Translation of "Déchet de réacteur de puissance " (French → English) :

In particular, changes in the properties of the materials in the reactor pressure vessel and the components of the primary cooling circuit through neutron irradiation, heat, mechanical wear and tear and corrosion make it necessary to shut down a nuclear power plant definitively after a certain active life.

Even after a nuclear power plant has been shut down and the nuclear fuel has been removed, the plant must still be considered to be a nuclear installation as even a residual radioactivity of 10 Bq represents a danger to human beings and the environment.

11. Notes that each step in the decommissioning of nuclear power plants must consider the safety of humans and the environment, and that previous experience should as far as possible be put to good use;

Research to underpin the continued safe operation of all relevant types of existing reactor systems (including fuel cycle facilities), taking into account new challenges such as life-time extension and development of new advanced safety assessment methodologies (both the technical and human element) including as regards severe accidents, and to assess the potential, the safety and waste-management aspects of future reactor systems, in the short and medium term, thereby maintaining the high safety standards already achieved within the EU and considerably improving the long-term management of radioactive waste.

‘spent fuel’ means nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in and permanently removed from a reactor core; spent fuel may either be considered as usable resource that can be reprocessed or be destined for final disposal with no further use foreseen and treated as radioactive waste.

I. whereas, against the background of enlargement, although power-generating reactors seem to attract special attention, the same is not true of the many research reactors also located in the countries concerned and whose condition is a cause for concern,