DECONTAMINATION & DECOMMISSIONING | SUSTAINABILITY
Decommissioning in a circular economy
The world is striving for a circular economy. Kristina Gillin reflects on what this means for nuclear power plant decommissioning
IN STEP WITH SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, awareness is growing that we need to move from a linear to a circular economy. In a circular economy, the things that we use are designed to last longer and can be repaired, reused, repurposed and recycled. Other key features of circularity include lifecycle thinking and elimination of waste. An increasing number of reactors now require
decommissioning. The question that arises is how to decommission a nuclear facility in a manner that is consistent with circular-economy principles.
Kristina Gillin
Principal Consultant at Vysus Group
Current practices The conventional model for a nuclear lifecycle is linear (facilities are sited, constructed, operated, and decommissioned), and materials are managed from cradle to grave. But several of today’s practices already are consistent with a circular economy. Refurbishment and life extension of existing plants
strongly reflect circularity principles, as does reprocessing of spent fuel, and the clearance and recycling of metals and other materials. Other examples include reusing components from shutdown reactors in operating plants and repurposing buildings for waste processing and storage, rather than building new ones. Using material from demolished buildings as ‘fill’ when restoring a site is also consistent with circularity, if the buildings cannot be refurbished or repurposed.
The common practice of applying the waste hierarchy is
a step in the right direction. But for a nuclear site the waste hierarchy is insufficient to be truly circular, since there is no linkage to design and waste is not eliminated.
Circularity considerations In a circular economy, products (which can easily be transferred) and fixed assets (such as nuclear power plants) have to be considered differently. When viewing a nuclear site through a circularity lens, two different views have to be considered. One relates to space, and to different levels — from
the materials within a nuclear facility to the components, buildings, local communities and whole regions. Circularity can be achieved either within each of these levels (such as repurposing buildings on the site) or between them (for example, by reusing backup generators on another industrial site within the community or region). Decommissioning projects can enhance circularity of
products and fixed assets beyond the site boundary. For instance, they can reuse products no longer used by others (such as discarded hotel towels for workers) or repurpose buildings in surrounding communities to support nuclear back-end management. An example of the latter is SKB’s Canister Laboratory in Oskarshamn, Sweden. This building was previously part of a shipyard; now it is the centre for developing technology that will be used to encapsulate Sweden’s spent fuel in copper canisters. The second view is time. The site will evolve through
phases where the primary activities vary from construction to operation, safe storage, dismantling and demolition, site restoration and, eventually, to post-decommissioning use. Similarly, circularity can be achieved within each of the phases or from one phase to another.
Different prerequisites Since a circular economy is enabled through design, future reactors are much better prepared for it than existing ones. But there is a greater potential than many might think for current nuclear sites, which generally were not designed for a circular lifecycle, to align their decommissioning with circularity principles. Several repurposed research reactor sites are good examples of this, such as Sweden’s R1 reactor hall, which now is a venue for art installations, concerts, media research, live theatre, film productions and more. (See NEI, December 2018, pp42-43). Differences in regulatory requirements translate into
Above: SKB’s Canister Laboratory in Oskarshamn, Sweden Photo Credit: SKB 26 | October 2021 |
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different prerequisites for reaching circularity. This includes different countries’ approaches and criteria for clearance, and whether buildings and other structures are allowed to be repurposed or must be removed.
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