IAEA Final Report on Recycling of Removed Soil etc. Arising from Decontamination Activities (Vol. 2)

Hello, everyone. My name is Daichi, an expert providing the information about the radiation issues in an easy-to-understand manner.

With regard to the review by the IAEA for the volume reduction and recycling of removed soil arising from decontamination activities, which have been currently promoted by the national government, its background etc. was explained in this article.

This article onward will cover the details of the contents of the review, based on my personal understanding.

It is not possible for all of the contents to be explained at once, therefore the structure of the final report, followed by the overall evaluation in the executive summary will be covered in this article.

In other words, this article covers the following questions:

-　How is the IAEA final Report on Recycling of Removed Soil etc. structured?
-　What is the IAEA’s overall evaluation for the recycling etc. of remove soil?

Table of contents of this article

I have been involved with the radiation-relevant issues, like the policy on the decontamination activities and the management of the Interim Storage Facility, after the accident of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011.

I received a doctorate in the field of radiation, while working in Fukushima.

IAEA Final Report on Recycling of Removed Soil etc. Arising from Decontamination Activities (Vol. 2)

So let me start explaining in the following parts the structure and overall evaluation of the final report, which is also introduced in this article.

Structure of the IAEA final report

The structure of the final report is as follows:

The final report starts with ‘Chapter I – Introduction’ and ‘Chapter II – Contents of the three International Experts Meetings’, and I think this is the similar approach with other reports, to introduce overall picture of the meeting.

The following ‘Chapter III – Regulatory aspects’, ‘Chapter IV – Volume reduction and the managed recycling of removed soil’, ‘Chapter V – Final disposal of removed soil and waste’, ‘Chapter VI – Public communication and stakeholder engagement’ can be called ‘four pillars’, which characterizes this report and describes key points of this report.

Annexes 1-3 show agenda of each meeting, and Annex 4 compiles the summary of site visits implemented during the first and second meetings.

Please have a look at them, if you are interested in.

Overall evaluation of the IAEA final report

Before referring to the evaluations of individual item made by the team of experts, I would like to cover the overall evaluation.

Summary of evaluation for aforementioned items (e.g., regulatory aspects, volume reduction and the managed recycling of removed soil, final disposal of removed soil and waste, public communication and stakeholder engagement) are written in the ‘executive summary’ at the beginning of the final report, and in the executive summary, you can see the ‘overall evaluation’, which summarizes the whole report, so let’s go through it in the following parts.

Although individual evaluations include quite technical contents, but this part is written with relatively simple expressions, and I think it is good to get a whole picture. (Japanese sentences are referred from the full translation version (provisional) in this website (in Japanese).

By the way, it is not written in the actual report, but alphabets (a, b, c…) are put for each evaluation item, for the ease of explanation.

It is no exaggeration to say that this sentence is the most important in the 90-page-long report, especially for the MOE.

This Experts Meeting covers a wide range of areas, but (especially for the MOE, which asked the IAEA to hold the meeting,) what draws interest most is, whether its activities are consistent with the IAEA Safety Standards or not.

In this regard, it is very meaningful, that it is evaluated that the approaches and activities for recycling and final disposal of removed soil and waste are consistent with the IAEA Safety Standards.

However, I think that another important point of this sentence is the phrase: ‘implemented by the MOEJ to date’.

It is related with the next sentence, but in other words, it was concluded that the approaches and activities up to the point of evaluation, are consistent with the IAEA Safety Standards, but there are a lot of issues to be addressed toward the future.

I think that ‘Beyond the demonstration project’ at the beginning of the paragraph, is almost equal to the meaning of ‘beyond the fiscal year 2025’.

This is because, as explained in this article, achievements of the Technology Development Strategy for Volume Reduction and Recycling of Removed Soil and Waste under Interim Storage, including demonstration projects for the technology development, are supposed to be compiled by the end of fiscal year 2024.

Isses which are explicitly stipulated here to addressed to, are ‘performing post management safety assessments of the managed recycling and the final disposal’ and ‘demonstrating the independence of the regulatory function of the MOEJ’, and these will be elaborated in the correspondent articles.

And at the last part of this paragraph, it is implied that follow-up assessments for the MOE’s approach will be conducted.

Specific approach has not been mentioned yet, but sometime in the future some assessments could be implemented, to confirm the consistency with the IAEA Safety Standards etc.

It is also explained in this article, but the removed soil airing from decontamination in the Fukushima Prefecture is supposed to be disposed of outside the Fukushima Prefecture by March 2045, so it says here that there are a number of issues to be addressed, toward its realization.

I think that the team of experts recognized how it is challenging to realize it, through on-site visits and discussions with MOE officials and local people.

Here it is encouraged for knowledge obtained through recycling of removed soil arising from decontamination activities to be shared with international society.

It can be said that it is pretty unlikely for large-scale environmental contamination due to an accident of nuclear power station to happen, compared with other incidents, but there are cases in which a large volume of soil with radioactive materials is generated, during processes of decommissioning of nuclear facilities or environmental remediation of former uranium mining sites.

I hope that knowledge obtained in Fukushima can help solve these issues, and on the contrary, I hope that Japan could also utilize knowledge obtained in the other countries to solve issues in the future.

Continuous cooperation by the IAEA is also mentioned here.

This project is expected to continue till March 2045.

This time it has come to the point of temporary completion for this activity, but it could be effective, from time to time to share up-to-date situation with the IAEA, and take necessary advice especially for issues pointed out by the IAEA (e.g., long-term safety assessment, independence of regulatory function from operational function).

I found this to be an encouraging comment as well.

Recycling of removed soil is an essential policy in terms of radiation protection aiming at people’s return to their hometowns, but in addition, it is important to have a view, that it also contributes to the regional sustainability.

I would like for the Japanese government to be confident with achievements made since shortly after the accident, and to keep sharing their information and cooperating with international society, while addressing issues raised by the IAEA.

Summary

This article has covered the overall evaluation in the final report, but the most important key points are:

– It is concluded that ‘the approach and activities implemented by the MOEJ to date for the managed recycling and the final disposal of removed soil and waste are consistent with the IAEA Safety Standards’. but;
– ‘Beyond the demonstration phase, with the MOEJ’s continuous exploration of solutions to meet fully the advice provided by the team of experts, the MOEJ’s evolving approach will be consistent with the IAEA Safety Standards. This can be confirmed by future follow-up assessments’.

In the next and the following articles, more detailed contents of the final reports will be elaborated.

You can read the same article in Japanese here.

Thank you very much for reading this article.

See you next time!