In parallel with the Energy Days event, Belgatom, the marketing and sales subsidiary of Tractebel and Belgonucleaire for their nuclear engineering capabilities, has organized a specific seminar on October 17, 2000.
The lectures have addressed the capabilities of Belgatom and of other Belgian nuclear companies in the fields of spent fuel management, radwaste management and nuclear facilities dismantling.

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During the last decade the Utilities considered the open fuel cycle option as an alternative to fuel reprocessing. As a first result of this policy, the Utilities have nowadays to face the need to increase interim storage capacities for spent fuel.
As a second result the Agencies in charge of waste management have to include spent fuel in their programme of high level waste disposal.

Mr. De Valkeneer showed how Belgatom provides appropriate solutions from both technical and financial points of view for interim storage of spent fuel (reracking, dry storage in casks,
wet storage in ponds,…) and how Belgatom demonstrates the feasibility of spent fuel conditioning with a view to direct disposal.


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Alain Lemmens (Electrabel)
Baudouin Centner, Koen Mannaerts and Philippe Beguin (Tractebel Energy Engineering)

According to waste acceptance criteria defined by Agencies in charge of waste management, the waste producers are requested to declare the activity inventories for each waste package before final disposal in a repository.
Mr. Beguin explained how Belgatom assists the waste producers to characterise their nuclear waste and what are the key assets of LLWAA, a computer code specifically developed by Belgatom for the determination of critical nuclides in different waste streams.

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Rik Vanbrabant and Paul Luycx (Belgoprocess)
Michel Detilleux (Tractebel Energy Engineering)
Jean-Marie Cuchet (Belgonucleaire)

The operation of 7 nuclear power units and of different fuel cycle facilities lead Belgium to find appropriate solutions as a function of each kind of generated radwaste, solid or liquid, of low, intermediate or high level activity, alpha contaminated or not.

Taking into account the specifity of the waste streams, the paper points out the different treatment / conditioning processes which are applied in the NPPs or on the Belgoprocess site, such as supercompaction, incineration, cementation, bituminisation, vitrification. A current project related to the retrieval and conditioning of historical waste was demonstrated.

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Belgatom is able to perform for its Clients all activities related to the selection of a new nuclear site, from seismic investigation to the environmental impact assesment, according to well-defined methodologies and ranking processes.
A specific aspect is the selection of a near-surface or a deep-geological final disposal site for radioactive waste.

Belgatom and SCK·CEN background in this field was emphasized and, in particular, the methodology and the tools used by Belgatom / SCK·CEN to modelise a radwaste repository in order to assess the performance and the safety of both the engineered and the natural barriers.

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Michel Detilleux (Tractebel Energy Engineering) - photo
Erna Vanechelpoel and Jacques Schittekat (Tractebel Development),
Geert Volckaert and Dirk Mallants (SCK·CEN)

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