water system. The evaporator’s return to service is planned for the f irst quarter of 2022. The facility’s activity in 2021 consisted chiefly in collecting the producers’ effluents in buffer tanks upstream of the facility and repairing the failure of the superheated water system. ASN will be attentive to the conditions of resuming the operations and the filling status of the effluent storage capacities prior to their processing. ASN underlines that this facility plays a central role in the management of the CEA effluents and as such constitutes a sensitive facility in the CEA’s decommissioning and material and waste management strategy. Jules Horowitz Reactor project – CEA centre The Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR –BNI 172), under construction since 2009, is a pressurised-water research reactor designed to study the behaviour of materials under irradiation and of power reactor fuels. It will also allow the production of artificial radionuclides for nuclear medicine. Its power is limited to 100 MWth. The construction activities continued in 2021 on the work site and on the suppliers’ sites, with the supply of handling equipment, hot cell equipment and the manufacture of pool equipment. The lining of the pools and channels of the nuclear auxiliaries building is well advanced. The hot cell windows have been installed and their leak-tightness has been tested. The JHR project reorganisation, initiated in 2020, is now effective and raises no particular remarks from ASN. The excessive vibrations encountered in 2020 during the qualif ication tests of certain equipment items inside the reactor pile block are still being studied and analysed by the CEA, in order to determine appropriate technical solutions to limit the equipment wear rates. Signs of corrosion were detected in 2021 on one of the reactor pool welds. Analyses were carried out to identify the potential causes of this deviation and determine the appropriate corrective action. The progress of these actions was verified in the course of several inspections and additional data are to be received in 2022. ASN has asked to be kept regularly informed by the CEA on this subject. ASN considers that the organisation in place for construction of the JHR is satisfactory and that technical problems are followed up rigorously, with a commitment to transparency. Assessment of the CEA Cadarache centre ASN considers that the level of nuclear safety of the CEA Cadarache centre in 2021 is on the whole satisfactory. ASN considers that the BNIs are operated satisfactorily on the whole, especially the control of the condition of the equipment, the meeting of commitments and modifications management. Improvements are nevertheless required in the sharing of operating experience feedback, notably concerning the risk of heavy objects falling during handling operations. The monitoring of outside contractors, whose contracts are followed up by the centre’s technical service, hasimproved, with a more clearly defined division of responsibilities between the centre’s services and the BNIs, and more rigorous formalising of the monitoring plans. The CEA must periodically assess the appropriateness andeffectiveness of its monitoring of outside contractors. With regard to the containment of radioactive substances, the monitoring of the first containment barrier is well ensured on the whole. Monitoring of the other barriers highlighted in the safety cases of the BNIs (walls of premises, ventilation and filtration systems) must be stepped up, in order to ensure their good performance. The commitments made by the facilities and the centre, further to the inspections and significant events, are broadly met. ASN notes progress in deviation management for the centre as a whole. Improvements are however required in certain services in the analysis of the causes or trends relating to recurrent deviations of similar types. ASN considers that the organisation put in place to conduct the reassessment and conformity check of the facility periodic safety reviews is satisfactory, but, where action plans are implemented, that the scheduling of the actions and their traceability must be further improved. With regard to emergency situation management, ASN considers that the overall organisation of the centre has improved, particularly in view of the conclusions of the inspection of 10 October 2018. A large amount of work nevertheless remains to be done in the facilities to define the functions of the emergency situation responders. Greater rigour is required in the activation of the On-site Emergency Plan (PUI) and the alerting of the public authorities. ASN underlines that the compensatory measures proposed by the CEA pending the availability of an emergency centre that is robust to extreme hazards will have to be kept operational. Complementary elements concerning the qualification of some of these measures are still to be received. ASN considers that the radiation protection situation of the CEA Cadarache centre is satisfactory. It notes positively the putting in place of internal self-checks, which allow thesharing of best practices and have also enabled the vulnerability of the operational radiation protection documents to falsification to be analysed. ASN observes that the standard of environmental protection has progressed. Improvements are nevertheless still required in the monitoring of the industrial effluents network, in rendering compliant the centre’s piezometer base, in the storage of hazardous products and the management of the centre’s stormwater, particularly regarding network maintenance and discharge monitoring. 96 ASN Report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2021 REGIONAL OVERVIEWOF NUCLEAR SAFETY AND RADIATION PROTECTION
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