First stage in the technical review of the construction licence application of Cigéo project
On Monday June 10, 2024 the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) published information on the first phase of the technical review of the request for authorization to create the Cigéo facility. Following examination of the basic data selected by Andra for the safety assessment of the facility, this publication is based on the opinions of the permanent group of experts and the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). It confirms that the knowledge acquired by Andra is sufficiently solid and mastered to assess the safety of Cigéo. This ASN publication is a first step in the ongoing technical review of the construction licence application (DAC).
In its opinion on the basic data, also published and available online, IRSN “considers that Andra has developed a knowledge base on waste packages, the Meuse/Haute-Marne site, the Callovo-oxfordian formation and cementitious materials, which provides sufficient data for assessing the safety of Cigéo at the DAC dossier stage”.
For its part, after examining the IRSN opinion, the standing advisory group “considers that Andra has acquired a solid knowledge base concerning the Meuse/Haute-Marne site, the components of the disposal system and the inventories of waste packages. These data are sufficient to assess the safety of Cigéo at the DAC dossier stage".
The remainder of the technical appraisal will now focus on assessing Cigéo's safety during operation, and then on safety in the post-closure phase, two assessments which will give rise to further communications from ASN and IRSN.
In this context, the experts asked Andra to provide, during the technical appraisal, additional information on the research program into the corrosion of high-level waste cell steels, on the pilot industrial phase, and on the sensitivity of the repository to more penalizing hydrological parameter assumptions. Other elements will be provided by Andra in subsequent phases (during construction, commissioning or the industrial pilot phase).
The result of more than 30 years of studies and research, regularly assessed by the ASN and IRSN, the construction licence application aims to obtain authorization to launch the initial construction of Cigéo. This authorization, as for any nuclear facility, will have to be granted by decree following the current technical review phase and a public inquiry.
About the construction licence application (DAC) of Cigéo, the French project for the deep geological disposal facility
On January 16th 2023, Andra submitted to the French Ministry for Energy Transition the construction licence application (DAC) of Cigéo, the French project for the deep geological disposal facility for the most highly radioactive waste. The submission of this application marked a major milestone in the development of the project ; it was the culmination of several decades of preliminary research and development work on issues such as site selection, the development of key components for the facility, and its main safety options under regular evaluation. This crucial step was also a new start for the project, which entered then into a new phase of technical review by the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN).
Following confirmation in June 2023 of the completeness of Andra’s application, the ASN commissioned IRSN and permanent groups of experts to carry out the technical assessment of the file in three areas: the basic data used to assess the safety of Cigéo, safety assessment in the operating phase and post-closure safety assessment.