Regulator approves safety case for French repository

Andra submitted its application for the planned Centre Industriel de Stockage Géologique (Cigéo) repository to the Ministry for Energy Transition in January 2023. In March 2023, the ministry asked the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) to lead the technical appraisal of the application to verify that the project offers all the guarantees required to meet the applicable safety requirements.

Andra plans to construct the Cigéo repository - an underground system of disposal tunnels - in a natural layer of clay near Bure, to the east of Paris in the Meuse/Haute Marne area. The facility is to be financed by radioactive waste generators - EDF, Framatome and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission - and managed by Andra. It will hold 83,000 cubic metres of long-lived high-level waste and intermediate-level waste. Subject to the issuance of the creation authorisation decree in late 2027/early 2028, the receipt of the first waste packages is currently planned for 2050.

The Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR), said its technical appraisal included a standard expert review and investigation process, accompanied by dialogues with stakeholders. Expert assessments were carried out by the Institute for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (IRSN) - which became ASNR on 1 January this year following its merger with the ASN - and then by the ASNR's Research and Environmental Expertise Department in three phases, each focusing on a different theme: baseline data used for the Cigéo safety assessment; safety during the operational phase of the surface and underground facilities; and safety after closure. The Standing Group of Experts on Waste was also consulted and issued three opinions. For each of the three phases of the review, the reports and expert opinions were published and were the subject of an information note issued first by the ASN and then by the ASNR.

It said the entire process involved gathering the expectations and concerns of stakeholders (including the local information and monitoring committee of the Bure laboratory, the National Association of Local Information Committees and Commissions, representatives of associations and civil society in general) in the form of consultation on referrals, technical dialogue during the review of the case and consultation on the draft opinion of the ASNR with stakeholders. In particular, the ASNR's draft opinion was open for public consultation between 3 October and 6 November.

"In its opinion, the ASNR considers that Andra has acquired a sufficient knowledge base regarding the baseline data used for the relative safety assessment and that the safety demonstration for the operational and post-decommissioning phases, based on this knowledge base, is satisfactory at the stage of an application for authorisation to create the facility," ASNR said. "This demonstration will need to be supplemented before commissioning, which is limited to the pilot industrial phase."

ASNR's opinion was presented to the Parliamentary Office for Scientific and Technological Assessment and to the High Committee for Transparency and Information on Nuclear Safety.

Andra said ASNR's opinion validates the measures it has taken in Cigéo's safety demonstration "to achieve its ultimate objective: protecting people and the environment over the very long term from the hazards posed by intermediate- and high-level long-lived waste. The ASNR concludes that Andra’s creation license application may give rise to a public inquiry scheduled for the second half of 2026".

"We are taking a crucial step forward in the development of the Cigéo project, and we can say today that it has been reached successfully," said Lydie Evrard, CEO of Andra. "For 30 years, the Cigéo project has been developed in line with the highest safety standards and, more broadly, with best practices in design, public engagement and dialogue with local communities. I would like to thank Andra's teams for the work accomplished and for their constant commitment. I would also like to commend the quality of the technical dialogue with the ASNR, as well as the quality of our relations with elected officials and representatives in the Meuse and Haute-Marne region, and more broadly with all stakeholders."