CYIL vol. 12 (2021)

CYIL 12 (2021) THE DECARBONIZATION PROCESS, NUCLEAR ENERGETICS POTENTIAL … to the operation of said nuclear power plant. Such a plant is no longer a nuclear facility when all the nuclear fuel elements are finally eliminated from the reactor core and safely stored in accordance with approved regulations and the decommissioning program is agreed with the regulatory authority. Herewith, each Contracting Party creates and maintains the legal and regulatory framework to ensure the safety of the nuclear facilities. According to Article 7, the legal and regulatory framework of the contracting parties provides for the introduction of the relevant national requirements and regulations in the sphere of safety; the licensing system for nuclear facilities and prohibition of non-licensed nuclear facility operation; the system of regulatory control and evaluation of nuclear facilities for the purpose of checking their compliance with the current regulations and license terms, including suspension, amendment or cancellation. Consequently, a question arises as to whether there is a need to form national legal frameworks with regard to nuclear power plants for hydrogen production, and what their content should be. Next, let’s turn to the provisions of the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident of 1986. This Convention is applied in case of any accident related to the facilities specified in Clause 2 below or activities of a member state or individuals (or legal entities under its jurisdiction or control) due to which a radioactive release occurs or can occur and which leads or can lead to an international transborder emission that can be of importance for another state from the perspective of radiation safety. Clause 2 states that the facilities and activities specified in Clause 1 include: a) any nuclear reactor regardless of its location; b) any facility of the nuclear fuel cycle; c) any facility for radioactive waste handling; d) transportation and storage of nuclear fuel or radioactive waste; e) production, use, storage, removal and transportation of radionuclides for agricultural, industrial, medical purposes and for scientific research in these spheres; and f ) use of radionuclides for energy generation at space facilities. Thus, nuclear fuel, radioactive waste and radionuclides are specifically mentioned in the Convention. Consequently, a question arises as to whether it is necessary to supplement this convention with regard to hydrogen, and if so, to what extent. This also refers to the definition of a nuclear facility itself, which includes the following in the Convention: any nuclear reactor, except for a reactor used on a marine vessel or aircraft as a power source for its actuation or for any other purpose; any plant using nuclear fuel for nuclear material production, or any plant for nuclear material processing, including any plant for irradiated fuel processing; and any place where the nuclear material is kept (stored), save for storing related to the transportation of such material; provided that the state responsible for the facility can establish that several nuclear facilities of one operator located at the same place are considered a single nuclear facility. It must also be determined whether it is required to extend (and to what extent) Convention No. 174 of the International Labor Organization On the Prevention of Major Industrial Accidents to nuclear energy facilities. 14 So far, 18 states have adopted it. 15 The objective of this

14 https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C174. 15 https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C174.

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