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Performance assessment and the safety case: lessons from the European Commission PAMINA project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2018

D. A. Galson*
Affiliation:
Galson Sciences Limited, 5 Grosvenor House, Melton Road, Oakham, Rutland LE15 6AX, UK
L. E. F. Bailey
Affiliation:
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Radioactive Waste Management Directorate, Building 587, Curie Avenue, Harwell, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0RH, UK
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Abstract

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A three-year European Commission project entitled performance assessment methodologies in application to guide the development of the safety case (PAMINA) was conducted in the period 2006–2009 and brought together 27 organizations from ten European countries, including the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and Galson Sciences Ltd from the UK. The PAMINA project had the aim of improving and developing a common understanding of performance assessment (PA) methodologies for disposal concepts for spent fuel and other long-lived radioactive wastes in a range of geological environments.

Work undertaken within PAMINA focussed on four areas: (1) review of PA methodologies in participating organizations; (2) treatment of uncertainty in PA and the safety case; (3) other methodological advancements in PA; and (4) relevance of advanced PA approaches to practical cases.

The state of development of a radioactive waste disposal programme has a strong influence on the type of safety case and supporting PA that is produced. A range of PA methodologies has been developed by different waste management organizations. This paper presents a selection of conclusions from the PAMINA project, in the context of general understanding developed on what would constitute an acceptable safety case for a geological disposal facility, and outlines areas for further development.

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
© [2012] The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2012

References

Bailey, L., Becker, D., Beuth, T., Capouet, M., Cormenzana, J.L., Cunado, M., Galson, D.A., Griffault, L., Marivoet, J. and Serres, C. (2011) European Handbook of the State-of-the-Art of Safety Assessments of Geological Repositories - Part 1. Available from http://www.ip-pamina.eu/publications/reports/index.html.Google Scholar
Crawford, M.B. and Galson, D.A. (2009) The Treatment of Uncertainty in Performance Assessment and Safety Case Development: Synthesis of PAMINA RTDC-2. Available from http://www.ip-pamina.eu/publications/reports/index.html.Google Scholar
Galson, D.A. and Richardson, P.J. (2011) PAMINA Project Summary Report. Deliverable D5.1. Available from http://www.ip-pamina.eu/publications/reports/index.html. Google Scholar
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