Contenido principal
2021
The CSN reports an unfavorably authorization of the construction of the manufacturing plant of uranium concentrates from Retortillo (Salamanca)
The Plenary Board of the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), met this morning, has given its approval to the Proposal Technical Report to unfavorably inform the request presented by Berkeley Minera Spain (BME) on the authorization of construction of the First Category Radioactive Facility of the nuclear fuel cycle "uranium concentrates manufacturing plant in the municipality of Retortillo" (Salamanca).
The result of the vote has been four votes in favor of the Proposal Technical Report prepared by the Radiological Protection Technical Direction and one against, corresponding to the commissioner Javier Dies. The aforementioned commissioner, in accordance with Article 34 of the CSN Statute, has announced that he will cast a private written vote within 48 hours.
The technical report will be forwarded to the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, as set out in Article 23 of the RINR.
The reason for the decision taken is based on the low reliability and high uncertainties identified in geothecnical and hydrogeological aspects of the radioactive facility´s safety analysis, on which the verification of the adequate behavior of various project parameters depends.
The technical deficiencies identified in the assessment relate mainly to the disposal of very low level radioactive waste, which is part of the first category radioactive facility.
From a regulatory point of view, the information provided doesn´t allow to assess the range of the effective capacity of the barriers that BME proposes to isolate the waste and consequently neither the capacity to minimize the expected concentrations of radionuclides in the potential discharge areas.
The evaluations carried out on the documentation that accompanies the application for authorization of the installation have detected numerous deficiencies throughout the evaluation, which has required the maintenance of a number of technical meetings with the licensee, as well as numerous requests for additional information; the preparation of a large number of reports and evaluation notes, and the complete review of the documentation by the owner, in order to integrate and give coherence to the information generated on the project.
The evaluation of the reports of the application for the construction authorization has involved 11 technical areas of both technical departments of the CSN, which have addressed the issues of their competence, grouping fire protection, engineering systems, mechanical and structural engineering, quality assurance, hydrogeology, seismology and meteorology, radiological protection of workers, radiological impact assessment, environmental radiological surveillance, low and medium level waste, as well as the cycle and decommissioning facilities area and the corresponding project manager.
The CSN has a special section on its institutional website where you can find more information and learn more about this project through this link.
