An application from national radioactive waste management agency Andra to construct a high-level radioactive waste repository has been deemed to be admissible for review by the French nuclear regulator. This decision will allow the launch of the technical appraisal of the application.
     Andra submitted the application for the construction license for the planned Centre Industriel de Stockage Géologique (Cigéo) repository to the Ministry for Energy Transition on the 16th of January this year.
     Andra said, “The submission of this application marks a major milestone in the development of the project; it is 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.”
     The authorization procedure consists of two essential phases: appraisal and consultation.
     In March of 2023, the ministry asked the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) to take the lead in the technical appraisal of the application. The ASN examined the admissibility of the documents submitted by Andra. It concluded that all the documents required by law were included in the submitted documentation. These documents contain the elements required to initiate the analysis and expert appraisal work that lies at the heart of the appraisal procedure.
     The ASN mentioned that the application for Cigéo will be examined according to procedures “adapted to the exceptional nature of this project”. The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), ASN’s permanent expert groups and the National Assessment Board (CNE2) will be involved. Parliament will receive the results of this work.
     The technical appraisal of Andra’s application is designed to verify that the Cigéo project offers all the guarantees required to meet the applicable safety requirements. It is estimated that the process will require three years to complete.
     In addition to the technical appraisal, CNE2 is expected to submit an opinion on the documentation which will also be sent to parliament. CNE2’s opinion will be based on the scientific content of the application and on its knowledge of the state of the art which will be informed by its annual assessment of the progress of research and studies into the management of radioactive materials and waste.
     After the technical appraisal has been completed, the procedure requires consultation with all the institutional entities involved. These include environmental authority, local information commission, local water commission, local authorities concerned, European Commission. The final stage of the process will be a public inquiry.
     Once the technical appraisal and consultations have been completed, and if these conclude favorably on the acceptability of the project presented, the Cigéo facilities authorization decree will be published.
     Andra intends to construct the Cigéo repository in a natural layer of clay near Bure, to the east of Paris in the Meuse/Haute Marne area. The facility will be financed by radioactive waste generators including EDF, Framatome and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. It will be managed by Andra. The repository will hold eighty-three thousand cubic meters of long-lived waste and intermediate-level waste.

Ambient office = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 123 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 72 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 60 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Mini sweet pepper from Central Market = 78 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 60 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 106 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Mini sweet pepper from Central Market = 78 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 89 nanosieverts per hour

 

Ambient outside = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 81 nanosieverts per hour

 

Tomato from Central Market = 122 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 92 nanosieverts per hour

 

Filter water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

     Russia has repeated threated the use of nuclear weapons against the United States and other Western nations such as members of the European Union. Russia has sent their nuclear weapon equipped planes into other nations airspaces without permission and sailed its nuclear armed ships and submarines though other nations coastal waters without permission. However, with the advent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, their threatening rhetoric has increases steadily.
     A Russian state TV host recently issued a warning that if the Ukraine war escalates to a “nuclear phase” then Russia will strike the U.S. with strategic nuclear weapons. Yevgeny Satanovsky is a Russian political commentator and president of Russia’s Institute of the Middle East. He issued the warning in a video clip that has gone viral.
     Anton Gerashchenko is an adviser to the Ukrainian Internal Affairs Ministry. He shared the Satanovsky clip on his Twitter page on June 12th. The video was translated by Gerashchenko and has been viewed more than one hundred thousand times.
     On June 9th, Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would begin deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus on July 8th. This was just days before a NATO summit was set to be held in Lithuania which borders Russia.
      Satanovsky made a statement on Russian TV. He said, “The question is, will it all reach the nuclear phase or not? Because if it keeps going like this, it will definitely happen. And it won’t be tactical [but strategic] nuclear weapons that we’ll be striking at Ukraine, believe me, the United States of America, and all the targets that need to be in the crosshairs. They have been there since Soviet times and those in the U.S., and those in Europe, and those in other places where American nuclear weapons are concentrated, where there are American military bases. “So, I wish that on the way to the nuclear phase we could finish off the enemy without crossing the Rubicon. But if we have to, what can we do?”
     Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russian commentators and officials have stated that Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons in the conflict. In April of this year, Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, said that the probability of nuclear weapons being used was growing by the day. He said that nuclear weapons were the “backbone that holds the state together.” Medvedev was Putin’s stand in President between 2008 and 2012. He now serves as deputy of Russia’s Security Council and has issued nuclear threats frequently.
      Medvedev attended an educational event in late April at which he said, “In my opinion, [concerns about climate change] is nothing compared to the prospect of being at the epicenter of an explosion with a temperature of 5,000 Kelvin (scale), a shock wave of 350 meters per second and a pressure of 3,000 kilograms per square meter, with penetrating radiation, that is, ionizing radiation and an electromagnetic pulse. Is there such a prospect today? (Unfortunately), yes. And it is growing every day for well-known reasons.” Previously, in January, he said in a post discussing NATO support for Ukraine’s military, “Defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war.”