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Nuclear inspections: half a century os safeguards in Europe

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Subido el 13 de julio de 2007 por EducaMadrid

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For fifty years, European Commission inspectors have been verifying in nuclear installations that fissile material is not diverted from its intended peaceful use. How do these European inspectors work? What are they checking? Examples in a classic nuclear power plant and in the French reprocessing plant at La Hague where several hundred kilos of nuclear material are recycled each year. What happens when the inspections reveal irregularities, as for instance is the case for a storage pond at the Sellafield reprocessing plant in the United Kingdom? How are nuclear inspections likely to evolve in future and what are the European Commission's priorities for them? The video answers these questions.

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Uranium and plutonium are the main fissile materials used as fuel in nuclear reactors. 00:00:00
Their capacity to produce electricity is impressive. 00:00:20
Just a few grams provide the energy yield equivalent to no less than a ton of coal. 00:00:23
But if they were to fall into the hands of terrorists, these materials could have a devastating 00:00:29
effect. 00:00:33
They could be used to build a nuclear weapon. 00:00:35
In Europe, the risk of nuclear materials being diverted from their intended peaceful purposes 00:00:38
is extremely low compared to other regions of the world. 00:00:43
But the danger still remains. 00:00:47
These men are not the usual European officials. 00:00:50
They're going to a nuclear power plant to check that the nuclear fuel declared by the 00:00:53
operator is indeed there and kept under maximum surveillance. 00:00:56
They're part of a core of around 200 European inspectors. 00:01:02
Highly qualified, equipped with dosimeters and specialist measuring apparatus, they regularly 00:01:06
visit all the nuclear installations in the EU. 00:01:11
Their job is to ensure that civilian nuclear material is not stolen and sold illegally 00:01:15
or used for military purposes. 00:01:20
The Euratom Treaty, one of the founding documents of the European Union, signed in 1957, established 00:01:25
European nuclear safeguards. 00:01:31
It charged the European Commission with the responsibility of monitoring all nuclear materials 00:01:34
for civilian use on European Union territory. 00:01:39
The Commission is in charge of keeping a very precise account of the fissile materials 00:01:44
in all the facilities. 00:01:56
And by on-site checks, extremely in-depth checks, it must verify that these materials 00:01:59
are used in accordance with the declarations of the nuclear installation managers. 00:02:06
The Euratom Treaty also imposes a whole raft of obligations on operators of nuclear facilities. 00:02:15
The nuclear operators have to declare a set of accountancy and technical data to our services 00:02:22
in the Commission. 00:02:32
And they also have to allow and to provide access to our inspectors. 00:02:34
At any time, any place, the Commission considers proper to perform its verifications. 00:02:42
One of the places monitored by inspectors is the storage pond. 00:02:49
Assemblies of spent nuclear fuel removed from the reactors continue to emit strong radiation 00:02:54
and heat. 00:02:59
That's why it's stored underwater. 00:03:01
Inspectors check that no fuel rods are missing. 00:03:04
These ponds, like other strategic places in the power plant, are monitored permanently 00:03:07
by cameras installed by the European Commission. 00:03:11
Another control tool are the seals, changed regularly by the inspectors themselves when 00:03:17
they visit the installation. 00:03:22
They protect areas and containers with sensitive contents and help to detect any unauthorized 00:03:24
access or handling. 00:03:30
In addition to the physical controls, a major part of the inspectors' work is to verify 00:03:32
the accounts of the nuclear material. 00:03:36
Back in Luxembourg at the European Commission inspectors' HQ, every inspection mission 00:03:39
begins and ends here. 00:03:44
Here, in the laboratories, the control equipment is prepared, information from the units is 00:03:46
gathered, all the video recordings from the surveillance cameras are monitored, and the 00:03:51
seals are checked. 00:03:56
Before being put into position, the two parts of the metallic seals are marked on the inside 00:03:59
with a unique indelible image. 00:04:04
By comparing this image when the seal is opened, inspectors can tell whether or not it's been 00:04:07
tampered with. 00:04:12
Seals are put into place, but this time it's by inspectors from the International Atomic 00:04:26
Energy Agency. 00:04:32
This Vienna-based United Nations organization monitors all nuclear materials around the world. 00:04:34
But the European Commission and the Vienna Agency work together on inspections in the 00:04:40
European Union. 00:04:45
European Commission nuclear controls cover all stages related to the electric power production. 00:04:48
The cycle begins with the mining of uranium ores and finishes with the disposal of nuclear 00:04:55
waste. 00:05:00
But the same vigilance is necessary in other areas, for example, research reactors or the 00:05:01
transport of nuclear materials. 00:05:06
The size and level of each inspection varies according to the type of nuclear installation. 00:05:09
There are two specific types of installation on European Union territory, four enrichment 00:05:15
plants and two reprocessing plants, which house the largest quantities of uranium and 00:05:20
plutonium. 00:05:24
These sites are subjected to particularly rigorous inspection. 00:05:26
La Hague in northwest France. 00:05:32
This windy part of the Normandy coast is home to one of the strategic sites submitted to 00:05:34
intense surveillance, a reprocessing plant. 00:05:38
Spent fuel is brought here for the purpose of separating out the uranium and plutonium 00:05:42
for recycling. 00:05:46
With its capacity of 1,700 tons a year, the plant is able to reprocess the waste fuel 00:05:48
from a hundred or so reactors and to recycle several hundred kilos of nuclear materials. 00:05:53
Here again the job begins in the pond. 00:05:59
This is considerably larger because it accommodates several hundred assemblies of spent fuel from 00:06:02
reactors in Europe and Asia. 00:06:07
The fuel rods are held in special baskets, 10 meters below the surface of the water, 00:06:09
before being treated. 00:06:14
To check them, the inspector has a special viewing device which allows him to see the 00:06:16
electromagnetic rays emitted by spent fuel assemblies. 00:06:21
The operator gives us a list with all the elements he has in the pool and we have to 00:06:26
check that all these elements are there. 00:06:32
The verifications are also carried out in other strategic places in the plant. 00:06:35
One of the main places is the storage of plutonium. 00:06:39
We check all the main tanks of trans-nitrile uranium. 00:06:45
We check the entrance and exit of the plant. 00:06:54
The taking of samples of uranium and plutonium constitutes another major part of the inspection. 00:06:59
Here again, inspectors must be certain that the material present on site corresponds to 00:07:05
the declarations made by the operator. 00:07:10
The Commission has its own laboratory in Karlsruhe, Germany. 00:07:13
But in order to limit the transport of radioactive samples, a special laboratory has been established 00:07:17
on the site of the plant at La Hague. 00:07:22
Here, for example, samples from solutions of spent fuel are being analysed. 00:07:25
The checks and analyses sometimes reveal discrepancies. 00:07:53
In most cases, these are minor accounting errors which can be corrected on the spot. 00:07:56
If then there are really infractions, serious irregularities that are not solved in spite of our remarks, 00:08:03
then the Commission can use the Euratom Treaty and impose sanctions either to the member state 00:08:12
or to the operator. 00:08:20
The sanctions can range from a simple warning up to taking away the nuclear materials from the operator. 00:08:22
This is the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Britain. 00:08:34
This strategic site has given rise to one of the most serious disputes in the history of nuclear safeguards. 00:08:38
Since the first Euratom inspection in 1986, 00:08:44
the Commission inspectors have not been able to perform adequate verification activities 00:08:47
in one of the storage ponds because of poor visibility and high radiation. 00:08:51
Judging the action plan presented by the British government to be insufficient, 00:08:56
the Commission has started proceedings against the United Kingdom at the European Court of Justice. 00:09:00
It must be said that there was a complexity in this case 00:09:05
related to the use of a part of the fuel. 00:09:10
But the essence is there. 00:09:17
When the reports of our inspectors became really alarming, we acted. 00:09:19
With the accession of the 10 new Central European countries, 00:09:28
the inspectors' area of operations has widened. 00:09:31
Between them, these new member states have 19 nuclear reactors, 00:09:34
which were built according to the norms of the ex-Soviet Union. 00:09:38
Obviously, post enlargement, all these installations have been subjected to European Commission inspection. 00:09:44
But as they had been inspected for years previously 00:09:51
by the International Atomic Energy Agency based in Vienna, 00:09:54
it's not surprising that so far the European inspectors have discovered nothing wrong. 00:09:58
In the Union of 25, the nuclear safeguards continue to be important. 00:10:06
As a result, the Commission has adopted a new approach, 00:10:12
which puts the accent on quality, not quantity. 00:10:15
It's asked the operators and national authorities to develop their own controls from now on, 00:10:19
so that not everything depends on European inspections. 00:10:24
We are moving towards a system where we control national inspectors. 00:10:54
If it turned out that in an installation X there was a real problem, a real danger, 00:11:00
we would resume systematic inspections. 00:11:08
This rationalization will allow the Commission to focus more on other risks linked to the nuclear industry, 00:11:12
such as the health of workers and the people who live near nuclear installations. 00:11:18
And also with the implementation of a common legislative framework on nuclear safety, 00:11:23
aimed at, amongst other things, protecting nuclear installations against attack or accident. 00:11:28
For more UN videos visit www.un.org 00:11:53
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Idioma/s:
en
Niveles educativos:
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      • Nivel Intermedio
Autor/es:
The European Union
Subido por:
EducaMadrid
Licencia:
Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
Visualizaciones:
1663
Fecha:
13 de julio de 2007 - 9:17
Visibilidad:
Público
Enlace Relacionado:
European Commission
Duración:
12′ 01″
Relación de aspecto:
4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
Resolución:
320x240 píxeles
Tamaño:
58.82 MBytes

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