ERDO : Working on a shared solution for radioactive waste

A multinational working group, whose members are nominated by the appropriate Government level organisations, established to study the feasibility of setting up a Development Organisation (ERDO) that would implement one or more shared geological repositories in Europe.

ERDO Latest Activities & News

ERDO WG meeting in Zagreb, 20th - 21st November 2019

Posted January, 2020

The most recent Working Group meeting took place in Zagreb on 20th - 21st November 2019. The WG meeting was attended by representatives of current member countries and was hosted by the Group’s newest member, Fond-NEK, Croatia. The principal objective of the meeting was to plan three ERDO-WG projects to explore and develop shared waste management activities. The projects involve work on pre-disposal waste management issues, deep borehole disposal of wastes and cost evaluation of shared disposal scenarios. A full list of past meetings can be found in our ERDO Meetings section.

Note of ERDO-WG Zagreb Nov 2019


Steps to Sharing : Opportunities for Sharing in European Radioactive Waste Management

Posted October, 2019

An ERDO Working Group Workshop hosted by the IAEA

IAEA, Vienna, 25th – 26th September 2019

There is a great diversity in the extent to which nuclear technologies are employed in European countries and, accordingly, in the size and the characteristics of the radioactive waste inventories involved. All countries, large or small, that make use of nuclear technologies must have credible strategies and access to technologies to ensure safe management, treatment, conditioning, storage and disposal of their radioactive wastes. This can involve particular issues for countries with small inventories of largely medical, industrial and research wastes, or legacy wastes from historic work on nuclear technologies.

The “Steps to Sharing” workshop was organised by the ERDO Working Group and hosted by the IAEA at its headquarters in Vienna. It focussed on the contributions to safe and secure management of radioactive wastes in Europe that can be achieved by countries sharing strategic approaches, specific activities and centralised facilities. The emphasis was on practical proposals that can directly support operational programmes, in particular in countries with small inventories of wastes, with limited resources or early stage programmes. The proposals developed are complementary to projects of the EC and the IAEA.

The workshop was attended by 26 participants, representing 14 countries, along with IAEA staff and members of the ERDO-WG secretariat. In addition to representatives of ERDO-WG member countries (Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Slovenia) there were also participants from the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia.

The workshop reviewed the present status of cooperation projects and examined a range of possible topics where shared project work would be beneficial. Three projects were identified for development on a shared basis, focussed on:

  • pre-disposal activities aimed at ensuring the disposability of legacy wastes;
  • strategic and practical implications of including intermediate and/or deep borehole disposal into national programmes;
  • sharing disposal costing and financing experience and approaches.

Core groups were identified to develop specifications for these shared projects and eight to ten countries expressed interest in being involved in each.

The presentations made and a note of the Steps to Sharing workshop can be downloaded from our Meetings section.


Croatia joins the ERDO Working Group

Posted September, 2019

At the end of August 2019 the Ministry of Environment and Energy signed an agreement whereby the Republic of Croatia becomes a member of the ERDO Working Group, represented by Fond-NEK (Fund for Financing the Decommissioning of the Krško Nuclear Power Plant: http://www.fond-nek.hr/en).

Representatives of Fond-NEK have been frequent observers at Working Group meetings for some years and it is a pleasure to welcome them formally into the ERDO-WG.


Introduction

Every country in Europe has to manage its own radioactive wastes responsibly. Only a few countries have developed a final solution for the most hazardous and long-lived of these wastes. This involves building deep underground geological repositories, which is currently the only safe and secure way to dispose of these waste without burdening future generations.

For some countries, building a national repository is a major challenge. These countries could work together to address the common challenges of safely managing the long-lived radioactive waste. The goal of the ERDO is investigating the feasibility of implementing shared solutions.


Incentives for Shared Solutions

Worldwide, smaller nuclear power programmes and countries with no nuclear power but with wastes that must be routed for geological disposal, are considering whether they will have to make independent provision for geological repositories. The costs are high relative to the amounts of material involved and independent disposal facilities would make poor use of scarce national resources.

There are clearly benefits of scale and economy in getting together to develop joint facilities, both for storage and disposal. Shared facilities could also provide more flexibility to users in terms of scheduling of disposal and the use of national storage capacity.

Shared facilities might be at a regional level, as is being explored by the ERDO Working Group, or could be developed by one country and made available to users world-wide, as has recently been evaluated by the Government of South Australia. A shared regional repository in the European Union would provide a particularly valuable service to those countries with only a few tens of cubic metres of radioactive wastes, from industrial and research applications.

Several EU countries have already recognised the value of shared facilities and, while pursuing their own national programmes, also want to explore the international option in a 'dual track' approach.


ERDO Working Group

A multinational working group (WG), whose members are nominated by the appropriate Government level organisations, has been established to study the feasibility of setting up a Development Organisation (ERDO) that would implement one or more shared geological repositories in Europe.

The mission statement agreed for the ERDO at its first meeting on 28th January 2009 is:

“Our aim is to work together to address the common challenges of safely managing the long-lived radioactive wastes in our countries. Specifically, we will investigate the feasibility of establishing a formal, joint European waste management organisation. The WG will carry out all the necessary groundwork to enable the establishment of a European Repository Development Organisation (ERDO) as a working entity and present a consensus proposal to our governments. Providing that a sufficiently broad consensus is achieved by our governments or their representatives, the ERDO will be established at the end of this process.”

Further important goals of the ERDO are to exchange information, to build up competence and to promote the concept of shared repository development as a complement to the national facilities being developed.

The ERDO is a project managed by the national waste agency of the Netherlands, COVRA (www.covra.nl) and the Arius Association (www.arius-world.org) on behalf of its Members.


ERDO Members

The following countries currently participate actively in the ERDO-WG:

Austria Austria - BMNT Croatia Croatia - Fond-NEK
Denmark Denmark - Danish Decommissioning Italy Italy - ENEA National Agency
Netherlands Netherlands - COVRA Waste Agency & ANVS Norway Norway - NND and IFE
Poland Poland - Ministry of Economy Slovenia Slovenia - ARAO Waste Agency  

 

In addition, the IAEA and EC have delegated observers to the ERDO- WG. Countries interested to join the ERDO-WG should contact the secretariat.


Origins

The ERDO Working Group that emerged from the SAPIERR projects financed by the European Commission has been operational since 2009.

The EC SAPIERR projects resulted in a proposal for a staged, adaptive implementation strategy for a European Repository Development Organisation (ERDO). The first step in the strategy was the establishment of a Working Group (ERDO-WG) of interested countries to carry out pre-cursor work to enable a consensus model to be agreed for a ERDO, using the SAPIERR findings as a starting point. This model has been presented to potentially interested countries, so that they can decide whether and when to set up the ERDO and whether they wish to be part of it. The ERDO-WG started work at the beginning of 2009. Arius provides the WG secretariat and the administration is provided by COVRA, the Netherlands radioactive waste management agency.

The principal objective of the group’s work is to provide a forum for potential participating countries in Europe to discuss and agree the basis upon which an ERDO could be formed. At that stage, the participant countries will decide whether to go ahead and establish the ERDO and, if so, with what national membership. The ERDO would be established when a sufficient number of partner nations agree to the final proposals; it will operate as a sister organization to waste agencies that have opted for a purely national repository program (e.g. France, Sweden, Finland, Germany).

By combining their resources in this way, the ERDO partners demonstrate to other regions of the world the feasibility of enhancing safety and security while increasing the economic attractiveness of nuclear power, even for small countries.


Safety

As for national repository programmes, ensuring operational and long-term safety will be the top priority for a future ERDO. Shared regional waste management facilities will have to meet the highest standards of environmental safety. This will be assured by the national regulatory agencies in the partner countries working closely together.

The high profile and level of interest worldwide in the project implies that the ERDO will also involve the IAEA and advice of the European Nuclear Safety Regulator Group (ENSREG), in a wide overview and regulatory capacity.