NEWSLETTER
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT

May 2008

No.20
Issued by
Thailand Institute of Nuclear
Technology (TINT)

The FNCA 2007 Workshop on
Radioactive Waste Management
November 19-23, 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand
Representatives from RWM Implementing
organizations, Regulation sectors, and R&D institutes
on radioactive waste management attended theworkshop from countries under the FNCA frame work,
i.e. Australia, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan,
Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, andVietnam.
An IAEA representative from Waste
Technology Section, also participated in the workshop
upon the invitation from the workshop organizers.

Ms.Nanthavan Ya-anantNuclear Science Specialist
RWM Center, Thailand Instituteof Nuclear Technology (TINT)

Mr.Sutat Thiangtrongjit
FNCA RWM Project Leader of Thailand

Manager of RWM Center
Thailand Institute of Nuclear
Technology (TINT)

The FNCA 2007 Workshop on Radioactive
Waste Management (RWM) was held from November
19-23, 2007, at Amari Boulevard Hotel, Bangkok,
Thailand. This workshop was hosted by the Thailand
Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT), and theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT) of Japan, in cooperation with
Nuclear Safety Research Association (NSRA).

On the first day, country reports were
presented about present status and progress ofradioactive waste management activities in each
FNCA country. A Poster/Mini-Exhibition session to
introduce industrial level technologies in relation toradioactive waste management was also held.

1

On the second day, the Sub-meeting inseveral themes were presented by FNCA country
members, such as, theme 1 “Management of Medical
Radioactive Wastes”, theme 2 “Siting of disposal
facilities” and theme 3 “Safety Assessment and Design
Concept of Disposal Facilities”. And in the last session,
the Recent IAEA Initiatives in RWM and D&D waspresented by the IAEA representative.

On the final day, the participants reviewed
the Workshop Minutes and express their deep gratitude
to the FNCA-RWM Workshop and Japanese sponsors.
All participants agreed that the activities of RWM in
FNCA were much meaningful for the FNCA-RWM
members. The RWM project has been held since 1995,
and now completely fulfilled. Finally the FNCA-RWM
Workshop in Thailand was successfully done on 23
November 2007.

On the third day, the Technical Visit to GENCO
was conducted by the local host organization. The
GENCO provided the information and the sharing ofexperiences on Management of Industrial Waste andDisposal site as well.

On the fourth day, the morning session started
by the presentation on “Issues and Trends in RWM:
The IAEA’s Perspective”. The Roundtable Discussion
on Interim Report on Decommissioning and Clearance
Task Group Activities and on the Overview of FNCARWM Activities and the Future Direction were thenperformed by Prof. Kosako. The Technical Visit to
TINT was made in the afternoon.
2

It was found that the values measured using CLALIS and theactual radioactivity level agreed within +/- 20%, and thecorrected and actual background reductions agreed within +/2%.
On the other hand, for the clearance measurement of
concrete segments, the effect of BG gamma rays from naturalradionuclides in the measurement target, such as K-40 and theradioactive decay products of Th-232 and U-238, should becompensated for to ensure adequate waste management.
Recently, to apply CLALIS to the clearance measurementof concrete segments, the original flowchart of activity
evaluation was improved by adding a new compensation
procedure. In this procedure, BG count rate due to naturalradionuclides is estimated by a Monte Carlo calculation withpreanalyzed data of a representative sample of themeasurement target.
The activity concentration of natural radionuclides in
concrete differs markedly depending on the production locationof its components, such as cement and aggregates. Using six
mock concrete waste samples, which were composed of
cement and fine aggregate from various production locations inJapan, the accuracy of BG compensation was experimentallyestimated. In addition, the accuracy of calibration for concrete
waste was also estimated using a number of mock concretesegments of small and large triangular prisms. As a result, it
was revealed that CLALIS has appropriate detection ability forclearance measurement of not only metal scraps, but also
concrete segments.
CLALIS can give objectivity to the measurement results byautomatic measurement. We hope that CLALIS will be a helpful
tool that can provide reliability and quality assurance in theclearance measurement of nuclear plant waste materials.

In CRIEPI, low level activity detection technique for metal
scraps has been developed which inspects whether or not theactivity of wastes satisfies the clearance level. This techniqueconsists of 3D non-contact laser shape measurement and
MCNP Monte Carlo calculation. By the laser scanning, themeasurement targets are recognized as dot image and they
are converted into assembly of voxels after noise removal andwritten in MCNP input files. Two MCNP calculations, one is forcalibration factor and the other is for background correction
factor (ISO 11932:1996), are done during gamma ray
measurements. The activity of the target can be obtained by
the gross count rate, background (BG) count rate, BG
correction factor and the calibration factor (Fig. 1).
As a practical system, Clearance Automatic Laser
Inspection System (CLALIS) has been developed using ourtechnique, as shown in Fig. 2. This system is composed of 4
laser scanners, 8 large NE102A plastic scintillation detectors
surrounding with 5cm-thick lead shielding. The measurement
area is 80cm x 80cm x 40 cm height.
The accuracy of the automatic calibration and correction of
background reduction has been clarified using a number ofmock metal waste samples and standard radioactive sources.
Shape measurement

Gamma-ray measurement

3D laser scanners

Laser scanner
Count
rate

Gamma-ray measurement

Monte-Carlo calculation(MCNP)
Measurement tray

Measurement target-> dot image-> assembly of voxels

Calibration factor
BG correction factors

Activity

Lead shield (5cm thick)Weighing machine

Fig.1 Flowchart of activity evaluation.

Fig.2 Photograph of CLALIS.

3

BATAN Activities
on Radioactive Waste Storage and Disposal

All of the waste stored in RWTC BATAN are placed in
Djarot S. Wisnubroto

the Interim Storage Building No. 1 and No. 2 as seen

Radioactive Waste Technology
Center-BATANin Fig. 2 and Fig. 3.

In addition,

RWTC is also

equipped with the High Active Waste Interim Storage
intended

for

waste

comingfromradioisotope

production center or from radioisotope production
company (PT. BATAN TEKNOLOGI) as shown in Fig
At the present time, The Radioactive Waste

4. This building is still empty since there is no such

Technology Center (RWTC) is the only institution inkind wastes sent to RWTC.

Indonesia that has capabilities to treat radioactive
waste in the forms of liquid, spent resin, combustible
waste, high active waste, and sealed source. RWTC is
equipped with evaporator, compactor, incinerator,
chemical treatment, conditioning facilities for spentsources and also interim storage and quite recently
been assigned to be responsible to manage theinterim storage for spent fuel from the adjacentresearch reactor. The cumulative non NPP waste
coming from hospitals, industries and laboratories inFig. 2. Interim Storage Building No. 1 with total area

RWTC is shown below and smaller parts of this waste

1420 m2 and capacity 420 drums, 90 concrete

have to be disposed some time later in a final

shell

repository.

Cumulative Treated Waste 1988 - 2006 di RWTC

800

Waste Package

700

Compactable Solid(Drum 200 L)

500

Non Compactable andnon combustible solid(Drum 200 L)
Semi Liquid (Shell 950 L)

400Consentrat (Shell 950 L)

600

300
200
100

19
88
19
89
19
90
19
91
19
92
19
93
19
94
19
95
19
96
19
97
19
98
19
99
20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
20
05
20
06

0

Year

Fig. 2. Interim Storage Building No. 2 with total area

Fig. 1. Cumulative treated waste 1988-2006 in RWTC-

and capacity same with No. 1.

BATAN

4

On the R&D, RWTC conducts the disposal study since1989.

Site investigation has been done, and two

universities were involved in the preliminary study. The
locations for this activity include:-some uninhabited islands with the characteristicof basaltic rock, andesitic rock in the north of Javaisland,-and in Java with the characteristic of volcanic hostrock, clay host rock.

The block area surveyed is shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 3. Interim Storage for High Active Waste(Capacity 120 drums)

Area surveyed for
disposal study

In the year of 2006, Interim Storage for Spent
Fuel (ISSF) facility (Fig. 4) was handed over to RWTC
from Serpong Research Reactor Center. In the early
years

of

Serpong

ReactorOperation,uraniummaterials were coming from the USA and fabricated in
BATAN as the nuclear fuel. No requirement for
managing this spent fuel since the US origin are
repatriated with contract up to 2010. However recent
uranium used for research reactor is non US that in
the near future must be managed in the ISSF. Thereare 200 bundles of spent fuel still in reactor pool, and42 bundles of them will be sent back to US on 2009.
Fig. 5. Area in Java island and in some small islands
north of Java surveyed for radioactive waste disposal
study.

Fig. 4. Spent Fuel Storage Facilities

5Repackaging of Pu-239/Be neutron sources
for repatriation to USA
Lubi Dimitrovski
FNCA RWM Project
Leader of Australia
Waste Operations
Australian Nuclear Science& Technology Organisation

As part of a program to repatriate sources of US origin
the repackaging of Pu-239/Be neutron sources was
conducted at ANSTO during September 2006. The
exercise was conducted under the Off-Site Source
Recovery Project (OSRP) by the expert team from Los
Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the IAEA in
conjunction with ANSTO and ARPANSA personnel.

A total of 11 Pu/Be neutron sources were conditioned
by encapsulation in permanently-sealed stainless steel
capsules and further sealing in the S-300 pipe
overpack containers incorporating neutron shielding
material within 200L drums.

The OSRP is part of the National Nuclear Security
Administration’s (NNSA) Global Threat Reduction
Initiative, formerly under the Department of Energy’s
Office of Environmental Management. The sourceswere packaged to facilitate shipment as radioactive
material, Type A Package, Special Form. These
packaged sources are destined for disposal at the
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico,USA.
The program in Australia involved training by
Mohamed Al-Mughrabi from the IAEA and a LANL
team comprising Shelby Leonard, Jim Matzke,
Leonard Manzanares and Andy Tompkins on thePu/Besourceconditioning
andrepackaging
procedures for the Australian representatives. This
program completed the necessary training for an
Australian IAEA-based team for source conditioning in
the Southeast Asian region. Class room training andhands-on practice was followed by the removal ofsources from existing packages, confirmation ofidentification, dose and contamination checks,
encapsulation and packaging into the 200L shipping
containers by the trainers and the contingent ofAustralian trainees.

A selection
containers.

of

Pu-239/Be

sourcesinRemoval of the source from original packaging.

IAEA, LANL, ANSTO and ARPANSA participants.

6

original

S-300 pipe overpack containers with neutron shielding
material inside 200L drums.

Monitoring of source on removal from original
packaging.

Sealing of overpack containing encapsulated Pu239/Be source.

Encapsulation of Pu-239/Be source

Type A Package with Pu-239/Be source
7

The Roles of Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency(BAPETEN)
on Radioactive Waste Management

Djarot S. Wisnubroto
Radioactive Waste
Technology Center BATAN

To carry-out the development and the use of nuclear energy, on 1958 the Government hasestablished Atomic Energy Board, and on 1964 the name was changed into the National Nuclear Energy
Agency (BATAN). As the consequence of Act No. 10/1997 on Nuclear Energy, an independent regulatory
body was established and separated from BATAN. This independent regulatory body is called Nuclear
energy Regulatory Agency (BAPETEN).
BAPETEN has the task to control any activity using nuclear energy. The purpose of control is toprevent the workers, the public, and the environment from any harmful effect of radiation.
The task is administered by the following means:
Establishing regulation on the nuclear safety covering the radiological and radiation safety.
Issuing the licenses to control that the user of nuclear energy is qualified and in accord with the nuclear
safety regulation, criteria, standards, and guidance as well as practices.
Doing inspection to ensure that all regulations are observed in practices.
Primary objective of the regulatory body is to ensure that site personnel, the public and the environment areprotected from possible adverse effects arising from nuclear activity. In order to achieve these objectives,
BAPETEN has responsibility in:
1. Rule making of national policy in the field of the control of nuclear energy utilization;
2. Planning of national program in the field of the control of nuclear energy utilization;
3. Guidance and the rule making and the implementation of nuclear safety, radiation safety, andsafeguards assessments;
4. Implementation of licensing and inspection to the development and the operation of nuclear reactor,
nuclear installation, nuclear material facility, radiation source, and the development of nuclear
preparedness;
5. Implementation of co-operation in the field of control of nuclear energy utilization with other
Government agencies or organizations either internally or externally to the Government ofIndonesia;
6. Implementation of safeguards and SSAC (State's system on accounting for and control of nuclear
material);
7. Implementation of the guidance and counseling for the effort that related to the safety and health of
the worker and the people, and the effort of environmental conservation.
Fig.1 is the organization chart of BAPETEN.

8

Fig. 1. BAPETEN structure chart
Up to now there are licenses issued by BAPETEN, radiation sources fpr gauging application and x-ray
application licenses are the majority in industry and hospitals respectively.
Tabel 1. Licenses issued by BAPETEN for the radiation and radioactivities application (record on
February 2008)
No.

Purposes

Numbers

1.

Industries

4465

2.

Medicals

5193

3.

Researches

48

9Table2.

Some Regulations published and/or coordinated by BAPETEN related on radioactive
waste management.

No.
1.

Name of Regulation
Decree of the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Control Board No. 01/Ka. BAPETEN/V-99 on
Provisions for Occupational Safety Against Radiation2.

Decree of the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Control Board No. 02/Ka. BAPETEN/V-99 on
Radioactivity Dose Value for the Environment

3.

Decree of the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Control Board No. 03/Ka. BAPETEN/V-99 on
Safety Aspect of Radioactive Waste

4.

Decree of the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Control Board No. 04/Ka. BAPETEN/V-99 on
Radioactive Materials Transport Safety5.

Decree of the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Control Board No. 06/Ka. BAPETEN/V-99 on
Construction and Operation of Nuclear Reactor

6.

Decree of the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Control Board No. 07/Ka. BAPETEN/V-99 on
Quality Assurance of Nuclear Installation

7.

Decree of the Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency *) No. 05P/2000 on Guide for
the Safety of Radioactive Materials Transport

8.

Government Regulation No. 64/2000 on Licensing of Nuclear Energy Utilization

9.

Government Regulation No. 27/2002 on Radioactive Waste Management

10.

Government Regulation No. 43/2006 on Licensing of Nuclear Reactor

11.

Government Regulation No. 33/2007 on Safety of Ionizing Radiation and Security of Radioactive
Sources

Below is the radioactive waste management structure in Indonesia. BAPETEN, the Ministry of
Health and the Ministry of Environment coordinate the regulation, guidance and criteria as well as examine
the safety assessment. BAPETEN carries out the safety examination on the waste management
organization to comply with basic radiation protection requirements as described in ICRP and IAEA Basic
Safety Standard. The Radioactive Waste Technology Center, BATAN is the undertaking organization, as
well as the responsible party for carrying out the radioactive waste management which is the statutory taskof the Executing Body.

Figure 2. Radwaste Management Structure in Indonesia
10

DECOMMISSIONING AND DECONTAMINATION OF MINERALPROCESSING PLANT IN MALAYSIA
1.2
Currently, only one facility, which generates
TENORM waste from rare earths extraction, has been
decommissioned so far. There is one disposal facility,
which caters for TENORM waste in Malaysia. The facility
is designed for two engineered cells, in which the firstengineered cell has been completely filled withcontaminated soils and construction materials from therare earths extraction plant which has been
decommissioned.

Teng Iyu Lin (Ms)
Atomic Energy Licensing Board(AELB)
Batu 24 Jalan Dengkil, 43800
Selangor D.E.,
Malaysia

Abstract

2.0

In Malaysia, mineral processing plant is one of the
Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM)
processing industries in controlled by the Atomic Energy
Licensing Board (AELB) through the enforcement ofAtomic Energy Licensing Act 1984 (Act 304).
One
monazite cracking plant to extract rare earth elements
operating since 1982 is now in the process of
decommissioning. This is the first experience involving
decommissioning and decontamination (D&D) activities ofmineral processing plant for Malaysia. This D&D activities
was divided into 2 phase. The objective of phase 1 is torehabilitate the plant site and Waste Water Treatment Siteand dispose of the contaminated materials into thedisposal facility called Engineered Cell 1. Meanwhile, theobjective of phase 2 is to transfer and dispose of thethorium hydroxide waste into the disposal facility called
Engineered Cell 2. The phase 1 activities had beencommenced in September 2003 and completed in October
2005. Meanwhile, the second phase of the D&D is now inthe beginning process starting from September 2007 and it
is expected to be completed in 3 years time. Post closure
monitoring will be carried out for 2 years, starting from theclosure of the Engineered Cell. The planned institutional
control will be for at least 300 years.
1.0

DECOMMISSIONING AND DECONTAMINATION

2.1
One monazite cracking plant to extract rareearth elements operating since 1982 that situated in thenorthern part of Malaysia. The by-product or waste as aresult of the operation was thorium and radium sludge,
thorium contaminated equipments and the processing
plant itself. The company has ceased its operation in
January 1994. The waste was temporarily stored at theLong Term storage Facility (LTSF). About 84,822 drums(size of 200 L) of waste containing thorium hydroxide
and contaminated material were stored in the LTSF. The
plant decommissioning and decontamination (D&D)
activities had been commenced in September 2003.
This D&D project was divided into 2 phase:
2.1.1 Phase 1 (Plant D&D) – rehabilitation of plantsite and ‘Waste Water Treatment Site’(WWTS) from the radioactive contamination
to the original condition where all of thecontaminated materials was disposed into
disposal facility called ‘Engineered Cell1’(EC 1).
2.1.2 Phase 2 (LTSF D&D) – transfer and disposeof the thorium hydroxide waste in the ‘Long
Term Storage Facility’ (LTSF) into thedisposal facility called ‘Engineered Cell2’(EC 2).

INTRODUCTION

1.1
In Malaysia the atomic energy activities are
regulated and controlled by the Atomic Energy Licensing
Act 1984 (Act 304). The licensing authority of the Act
304 is the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB).
Malaysia has no plans to embark on a nuclear power
program, it limits nuclear activities to the applications ofsuch technologies in the industrial, medical, agricultural,and environmental sectors.

2.2
The first phase of the D&D project wascompleted in October 2005. The inventory of wastes
disposed in the EC 1 are:2.2.1 Contaminated soil excavated –approximately 66,000 m3
2.2.2 Contaminated Concrete & rubble –approximately 6,330 m3 and2.2.3 Contaminated material – approximately
2,000 m3
11

2.3
The second phase of the D&D is now in the
beginning process starting September 2007 and it isexpected to be completed in 3 years time. Among theplanned activities include:

The international documentations also available
for the company to refer in a case of there are no
regulations provided by the AELB. Such documents
related to the D&D activities among others are:2.3.1 To decommission the LTSF stage by stage
and installation of the ventilation system toreduce the radon and thoron gaseous
release to the environment. It is expected
the concentration of radon about 200 -1000
X 103 Bq/m3 and up to 30 X 103 Bq/m3 forthoron from the previous study.

ICRP Publications No.81 (ICRP 81)
IAEA Safety Series No.111-F (IAEA, 1995)
IAEA TECDOC- 1270
REGULATORY CONTROL
Routine inspection on-site was carried out by theregulatory body to ensure the safety of the D&D
activities in term of radiation protection. Activities
inspected by the AELB were soil excavation,transportation of the waste to the disposal facility,
loading and unloading the waste in/from the transport
vehicle, backfilling of the excavated area, engineered
cell construction and capping of the EC 1. Regular audit
by the consultant also being done to ensure thecompany comply with all the requirements imposed by
the regulatory body. Comments and suggestion also
provided by the consultant to help the company to takecorrective actions regarding the non-compliances.

2.3.2 To categorization the waste into thorium
waste and contaminated material based on
external radiation at the surface, 50uSv/hr
will be used as a limit to separate the waste.
The waste is categorized as thorium waste if
the external radiation level exceed the limitof 50uSv/hr and the waste with level ofexternal radiation below is categorized as
contaminated material.
2.3.3 The inventory of wastes to be disposed in
the EC 2 are approximately:
2.3.3.1
2.3.3.2
2.3.3.3

Thorium waste – 16,200 m3
Contaminated material – 9,900 m3
Rubble & others - 20,200 m3

Assistance from the IAEA experts was also
requested in order to assist the regulatory body in
implementing the proper enforcement in the field of
D&D. The AELB also had form the technical committee
consist of various related agencies to supervise the D&D
activities carry out by the company. The technicalcommittee had their regular meeting to review all of therelated D&D documents submitted by the company. The
community briefing also conducted by the company toexplain to the public the status of the D&D project andthe compliance with the requirements by the regulatorybody.

2.3.4 Thorium waste will be stabilized by mixing
with 15% cement and 5% of additive(calcium sulphate).
2.3.5 Built-in concrete box will be used to containthe stabilized thorium waste in the EC 2.
Whereas the contaminated material will bedispose of direct into the EC 2.
2.4
There will be only one final cap to cover both EC
1 and EC 2.

4. INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL
Post closure monitoring will be carried out for 2
years, starting from the closure of the Engineered Cell.
Samples of flora, fauna, soils and water will be collected
and analyzed to determine radionuclide migration as aresult of any leakage. All reports on the radiation
monitoring will be submitted to the regulatory body
(AELB) at a regular interval as agreed by both parties.

3.REGULATORY EXPERIENCELEGAL REQUIREMENT
Since Malaysia does not have any specificregulation on disposal and management of radioactive
waste, AELB enforces the waste management policy
through its licensing procedure and conditions of license
issued to the licensee. During operation, the mineralprocessing plant was given class A license for milling.
Class G license to store and dispose the waste wasissued when the company stopped its operation andimplemented the D&D activities.

The planned institutional control will be for atleast 300 years. During this period, the owner will carry
maintenance work (to mend fence, warning signs,
markers), ensure no serious damage due to erosion,
human intrusion for cultivation or animal encroachment
which can damage the integrity of the repository.

This Newsletter is issued by Radioactive Waste Management Center, Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT)
Tel : 662-5967600, Fax : 662-5620097
http://www.tint.or.th12