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Closing responsibilities: decommissioning and the law
Published in Martin J. Pasqualetti, Nuclear Decommissioning and Society, 2019
It is possible to view decommissioning as simply a form of waste management, differing from conventional radioactive waste disposal only in terms of scale and timing options54 (see Chapter 4). The current legal controls over the transport and disposal of regular radioactive waste arisings from a working reactor are therefore equally applicable to the removal and disposal of radioactive material resulting from decommissioning operations. Standards for transportation by road, for example, are prescribed in regulations based on recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency.55 Under the Radioactive Substances Act 1960, any disposal of waste from a nuclear generating station or other site subject to a nuclear site licence requires the joint authorization of the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.56
The future
Published in R.J. Pentreath, Nuclear Power, Man and the Environment, 2019
There are three possible options remaining after the fuel has been removed. If the site was still in use, for example because of a replacement reactor being built alongside, it would be possible simply to mothball the reactor for an extended period of time. During this period it would require continued surveillance to a degree that would only be feasible if trained personnel were already on site. A more realistic option for sites which are not intended for further use is one of long-term entombment. This would involve the removal of all equipment and ancillary structures which could be fairly easily dismantled, followed by the sealing of the reactor itself to prevent any form of access. For either of these two options, however, it must be assumed that ultimately the reactor will have to be completely dismantled. A delay of at least 50 years would be required to derive any real benefit from the decay of the 60Co; although there would be little advantage in waiting for more than 100 years. Even when complete decommissioning is to be undertaken the process is estimated to take about 10 years.
Cooling and Disposing of the Waste
Published in Geoffrey F. Hewitt, John G. Collier, Introduction to Nuclear Power, 2018
Geoffrey F. Hewitt, John G. Collier
So far about 80 nuclear reactors have been shut down worldwide and several sites have been cleared completely—the world’s first civil PWR station, Shippingport, for example. In the United Kingdom, decommissioning has started at three of the older Magnox station sites, Berkeley, Hunterston, and Trawsfynydd. Handling and disposal of radioactive waste from decommissioning follow similar routes to reprocessing and reactor operational wastes. Decommissioning represents only a small fraction (approximately 5% maximum) of nuclear generating costs.
A multi-attribute review toward effective planning of end-of-life strategies for offshore wind farms
Published in Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 2021
Ali Jadali, Anastasia Ioannou, Athanasios Kolios
Decommissioning, which is the ultimate end-of-life strategy to be considered for an asset, is defined as the process of disassembling the wind turbine (WT) with a view to returning the site to its pre-installation phase, to the extent this is possible (Kaiser 2015; Topham and McMillan 2017). The first decommissioning of an OWF was done in 2017 to the Vindeby wind farm in Denmark, due to the difficulty in finding spare parts as a result of technology obsolescence and the considerable costs associated with repairs and upgrades after 25 years of operation. Due to the development of many offshore projects in the early 2000s and the approaching end-of-life dates for the installed OWFs (Shafiee and Animah 2017), a high number of decommissioning projects is expected in the coming years. Decommissioning is a technology and energy-intensive process, with significant emissions of greenhouse gases and considerable amounts of waste that cannot yet be recycled.
Characterising nuclear decommissioning projects: an investigation of the project characteristics that affect the project performance
Published in Construction Management and Economics, 2020
Diletta Colette Invernizzi, Giorgio Locatelli, Naomi J. Brookes
By far, the project management research on success and failure of projects has focused on the planning and construction of infrastructure, and until now, only limited attention has been given on its decommissioning. Decommissioning refers to the process of withdrawing an infrastructure from service, taking it apart and deconstructing it. Specifically, when referred to nuclear, decommissioning is defined as all the administrative and technical actions taken to allow the removal of some or all of the regulatory controls from a facility (IAEA 2006a). For some industrial sectors (such as nuclear), decommissioning also involves the construction of new facilities, e.g. to treat and store the waste material arising during de-construction.
Monte Carlo integrated approach to radiological characterization for nuclear facilities decommissioning
Published in Radiation Effects and Defects in Solids, 2018
E. Mossini, G. Parma, F. M. Rossi, M. Giola, A. Cammi, E. Macerata, E. Padovani, M. Mariani
Worldwide, several nuclear reactors and facilities have experienced decommissioning in the last decades and an even larger number will require decommissioning in the next years (1). International Atomic Energy Agency defines decommissioning as all the administrative and technical actions required to obtain partial or complete removal of regulatory controls from a nuclear facility, in view of ensuring the protection of both workers, public and the environment (2). In Italy, five research reactors are still operating, while some were definitively shut-down, such as CeSNEF (Centro Studi Nucleari Enrico Fermi) L-54M nuclear research reactor (3). It was commissioned by Politecnico di Milano to Atomics International in the late ‘50s and reached the first criticality in 1959 (4). This reactor was mainly operated for research and didactic purposes in the fields of radiochemistry, neutron fission analysis, nuclear equipment trial, material irradiation and activation analysis. The core is made of a liquid uranyl sulfate fuel solution, enriched up to 19.94%wt in 235U, accommodated in a sphere made of nuclear grade stainless steel. A complex cooling coils system was devoted to heat removal. Furthermore, the core was crossed by a longitudinal stainless steel channel used for material irradiation and by 4 vertical stainless steel control rods, evenly spaced radially inside the core, enclosing boron carbide pellets. Besides the neutron moderation effect ensured by the aqueous fuel solution, the aluminum secondary case housing the core was filled by nuclear grade graphite (Atcheson Graphite Ordinary Temperature, from US National Carbon Company), the same used by Enrico Fermi in its Chicago Pile-1 (5). In order to reflect escaping neutrons and reduce the radiation emission, the secondary case was surrounded by a graphite stack and by heavyweight magnetite–colemanite concrete biological shield.