DECONTAMINATION & DECOMMISSIONING | CONFERENCE REPORT
Plans, challenges, and innovations
Speakers at a recent event highlighted several difficulties facing nuclear decommissioning projects and discussed some of the R&D and technical innovations that are supporting decontamination, remediation, and radioactive waste management. Caroline Peachey reports
Editor, NEI magazine Caroline Peachey
THE VIRTUAL EVENT, NUCLEAR DECOMMISSIONING – Plans and Innovations, was opened on 21 September by Douglas Kerr, nuclear decommissioning consultant at Jacobs and a representative of the World Nuclear Association’s working group on Waste Management and Decommissioning. Kerr shared the findings of the WG’s report Methodology to Manage Waste from Nuclear Decommissioning, which aims to bring together knowledge and expertise regarding management of material and waste and to provide guidance for those facing new decommissioning challenges. Kerr gave an overview of the three main strategies for nuclear power plant decommissioning — immediate dismantling, deferred dismantling, and entombment — and discussed the cost, risk and regulatory factors associated with each approach. He explained why the site end-state and decommissioning strategy should be clearly defined early in project planning: they both affect numerous factors including radwaste inventories, waste routes, costs, and schedule. Immediate dismantling is the preferred strategy, both from a public acceptance and cost driver perspective, Kerr said. However, he did suggest that this could potentially be an issue on sites with multiple reactors undergoing decommissioning at the same time. Kerr also identified waste management as a ‘typical bottle neck’. This was also highlighted during the subsequent panel discussion between European utilities.
Plans
During a panel discussion, Mats Ahlström, programme manager at Vattenfall (Sweden), Peter Berben, head of decommissioning and radioactive waste management, ENGIE Corporate (Belgium) and Matti Kaisanlahti, leading specialist, decommissioning, Fortum Power and Heat Oy (Finland), all shared updates on their nuclear decommissioning plans. While there is no ‘common strategy’ for decommissioning in Europe, there were common themes and challenges experienced by the three organisations involved. These were discussed in detail in their presentations and the following Q&A session with moderator Kristina Gillin, principal consultant, nuclear waste and decommissioning at Vysus Group. All three countries are adopting the immediate
dismantling approach. Ahlström, who is programme manager for decommissioning of the Ringhals 1 BWR (shut in December 2020) and the Ringhals 2 PWR (shut in December 2019), presented the decommissioning roadmap. He said that preparatory work is currently underway on site to split Ringhals 1&2 from operating units 3&4 and that the plan is for D&D to start in September 2022. D&D of special
32 | October 2021 |
www.neimagazine.com
items including the reactor pressure vessels and steam generators is expected to run from April 2023 until 2027. This will run in parallel to ‘bulk’ D&D of the other radiological items. Conventional demolition is planned for the early 2030s. Peter Berben from ENGIE noted that Electrabel operates seven pressurised water reactors in Belgium at the Doel and Tihange sites, which are scheduled to close by 2025. The first unit to be shut down will be Doel 3 in October 2022 followed by Tihange 2 in February 2023. Electrabel, too, has opted for an immediate dismantling strategy — at least for the first two units — and is currently in the preparation phase for the 20-year decommissioning programme, Berben said. The focus in the initial five-year post-operational phase will be on removal of the fuel from the reactors and operational radioactive waste from the spent fuel pools, as well as chemical system decontamination. Once this has been completed and a dismantling licence received, the 13-year dismantling phase can begin. Kaisanlathi from Fortum outlined the plans for
decommissioning Finland’s Loviisa nuclear power plant, which comprises two VVER-440 reactor units. In Finland there is a six-year licensing period that follows closure of the reactor (due to start in 2022 for Loviisa 1). This will be followed by a three year ‘transition period’ during which all the systems are prepared for decommissioning. Dismantling of Loviisa 1 is expected to start in 2031 and last until mid-2034, Kaisanlathi said. The plan is to start this work at Loviisa 2 at the beginning of 2034 and it will run until mid-2037. In terms of the technology that will be used, Kaisanlathi explained that Fortum will use “well known, conventional technology”, including sawing, plasma cutting, diamond wire cutting, and remote-controlled equipment, in some cases. Another site that is planning to embrace robotics and
remote technology is Sellafield. During the third session of the day Rav Chunilal, head of Robotics & Artificial Intelligence at Sellafield Ltd outlined the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s plan to achieve a “50% reduction in decommissioning activities carried out by humans in hazardous environments by 2030,” bringing about benefits of cost and schedule reduction.
Challenges Peter Berben told delegates the biggest challenge ENGIE faces is radioactive waste management, as in Belgium today there are no final disposal solutions for nuclear waste. Berben said he hopes that ‘in a few years’ a near-surface
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
