NEWSLETTER
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT

Sept. 1999

NO.3
Issued by
Japan Atomic
Industrial Forum, Inc,

The focal points of the 5th RWM
SeminarThe
The 5th
5th RWMRWM Seminar
Seminar to
to be
be held
held
thisNovemberthis November"The Forum for Nuclear Cooperationin Asia (FNCA)" was launched in the10th ICNCA conference under the newcooperation framework to carry out
strengthened activities for cooperation(see page 7, 8). As part of the framework
efforts, the first event of the "Coordinator
Meting" will be held in March, 2000 in
Tokyo. The meeting will review the activities of the existing six fields
including the RWM activities. In
preparation for this review, the roundtable discussion of this year will examine
the middle and long term RWM Plan inconnection with how to proceed with the
future regional cooperation. In addition,the "Sub-meetings" to be started thisyear will be expected to produce a new
dimension of cooperation. The subjects tobe discussed in the Sub-meetings are
currently under preparation in thePhilippines.

The 5th Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Seminar is scheduled for
November 9-12, including a technicaltour to relevant facileties in thePhilippines.
A new program has been added thisyear for experts to make presentations
and exchange opinions on specific subjects. In this connection, the schedule canbe flexible, for instance, holding the submeeting before the Seminar.

Overall schedule
Monday, 8
Arrival of foreign participants
Tuesday, 9Sub-meeting of the Seminar
Wednesday, 10
5th Seminar on Radioactive
Waste Management
Thursday, 11
Ditto
Friday, 12Technical Tour
Saturday, 13
Departure of foreign participants

The persons in charge of theseminarDr. Eulinia M. Valdezco
RWM's project manager of
the Philippines

Tentative program<1st day>Opening Session
Session 1:
Country Report on the Annual
Progress in Each Country
Session 2:
Recent Technical Topics<2nd day>Session 3:
Round-table Discussion

Position:
Chief, Radiation Protection Services
Business Address:
Nuclear Services and Training Division,
Philippine Nuclear Research Institute
TEL: 63-2-929-6011

1

FAX: 63-7-920-1646

NEWSLETTER RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
the FNCA.
The JAIF has been reorganized as ofJuly 1. It is divided into five departments.
Asia Cooperation Center is regarded as
one of the departments. The staff members of the center are shown in thephotograph.

Ms. Maria V. B. Palattao
Philippine
Institute

NuclearResearch

TEL: 63-2-929-6011
FAX: 63-7-920-1646

Position:
Senior Science Research Specialist
Business Address:
Radiological Impact Assessment
Nuclear Regulations Licensing and
Safeguards Division

RWM's Project Leader of Japan was
nominated
Under the new structure of the"Forum for Nuclear Cooperation inAsia" established this year, Mr. Shingo
Tashiro has been registered as a Project
Leader of Japan for Radioactive Waste
Management. He has been a former
contact person.

Topics
Topics inin JapanJapan
Asia Cooperation Center started towork at Japan Atomic Industrial
Forum

Mr. Singo Tashiro
Executive Director,
Radioactive Waste
Management Center

Asia Cooperation Center started towork at Japan Atomic Industrial Forum.
As of July 1, 1999, JAIF's Asia Cooporation Center (ACC) was established tosupport the Office of the Coordinator,
Forum for Nuclear Cooperation in Asia
(FNCA). We hope that the center could
serve for active, efficient, and effective
promotion of the activities of regional
nuclear cooperation in Asia through assistance by the member countries of

TEL: 81-3-3504-1081
FAX: 81-3-3504-1297

The staffs in charge of RWM in the
JAIF's Asia Cooperation Center to support Mr. S. Tashiro, Project Leader, are
Mr. Nobuyuki Inoue, Deputy General
Manager and Dr. Shinichi Fukuda,
Project Manager, ACC. In the meantime,Ms. Hiroko Aoki, General Manager andMr. Hideo Nakasugi, Head of Coordinator Office, ACC make overall coordinations.
TEL: 81-3-3508-7932

FAX: 81-3-3508-9021

Clearance Level for Solid Materials
Dr. Toshiso Kosako
Research Center for
Nuclear Science andTechnology,
The University of Tokyo

Standing Left to Right: Tsuyoshi Takei, Makoto Funakoshi,
Takayoshi Kaneta, Akihiko Yamaguchi and Naoki Miyamoto.
Front Low,L to R: Kaoru Sasaki, Nobuyuki Inoue, Hiroko
Aoki, Hideo Nakasugi and Tomoko Endo.

2NEWSLETTER RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
discussions on the clearance level in the
Atomic Energy Commission's Advisory
Committee on Measures for Radioactive
Waste.
At first, the individual dose for
exemption was set as 10μSv/ｙfollowing
ICRP. Using this value, the clearance
level was obtained through the following
dose estimation procedure.

In recent days, the words of clearance and clearance level are frequently
used in the field of radioactive waste.
This short note is showing current Japanesesituations on this issue.
Clearance is defined as: removal ofradioactive materials or radioactive objects within authorized practices fromany further control by the Regulatory
Authority. Clearance level is defined as:
values, established by the Regulatory
Authority and expressed in terms ofactivity concentrations and/or total
activity, at or below which sources ofradiation may be released from regulatory control.
The radioactive materials that haveno possibility of use are called as radioactive wastes and their legal positionchange from utilization system to waste
management system. On very low level
radioactive wastes it is possible to ignore
their human risk for their smallness ofradiation impacts, and to use a clearance
concept is reasonable to get an optimized
use of radiation. We have already used
this concept, legally, to gas and liquid
discharge to the environment from nuclear facilities for the reason of small
impact to environment after the diffusionof these fluids.
We can't expect radionuclide diffusion
on solid materials. For this reason we
kept all solid materials in the storage asradioactive wastes even in case of quite
small activity concentration. But, thedecommissioning 1GW class power reactors becomes a real problem and thereasonable clearance is inevitable.
Large amount of concrete and metal that
contain very low level radioactive
materials require the clearance. To consider the clearance is important to getreasonability. Then, what kind of concept
and procedure are required to making upof reasonable clearance level for solidmaterials?
Here I would like to introduce recent

Estimation of total waste(concreteand metals only) from PWR, BWR
and GCR(gas cooled reactor),
Making up scenarios depending on thepathway of waste; on the whole, one is(a)general waste disposal, another is(b)reuse; in detail, all considerable
pathways were listed up
Setting of dose conversion factors andenvironmental migration parametersin scenario pathways
Estimation of individual dose to eachpathway
Probabilistic estimation of dose using
the distribution of parameters used in
the analysis; the lowest 97.5% value
was set as a clearance level to keep theconservation in safety analysis.
The derived clearance level in thiswork was compared with the vales by
IAEA. The final values are summarized
to a simplified table as "clearance levelfor solid materials arising from nuclear
reactors" (see Table 1).
Hereafter, the problems like theverification of radioactivity etc. will be
discussed continuously. In recent futurea "small size" clearance from research
and medical fields will be also obtained.
Such discussions are continuing in thegovernmental committee. Radioactive
waste management is important in thehealthy development of nuclear utilization. For the reasonable management ofradioactive waste the decision andoperation of the clearance level is in3

NEWSLETTER RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
data sourced from a wide variety of
government and private institutions. Reconnaissance of field investigations will
be undertaken to verify, update andgather additional information. Initialsite assessment for rapid evaluation is
expected to produce a manageable
number of candidate sites that will be
investigated. A quantitative or qualitative scoring approach will be used torank the selected sites. The identified
suitable sites will be subjected forthrough surface and subsurface sitecharacterization and investigations inthe second stage. The second stage ofthe siting process allows the characterization of the ground water flow conditions, its chemistry and the surrounding rock environment in a more comprehensive manner. Data and information that will be generated in this stage
will be used for developing a detailed
model
for
performance assessment as well as for
preparing environmental impact state-evitable.
Table 1 Clearance level for solid materials
arising from nuclear reactors:(Bq/g)
Radionuclide

Derived value

H-3
200
Mn-54
1
Co-60
0.4
Sr-90
1
Cs-1340.5
Cs-1371
Eu-1520.4
Eu-154
0.4
Total
emitters 0.2

Range in
IAEA-TECDOC-855
1000-10000
0.1-1
0.1-1
1-10
0.1-1
0.1-1
0.1-1
-0.1-1(Pu-239,Am-241)

News
News fromfrom Regional
Regional Countries
Countries

Plan for Siting of Surface Radioactive
Waste Repository in the Philippines
Dr. Eulinia M. Valdezco
The Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) of the Department of
Science and Technology leads a group of
government agencies in locating a low
level repository for all radioactive wastes
generated in the country. The groupwhich includes the Department of Energy, the National Power Corporation, theDepartment of Environment and Natural
Resources and the Office of the President
established an updated site screening
criteria that covers a wide rage of technical, environmental, economic and social
factors to assess candidate areas on anational scale. The siting process involves two separate but interrelated stages, i.e. site screening and site evaluation. Site screening mainly involves desk
compilation of existing information and

The Radioactive Waste Management team of the Radiation
Protection Services group of the Philippine Nuclear ResearchInstitute.
Standing Left to Right: Remigio Sarmiento Jr., Edith Marcelo,
Leticia Alberto, Eulinia Valdezco, Erlinda Bague, Estrella
Caseria and Abelardo Inovero.
Front Row, L to R: Cesar Salabit, Alfonso Manalo, Ver Soriano
and Demetrio Salom.

On the other hand, public participation will be employed in all phases of thesiting process. Initial survey instruments
containing information on social, econo
mic and cultural dimensions of prospec4

NEWSLETTER RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENTRadioactive waste generated from nuclear power plants (NPP) needs to besafely treated and disposed of. Presently,
most of countries have some difficulties
in selection of national disposal site todispose of them safely. Hence, it has
been necessary to develop a new treatment technology can significantly reduce waste volume with almost no effect on the environment and subsequently, can be able to be stored on
NPP site for longer term. Based withthe several years long feasibility study,
vitrification of low- and intermediate-level radio-active waste was concluded to
be a very promising treatment technology because of its high volume reduction
and its inherent stability as the final
waste form. Also found was it economically competi- tive in comparison withother convent- ional treatment meth-tive beneficiaries of the project havebeen prepared during the initial phase of
the project. This instrument can be expanded so that it can be utilized for allprospective candidate areas.
Development of other information
package that can be used for all print
and broadcast media will also be
prepared for a national information
campaign. As a corollary activity to site
investigation activities, R&D on Safety
Assessment and Waste Treatment arealso actively being undertaken at the
PNRI. The PNRI through its Radio-logical Impact Assessment group has access to a number of specific computermodels that can be integrated for acomplete systems analysis. A scoping
exercise using some of the models acquired from the USA was performed forthe most common radionuclides found inlow level wastes. Although most of theparameters used in the models are notsite specific, the results obtained will bemost useful in providing the basis for amore focussed investigation process.
The PNRI radioactive waste management team is headed by Dr. Eulinia M.
Valdezco, Head of the Radiation Protection Services of the Institute andconcurrently designated as chairpersonof the Subcommittee on Radioactive
Waste Management, Nuclear Power
Steering Committee.

The exterior view of Vitrification Facility for LILW in Korea

Korea (KEPCO/NETEC) has studied
since July 1996 to develop the pilot plant
through the joint study with France. Recently completed was the construction ofa LILW vitrification pilot plant with a
300kW cold crucible melter heated bydirect induced current (CCM) and a
200kW plasma torch melter (PTM), including an effective off-gas treatment
system. The pilot plant is being operated
to demonstrate the vitrification for theboth combustible and non-combustible
waste from NPP.
A series of performance test will becompleted by August 1999 and then, theDevelopment of Vitrification Technology
for Low and Intermediate-Level Radioactive Waste
Dr. PARK Wan-Jae
Principal Resercher,
Radiation Safety Division5NEWSLETTER RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
ing technology

actual pilot tests will be carried out until
January of 2000. Both conceptual systemand detailed engineering design for thefull commercial application with capacityof 250 kg/h is expected to finalize fromresults of these tests in the very near future.

5. Radioactive waste disposal
6. Spent fuel storage & transportation
technology
7. Radiation management experiences atnuclear power plants

International Symposium for Radiation
Safety Management '99

Recent Governmental Activities

Dr. PARK Wan-Jae

Dr. Tran Ung
Director, Vietnam Radiation Protection
and Nuclear Safety Authority(VRPA)
Ministry of Science Technology andEnvironment(MOSTE)ISRSM'99 will be held on November
4-6, 1999 at Tajion, Republic of Korea.
Organized by the Nuclear Environment
Technology Institute of Korea ElectricPower Corporation (KEPCO/NETEC),
the symposium is in cooperation with the
IAEA and Korean Nuclear Society(KNS).
The symposium is to provide aninternational forum on the science andtechnology of newly implemented or
newly developed technology for low-andintermediate-level radioactive waste
management and radiation protection.
Scientists, engineers, managers, and researchers are invited to participate in thismeeting to discuss, review, display, and/or
learn about the on-going state of the art or
futuretechnology
fortreatment and/or management of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste and forradiation protection. Topics are as
follows;

1. Under the assistance of the IAEA the
National Training Course on Treatment and Management of the radioactive wastes from the hospitals had
beenheld in Hanoi from 21-24 September
1998 , consisted of 29 participants. The
lectures were the IAEA experts andVietnamese.
2.
The Regulations on Radioactive Waste
Management will be enacted soon. The
Regulations consist of 4 chapters andChapter 1. General Provisions
Chapter 2. Nonproliferation,
Registration and Licensing
Chapter 3. Treatment of Radioactive
Waste
Chapter 4. Implementation Provisions

1. Radiation protection technology
IAEA / RCA ActivitiesThe Reference Concept for the Shallow
Land Disposal of LILW is discussed

2. Radioactive waste treatment with hightemperature melting technology
3. Low-level radioactive waste treatment
technology

All the Member Countries of the Regional Co-operative Agreement (RCA)

4. Decontamination and decommission6

NEWSLETTER RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
are producing low and intermediate level
waste (LILW) from non-power sources,
and most of the Member Countries needto develop disposal facilities for waste. Itis essential to establish the technicalconcept of a repository to dispose of nuclear waste. It is also necessary to provide technical guidelines about
treatment of nuclear wastes and siting
conditions. However, most of the Member
Countries do not have adequate in- frastructure or technical expertise to develop a LILW disposal system. There- fore,
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) initiated the RCA project toassist RCA Member Countries inpromoting LILW disposal activities from
nuclear application. The RCA project
entitled "Preparation for the LILW
Disposal with emphasis on Non-power
Sources" was started in 1996. To
implement this project, the first workshop was held in Shanghai, China in
1997, where waste characteristics of nuclear and conceptual requirements of areference site were identified. Then, a
training course was held in Taejon, Korea in 1998 to provide key staff
members of waste management organizations in the RCA member countries withthe knowledge required for establishinga LILW disposal system.
In June 1999, the Project Coordi- nators Meeting was held in Mumbai, India. Twelve National Project Coordi- nators participated in the meeting from
Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, thePhilippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and
IAEA. Four observers also participatedfrom India. The purpose of the meeting
was to review the project and develop a
reference LILW disposal concept. Due tothe diverse regional conditions in the
Asian and Pacific countries, especiallyconditions of the climate ranging fromarid to wet/tropical weathers, different
concepts for facilities are required. As aresult, six reference concepts of a repository were identified.
1) Disposal of very low level radioactive
wastes in shallow land earthen
trenches with limited engineering.
2) Disposal of LILW in near surface inengineered trench with multi-layered
covers, constructed in unsaturated
zone on a site with arid climate.
3) Disposal of LILW in near surface inengineered trenches with humid climate.
4) Disposal of LILW in near surface inengineered concrete vault withdrainage zone on a site with changing
level of water table.
5) Rock cavern, abandoned mines or
excavated cavity, below water table.
6) Borehole in intermediate depth, cement backfill, below water table.
by Dr. Kenji Shimooka
JAERI,JAPANHighlight
Highlight inin 1999
1999
Summary of the 10th ICNCA Conference
The 10th International Conference
for Nuclear Cooperation in Asia was heldin Tokyo on March 10, 1999. The representatives participated from Australia,
China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand andVietnam as well as from the IAEA as observer. The countries evaluated the positive achievements of the past ten years
and affirmed the major goals for the future and the major theme of the meeting being the evolution of theframework.
1.Formation of FNCA
1) The conference will be renamed as"Forum for Nuclear Cooperation in7

NEWSLETTER RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT- Communication and coordination on
RNCA with the Coordinators in theother countries.
- Making proposals and reports on
overall planning of activities andevaluation of results.
2) The Project Leaders- Planning of activities in each field of
RNCA- Management and implementation ofactivities including seminars andworkshops- Summarization of the fruits andoutcomes of the cooperation activities- Communication with the Project
Leaders of the other countries in therespective field of RNCA

Asia (FNCA)" beginning with the next
conference.
2) FNCA will be comprised of an open
meeting with representation at theministerial level or other relevant highlevel representation consistent with acountry's circumstances and otherassociated Senior Official Meetings(SOM).
3) FNCA consists of the present par- ticipating countries (nine countries)
for the time being, and will ask the
IAEA to participate continuously as
an observer.
4) FNCA will be held in Japan and in aparticipating country other than Japanevery other year. The first FNCA
meeting will be held in Thailand in
2000. It is noted that the Republic ofKorea expressed her willingness tohost the FNCA in 2002.

The names of the Coordinator and the
Project Leaders to be registered by eachmember country will be publicized in the"Forum Newsletter" and in the Home
Page of the "AsiaNNet" that is scheduled
to start in October.
3.Coordinator Meeting
The Coordinator Meeting will beheld in Tokyo around March every year.
The terms of reference of the Coordinator Meeting will be as follows:
1) Horizontal coordination of RNCA
2) Coordination of activity plans for overall cooperation under FNCA
3) Review and evaluation of progress
and/or status of overall activities
4) Report and recommendation concerning cooperative activities to the FNCA
meeting

10th ICNCA Conference in Tokyo, Japan

2.Registration of the Coordinators andProject Leaders
To enhance the regional nuclear cooperative activities (RNCA) under thisframework, each participating country
will register a Coordinator and seven
Project Leaders to facilitate cooperationin the seven fields by August 1999.
The responsibilities of the Coordinator and Project Leaders are as follows:

Asia Cooperation Center
Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, Inc.
18-2,Shimbashi 1-chome,Minato-ku,
Tokyo 105-0004 Japan
Tel: 81-3-3508-7932 Fax: 81-3-3508-9021

1) The Coordinator- Management of overall cooperative
activities in each country.
8