Niras chairman: ‘New government must urgently make decisions about the disposal of radioactive waste’

While the above-ground disposal of low-level radioactive waste has been arranged, the next government will have to make decisions about the underground disposal of high-level radioactive waste. This is what the outgoing chairman of nuclear waste manager Niras, Francis De Meyere, says.

As always during elections, Niras, which is responsible for nuclear waste management, is working on an election memorandum. According to De Meyere, the central message to the next government is that plans for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste must speed up, especially because the dismantling of five of the seven nuclear power stations will start in 2025.

‘We have been doing research into underground disposal at Niras for about forty years. During the past legislature, a decision in principle was taken for deep disposal in our own country. But a number of crucial questions remain open: at what depth, at what location, in which soil layers and how much high-level radioactive waste are we going to dispose of,” says De Meyere. These questions must be answered in the next legislature.

The longer the delay, the more expensive it becomes. Estimates of the cost of underground storage have increased from 3 to 12 billion euros in the past four to five years. “That is an estimate of the overnight cost, if we were to build everything in one night,” De Meyere explains. In the deal with Engie, the French operator of the nuclear power stations, all facets – including surface disposal and research costs – are subject to a one-off payment of 15 billion euros, an amount that the government will then invest.

It is difficult to say whether that amount will be sufficient to cover future costs, according to De Meyere. ‘It is clear that the financial risk for, for example, underground storage has been shifted to the government. If that 15 billion is too little, it’s ours. This will then be borne by the Belgian state and can no longer be recovered from Engie. And you can conclude that the estimated cost price has increased by a factor of 4 in four to five years.’

The next government will also have to clarify the division of roles between the various nuclear agencies, because the deal with Engie has introduced new players, such as Hedera. This will receive the resources for waste management from the Synatom piggy bank for nuclear dismantling. ‘It must be clear what role the various bodies – Niras, Hedera, the Nuclear Facilities Commission and the nuclear watchdog Fanc – will play. It must remain manageable,” says De Meyere, who, as a former energy expert at Jan Jambon, knows the political complexity.

If Niras has to wait every year for its financing to see whether Hedera agrees, it will be difficult, for example, to ensure the long-term planning for the disposal of nuclear waste, according to him. The same applies to the remediation and daily waste management, where five-year plans are now being worked on. According to De Meyere, if this can no longer be guaranteed, you risk moving to an unworkable ‘stop & go policy’, ‘which benefits no one’.

According to Niras, a lot is at stake, because although great progress has been made in recent years in the above-ground disposal of low-level radioactive waste in Dessel, there is still a lot of work to be done in the disposal of high-level radioactive waste.

A caisson factory has been built for the above-ground disposal of low-level radioactive waste, where concrete boxes or caissons with a wall of 12 centimeters thick are made to store the waste safely. The boxes are then closed and filled with cement, which are then called monoliths. Niras has already built an installation to produce around 1,000 monoliths annually. Belgoprocess, the industrial subsidiary of Niras, will operate that installation.

A milestone was that Niras received the permit last year for a new facility in Dessel to store short-lived low- and medium-level radioactive waste on the surface. Niras submitted the permit application for this ten years ago.

That is why there is no more time to lose in completing the disposal of highly radioactive and industrial waste.