CERNAVODĂ REFURBISHMENT | SPECIAL REPORT
that the value of these materials and the need to minimise material at radioactive waste disposal facilities make recycling and reuse both prudent and necessary. In 1992, the NEA Co-operative Programme on Decommissioning commissioned a review on recycling and reuse in the nuclear industry to identify obstacles to recovering scrap materials. The resulting report, published in 1996, was titled ‘Recycling and Reuse of Scrap Metals’. In view of the rapid increase of decommissioning
projects over the coming years, the NEA commissioned a new group to update the 1996 report, in a 2014 report titled ‘Recycling and Reuse of Materials Arising from the Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities’. Concrete and steel are the largest fractions of waste arising from decommissioning nuclear facilities and the task group reviewed practices for metals, concrete and other materials, compared existing and proposed standards and regulations with those in 1996 and examined to what extent the “tiered” regulatory regime proposed in the 1996 report had been adopted. It based its work on 32 questionnaire responses received from 27 organisations in 12 countries, one non-OECD member economy and the European Commission (covering 97 nuclear sites in total). Respondents to the questionnaire reported that the
cost of conditioning and disposal is often significantly greater than the cost of decontamination and clearance. As a result, where national regulations allow there has been large-scale clearance, recycling and reuse of different types of materials. Improvements to decontamination and measurement
techniques mean more stringent clearance criteria can be met, but reuse is still limited by regulatory requirements. A recommendation in the 1996 report echoed the comments in the CE paper above, albeit predating it by half a century, arguing that there should be international harmonisation of regulations. The updated report notes that this has not been fully implemented and as a result there are examples of cleared materials being rejected by recycling companies and local stakeholders.
International standards and release criteria The 1996 report found there were no consistent, internationally accepted release criteria—a significant impediment to reuse. Reference and guidance documents have since been published but they have limitations. The revised report found harmonisation is far from complete and operators experience problems in transferring materials for processing between countries. Stakeholders are unsure why there are different clearance criteria in adjacent countries. The EU, for example, has such guidance, but it is advisory, not mandatory, for member states. The 1996 report argued that release criteria were too
conservative, since they were based on conservative assumptions as a safeguard against uncertainty and unacceptability and were often modelled in a way that further intensified the conservatism. But since then some criteria have become even more conservative. The 1996 report also found that for radioactive scrap
metal, recycling and reuse appeared to have advantages over disposal and replacement, reducing both health risks and environmental impacts. The 2014 report agreed, and said considerable
volumes of material “have been and will continue to be cleared, recycled and reused”. Countries where
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disposal is relatively cheap, such as France and the US, tend to choose disposal, whereas countries such as Belgium where disposal is expensive prefer clearance to the maximum possible extent. Public acceptance also has a significant influence on the choice of route, with opposition to recycling and reuse at least partially mitigated by a programme of stakeholder involvement. That could include incentives to promote policies for recycling and reuse; communication with the industry and the public; and dialogue with the industry to develop reliable outlets for recyclable materials. The 2017 report found rising levels of recycling
of metals and concrete, despite the ongoing lack of harmonisation of regulation between countries. Several international guidelines now exist for how clearance and release of these materials should be regulated, and many countries have developed specific criteria.
Results from questionnaire analysis From the questionnaire survey, it appears that recycling is most commonly achieved through unconditional clearance and conventional materials recycling. This was expected, because little of the nuclear installations is contaminated. Metals and especially steel appeared to be most commonly recycled, followed by concrete and other materials. But few decommissioning projects have reached the stage where large concrete structures are demolished. Process systems (consisting mainly of steel) are typically removed first, which means that steel dominates the cleared and recycled materials in the early stages of decommissioning.
Decommissioning of Vandellos 1 in Spain saw around 8 kilotonnes of mostly metals from the active area sent for recycling, along with 8 kilotonnes from conventional areas. Source: Foro Nuclear.
At Stade, Germany, some 13 kilotonnes of scrap metal had been recovered and 30% sent for melting by 2014. Source: Freimuth.
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