Spanish Scenario for Spent Fuel in Spain

The spent nuclear fuel management strategy has been an importantissue of discussion in the nuclear community for severalyears. Its importance is directly related to political decisions,and governments all around the world are currently planningdifferent strategies considering the technical, economical, andsafety factors as part of their decisions. The international economiccrisis together with the consequences of recent nuclearaccidents have encouraged governments and nuclear stakeholdersto plan and work on feasible alternatives for the spentnuclear fuel management strategies.The purpose of this paper is to show, in particular, theSpanish scenario for spent fuel management and the decisionsbeing made in Spain. A brief introduction of the current nuclearsituation in Spain is followed by an overview of the stakeholders onthe spent fuel management and the actual spent fuel scenario,describing the inventory and the estimation of the total amountof spent fuel over a total period of forty years of nuclear powerplant operation. The current spent fuel scenario will also gothrough and describe the different solutions taken in the pastand nowadays for spent nuclear fuel dry storage in some ofthe Spanish nuclear power plants. But this is almost like inany other country, so, what’s different in Spain? The answer isthe strategy recently decided upon and approved for the nearfuture, called ATC for “Almacén Temporal Centralizado,” theCentralized or Consolidated Interim Storage Facility. A descriptionof the ATC siting process is provided, as well as the designbasis, the criteria used for the selected technology, similarinternational references, and, finally, several issues to beconsidered on this strategy concerning the fuel burnup, routinginfrastructure, and spent fuel integrity and operation. Becausethe ATC solution is a temporary solution (100 years at best),this paper concludes with a reflection or consideration beingmade — what’s next? It cannot be forgotten that other alternatives,such as Deep Geological Disposal, Reprocessing and Recycling,Transmutation, etc., are still there, fighting for a placeand an opportunity for the future spent fuel management.