Abstract
For the release of radioactive waste, the regulatory body must establish or approve operational limits and conditions relating to public exposure, including approved discharge limits. The parties concerned must ensure that the release of radioactive waste and radioactive substances into the environment is managed in accordance with the instrument of ratification. Discharge authorization procedures, including the establishment of emission authorizations and emission allowances, the establishment and use of dose constraints, emission characteristics, and the circumstances of exposure used in the establishment of emission allowances, etc., According to the legal requirements of our country, at present, all units in the nuclear industry that produce and discharge radioactive waste gases and liquids into the Environment shall rely on the examination and approval of prior environmental impact reports or environmental impact assessment documents, the permit mode of total discharge control for the examination and approval of the designed nuclide discharge of radioactive waste gas and liquid. At present, China’s radioactive contamination emissions are not included in the management of emission permits, nuclear and radiation-related key industries and units are not included in the “Fixed Source Emission Permits Classified Management Directory” management. Whether it is feasible to carry out the pollution discharge permit system in the nuclear and radiation industry of our country, in the theoretical system, there are already relevant laws and regulations of our country to guarantee or can guarantee, however, there are still some problems in the actual operation, such as insufficient research on radiation environmental quality objectives,further work is needed to promote the full implementation of the discharge permit system in the nuclear industry.
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1 Introduction
The discharge of radioactive waste must be regulated and restricted by the state. Article 41 of my country’s “Radioactive Pollution Prevention and Control Law” stipulates that units that generate radioactive waste gas and waste liquid discharge into the environment radioactive waste gas and waste liquid that meet the national standards for the prevention and control of radioactive pollution, shall report to the environmental protection administrative director who has examined and approved the environmental impact assessment documents. The department applies for the discharge of radionuclides and regularly reports the discharge measurement results.
In January, China issued regulations on the management of pollution permits, 2021 that enterprises, institutions and other producers and operators under the management of pollution permits should apply for pollution permits in accordance with the regulations, no pollutants shall be discharged. According to the factors such as the amount of pollutants produced, the amount of pollutants discharged and the degree of impact on the environment, etc., the discharge units shall be subject to the classified management of discharge permits. However, the nuclear and radiation industries are not explicitly included in the current “Classified management list of emission permits for fixed sources of pollution”, and there are no specific requirements for emission permits in China’s current Local ordinance regulations, therefore, the industry has not implemented a licensing system.
2 Relevant Regulations of Chinese Standards
2.1 GB18871 “Basic Standard for Protection Against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Source”
Article 8.6.2 stipulates that radioactive waste liquid shall not be discharged into ordinary sewers, unless it is confirmed by the review and management department that it is low-level waste liquid that meets the following conditions, it can be directly discharged into ordinary sewers with a flow rate greater than 10 times the discharge amount, and Each discharge should be recorded:
a) The total activity emitted per month does not exceed 10 ALImin (ALImin is the smaller of the ingestion and inhalation ALI values corresponding to occupational exposure, and the specific value can be obtained according to the provisions of B1.3.4 and B1.3.5);
b) The activity of each discharge shall not exceed 1 ALImin and shall be flushed with not less than 3 times the amount of water discharged after each discharge.
2.2 GB6249 “Environmental Radiation Protection Regulations for Nuclear Power Plants”
Article 6 “Dose constraint value and emission control value in operating state” stipulates that the effective dose to any individual in the public caused by the radioactive substances released to the environment from all nuclear power reactors at any site must be less than the dose constraint value of 0.25 mSv per year.
The operating organization of the nuclear power plant shall formulate the dose management target values for airborne radioactive effluent and liquid radioactive effluent respectively according to the dose constraint value approved by the audit and management department. The nuclear power plant must implement the control of the total annual emission of radioactive effluents for each reactor. For a reactor with a thermal power of 3000 MW, the control value is as follows (Tables 1 and 2).
3 Radioactive Waste Discharge Permits in China
At present, the discharge of radioactive pollutants in my country has not been included in the management of pollutant discharge permits for the time being, and relevant key industries and units have not been included in the “List of Fixed Pollution Source Pollutant Discharge Permit Classification Management” management.
According to the requirements of the Pollution Discharge Law, at present, all units in my country that generate and discharge radioactive waste gas and waste liquid into the environment implement a permit system based on construction permits, safety permits, mining permits, etc., with pre-environmental impact reports or environmental impact assessment documents. Based on the approval of radioactive waste gas and waste liquid, the total emission control permit mode is approved for the design of radioactive waste gas and waste liquid emission.
When submitting an environmental impact report to the ecological environment department, the unit producing radioactive waste gas and liquid should also submit an application for the estimated discharge of radioactive waste gas and waste liquid, including determining the characteristics and activities of the radionuclides to be discharged and possible discharges where and how, and the exposure doses to key populations of the public that may be caused by the planned discharge. According to the discharge situation of other facilities in the area where the emission unit is located, the ecological environment department will allocate a certain emission share to the unit according to the public dose limit standard. The approved emission limits for nuclear power plants and research reactors must be included in the operating limits and conditions. The nuclear technology utilization unit generally adopt emission and clean decontamination models that conform to national standards, while uranium mines adopt emission limits for corresponding nuclides based on environmental standards, and associated mines currently do not have relevant standards, the corresponding limits of national sewage discharge standards can be used.
A nuclear power plant unit is a million kilowatt-class pressurized water reactor nuclear power unit. According to the approval of the original Ministry of Environmental Protection “Approval of the Environmental Impact Report of a Nuclear Power Plant (Operation Stage)” and other documents, as well as the monitoring of the effluent of the nuclear power plant, the annual emission control value and actual value of the radioactive effluent of the unit in a certain year as follows (Table 3):
The annual emissions of Airborne Carbon 14 and liquid tritium were higher than the annual control value, and the emissions of other airborne and liquid radioactive effluents were far lower than the annual control value. The annual maximum individual effective dose of effluents released to the public was 4.52 * 10–7 Sv, and the residents receiving the maximum individual dose were adults within 1–2 km north-northeast (NNE) of the plant site, about 0.18% of the dose-limiting value of 0.25 mSv/a.
For radioactive contamination, the monthly and quarterly monitoring results of the water samples near the outfall comply with the first-class Standard in Table 4 of the comprehensive wastewater discharge standard (GB8978-1996), and there is no obvious change compared with the outfall. Monthly monitoring and analysis items include dissolved oxygen, residual chlorine, conductivity, Ph value, hexavalent chromium, total chromium, orthophosphate, hydrazine. Quarterly monitoring items include Boron, iron, anions, sulphates, lithium, sodium, nickel and oils.
3.1 Nuclear Technology Utilization Units
My country’s nuclear technology utilization units basically have very few waste gas emissions, and the amount is also very small. The main radioactive pollutants in the management of pollutant discharge licenses are mainly concentrated in waste liquids, and in various industries, waste liquid discharges are mainly medical-related units. Although there are many types of radionuclides used in medical institutions, most of them are of low toxicity and short half-life. However, in the investigation and research on the application status of nuclear medicine projects in Guangdong Province, it was found that the total β of the wastewater at the outlet of the decay pool of the hospital with a large amount of iodine-131 was greater than the “Water Pollutant Discharge Standard for Medical Institutions” (GB18466-2005) the specified emission limits.
3.2 Associated Minerals
At present, my country has no associated radioactive mine radiation environmental safety standard guidelines and associated mine development and utilization project effluent discharge limit. From the actual discharge situation, the discharge concentration of wastewater may be higher than the relevant limit in the “Integrated Wastewater Discharge Standard” (GB8978-1996), and the radon concentration in some places will also be higher than the limit, but the resulting dose is basically low The public individual effective dose limit for the development and utilization of mineral resources is 1 mSv/a.
3.3 Situation Analysis
After investigation, various local provinces in my country have carried out relevant explorations in the implementation of the radioactive pollutant discharge permit system. Article 18 of the “Administrative Measures for the Prevention and Control of Radioactive Pollution in Sichuan Province” promulgated by Sichuan Province in 1999 stipulates: “Any unit that discharges radioactive waste water and waste gas into the environment must be monitored by a statutory monitoring agency; It is prohibited to discharge radioactive waste water and waste gas into the environment without a pollution discharge permit or beyond the regulations of the pollution discharge permit.” But this method has been abolished at present, and there is no such relatedness in the newly issued Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Radiation Pollution in Sichuan Province in 2016. Regulation. At present, radioactive pollutant discharge permits have also been set up in the ecological environment examination and approval of Shandong and other provinces, but there has been zero application status.
Whether it is feasible to implement a pollutant discharge permit system in my country’s nuclear and radiation industry, in terms of theoretical system, there are relevant laws and regulations in my country to guarantee or can be guaranteed, but in terms of practical operation, there are problems such as insufficient research on radiation environmental quality objectives.
The ultimate purpose of the implementation of the pollutant discharge permit system is to reduce the discharge of pollutants, thereby improving the quality of the environment. However, in the nuclear and radiation industry, there is a lack of relevant standards and research on how to link the allowable amount of radioactive pollutant discharge with environmental quality goals.
According to the pollution discharge permit management regulations, three modes of management are stipulated according to factors such as pollutant generation, discharge, and degree of impact on the environment, which are divided into key management, simplified management and registration management. The corresponding degree of environmental impact is divided into three categories. In the nuclear and radiation industry, it is generally based on the natural background, and the 1mSv equivalent dose limit for humans is used to control the effluent discharge of relevant units, but when it comes to the degree of environmental impact It is difficult to define the size of the industry and the impact on the ecological environment, which is also a problem that affects the determination of which mode of supervision the relevant industry should be.
4 Conclusions
In general, the conditions for implementing a pollutant discharge permit system in accordance with the requirements of the pollutant discharge permit regulations in my country’s nuclear and radiation industries are not yet mature. However, in the medical and associated mining industries where management is relatively weak at present, a pilot registration management model can be considered, and It is possible to explore more scientific and reasonable emission standards and management models based on practice, laying the foundation for the comprehensive implementation of the emission permit system in the nuclear and radiation industry. At the same time, it is recommended to establish a radiation environment quality index system, improve the standard system, and strengthen the building of monitoring capabilities and professional supervision teams. Carry out research on the relationship between the discharge of radioactive pollutants and environmental quality objectives, to provide sufficient theoretical basis for the implementation of key management, simplified management, and registration management of pollutant discharge permits, and to achieve the goal of improving environmental quality and ensuring the health of personnel with pollutant discharge permits.
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Huang, L., Liu, T., Fan, Y., Chang, M., Dong, Y. (2023). Research on the Radioactive Waste Discharge Permit Regulation. In: Liu, C. (eds) Proceedings of the 23rd Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference, Volume 1. PBNC 2022. Springer Proceedings in Physics, vol 283. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1023-6_51
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