At this stage, it is not yet a question of discussing how, where and when the storage facility would be built,” the statement said.
In April the Belgian National Agency for Radioactive Waste and enriched Fissile Material (Ondraf/Niras) submitted a draft long-term management plan for high-level and long-lived conditioned radioactive waste to Fanc.
The plan, which is also the subject of a public inquiry, calls for a deep geological storage system on Belgian territory.
Fanc has now said it supports the idea of a repository, but in a review of the plans has also made a number of other substantive comments on the Ondraf/Niras proposal. It said the possibility of multinational storage should not be excluded and long-term management on one or more sites “shoud be considered.
In a statement in April Ondraf/Niras said waste would be stored in an underground repository in a stable geological layer that would contain and isolate it in the long-term.
“All countries with a policy for this type of waste have also opted for geological disposal,” Ondraf/Niras said. “They rejected all alternatives, including extending the storage. They do not meet the criteria of safety, protection, feasibility and ethics. There is no reasonable alternative to geological storage.”
A large part of Belgian high-level and long-lived waste has been or is produced by companies associated with the production of electricity of nuclear origin, Ondraf/Niras said.
“In Belgium, no decision has yet been taken on the final destination of [this] waste. The draft plan constitutes a policy proposal which enables a first decision to be made on a technical solution [for disposal].”
