Brussels, 23/04/2009 (Agence Europe) - Progress made in research has allowed a large part of the problem of elimination and lasting storage of radioactive waste to be overcome, said Roland Schenkel, Director General of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, speaking on 16 April. “Research has allowed intelligent and effective solutions to be found for eliminating all waste safely”, he said at a meeting of the European Parliament committee on industry, research and energy (ITRE). He mainly highlighted the possibility of depositing highly radioactive waste using vitrification techniques. “No one can have such waste in their garden”, he nonetheless deplored, noting the lack of enthusiasm shown by member states and their opinions on a burial method of this kind. “We were unable to explain to them that, at the engineering level, such waste can be stored during thousands of years underground”, Schenkel said, welcoming in passing the fact that Finland will be the first country in the world to have a deep geological repository for waste storage, by around 2020. “Have you already heard of any incidents caused by spent nuclear waste? No - that is because it has never happened”, he went on to point out. Schenkel, who had come to present the JRC's activities to MEPs, spoke of the progress made within the framework of the programme for decommissioning of obsolete nuclear installations and the control of nuclear waste (D&WM programme), managed by the JRC. The programme's activities mainly focus on the JRC site in Ispra, Italy, which houses the essential part of the JRC's halted nuclear installations, while decommissioning activity is for now relatively limited to the sites in Geel (Belgium), Karlsruhe (Germany) and Petten (Netherlands), where nuclear installations are still in active service. “The programme is difficult to manage from a budgetary and time schedule point of view due to the limited market possibilities”, Schenkel stressed. This is above all the case for the Ispra programme whose total revised budget amounts to €676 million, i.e. an increase of €38 million compared to forecasts. This overall budget had to be revised and increased mainly as a result of the time schedule extension (+8 years - end foreseen for 2028), the market response and the cost of additional waste treatment and storage installations needed. “We have every hope that the Italian government will offset this increase and that an agreement will be reached by the end of the year”, Schenkel said. Revised assessment of the D&WM programme will take place in 2011. (B.C./transl.jl)