|
Germany:
The clean up programme for the former uranium mines and mills
in East German is under way as planned.
Russia:
Low level radioactive waste clean up projects proceed in the
north and far east. A new plant for the treatment of low level
radioactive liquid waste from Russian nuclear-powered ships
and submarines was completed in March 1998 for the state repair
and technology enterprise, RTP 'Atomflot', based in the port
of Murmansk. The new plant has a throughput of 5 000 cubic
metres of liquid waste per year. It has been financed partly
by Russia (US$1 million) and the US and Norway (US$1.5 million).
Start-up is expected by the end of 1999. A second plant, will
go into operation in Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. This
is a joint project between Russia, Japan and the US. Both
projects are part of the massive programme for safe management
of radioactive waste in Russia, coordinated by the Contact
Expert Group, a team of governments and organisations created
in 1995.
Ukraine:
In January 1999 a contract was signed for the removal of fuel-containing
material from the damaged Chernobyl-4 reactor. The initial
term of the project is 18-months. It is worth US$5.2 million
and has been financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (EBRD).
The
main tasks are:
- Initial
characterisation of the fuel-containing material inside
the sarcophagus.
- Planning
of a strategy for removal and waste management.
- Development
of removal technologies.
UK:
In 1999, remediation began at UKAEA's Dounreay site where
radioactive waste is to be retrieved from the shaft
and silo at the UKAEA's Dounreay site in Scotland. Reclamation
of the waste site, dating back 40 years, will take up to 25
years at a cost between £215 million to £355 million (US$357
million to US$589 million). The British government approved
plans presented by the UKAEA at the end of 1998, after several
years of exhaustive studies. UKAEA's strategy is based on
waste retrieval, on-site storage pending development of a
national ILW disposal strategy, and eventual decommissioning
of the facility. It was approved by the government in March
1998.
The
retrieval, sorting and classification of historic waste at
the Sellafield site will be aided by gamma camera systems.
The cameras will image retrieved intermediate level wastes
which were produced during the early years of the UK's nuclear
programme and currently stored in the existing storage buildings.
Waste will then be shipped to a new Box Encapsulation Plant
(BEP) where they will be imaged again, allowing fuel residues
to be removed using remote handling devices. The cameras will
locate the fuel residues, mapping them out for the operators.
The first camera will be installed in 1999. Three more will
follow.
USA:
In March 1998, the DOE released a draft strategy aimed at
accelerating the cleanup and closure of 353 hazardous
waste projects left by 50 years of nuclear weapons production
in a report entitled Accelerating Cleanup: Path to Closure.
This report is a revision of a previous draft following comments
received during a three months period. The major cleanup projects
expected by 2006 include:
- Remediation
of 80% of all release sites (areas where contaminants may
have been released to the environment).
- Stabilisation
of all nuclear materials and spent fuel, and completion
of all preparations for ultimate disposition.
- Completion
of all cleanup activities at some major sites, such as Rocky
Flats, Fernald, Miamisburg and Weldon Springs.
The
contract for the cleanup of DOE Hanford nuclear site is the
subject of a 20-year project worth nearly US$7 billion. DOE
completed negotiations in July 1998 on the treatment and immobilisation
of high-level liquid radioactive waste stored in 177 underground
tanks at the former military facility. The DOE manager at
Hanford says the low level and hazardous chemical waste will
be vitrified into glass forms that can then be disposed of
at Hanford. As for the high level defence waste, they require
a more complicated vitrification process. Once vitrified,
waste will be loaded into stainless steel canisters for disposal
in an underground repository. DOE waste will be disposed of
in the same repository as civilian spent fuel. All of the
waste must be removed from the underground storage tanks at
Hanford and stabilised by 2028. The contractors expect to
receive a final go-ahead for the cleanup operations after
a 30 day review by the US Congress.
In
July 1998, the last of the remaining transuranic (TRU) waste
was pumped from the five ageing underground tanks at
the Old Hydrofracture Facility (OHF), Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The wastes have been transferred to nearby Melton Valley Storage
Tanks. Evaporation will remove water from the waste and the
remaining sludge will be treated and conditioned at a nearby
TRU processing facility that will be completed by 2003. Ultimately,
treated waste will be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant and the emptied tanks will probably be stabilised in
place by cement grouting.
Belgium:
A Convention was concluded in 1990 between the state,
ONDRAF/NIRAS and the private electricity sector in order to
decontaminate and dismantle the former EUROCHEMIC site operated
between 1966 and 1974 for fuel reprocessing under the auspices
of the OECD.
Most
of the waste accumulated on the site have been either incinerated
or conditioned in glass canisters, bitumen drums or in concrete
blocks. Decommissioning of the buildings is in progress. The
same convention also provided for the progressive decommissioning
of a site previously owned by the Belgium Nuclear Research
Centre CEN/SCK on which waste was accumulated. Most of the
waste has been treated already, except some organic liquids
for which an appropriate facility has been built, and radium-contaminated
waste which need an appropriate sorting, characterising and
conditioning facility to be designed and constructed.
Decommissioning
of the BR3 reactor is progressing well. The chemical decontamination
of the primary circuit is complete, as is the cutting of the
internal parts of the reactor shell. The next step will involve
the cutting of the shell itself. The BR3 reactor was the very
first PWR unit in Europe. It started up in 1962 and was closed
in 1987. It had a 10.5 MWe output. It was used to educate
power plant operators and to test nuclear fuels, including
MOX fuel.
Canada:
Over the past 20 years five Canadian fuel cycle facilities
have been decommissioned and released for non-nuclear
uses. The Combustion Engineering fuel fabrication facility
in Sherbrooke, Quebec, was released for unrestricted use in
March, 1979. The Westinghouse Canada Varennes Fuel Fabrication
Facility in Quebec was released in May, 1986. The Combustion
Engineering fuel fabrication plant in Moncton, New Brunswick,
was released for unrestricted use in March, 1988. The Eldorado
Resources Research and Development Laboratory in Ottawa was
decontaminated and released for unrestricted use in mid-1990.
The Cameco Corporation Saskatoon R&D facility was decontaminated
and released for unrestricted use in late 1994.
France:
The Commission for Atomic Energy (CEA) plans to remove the
last nuclear material from its Fontenay-aux-Roses (FAR) site
in the southern Paris suburbs, in order to render the site
to non-nuclear use by around 2010. FAR was the cradle of French
atomic research in 1946, as the site of the CEA's first pile
(ZOE). It was then the centre dedicated to research in transuranic
chemistry, in particular as a pilot workshop for testing the
reprocessing processes. It has been the object of an extensive
dismantling and clean-up programme since 1995, when the work
was transferred to Marcoule. The 'denuclearisation' programme
involves closure of Building 18 by 2002, which housed radiochemical
research. Building 18 and the RM2 radiochemical laboratory
are to be dismantled between 2002 and 2010. The two installations
that will process and store the decommissioning waste will
be closed in turn between 2006 and 2010. Site clean-up will
go on as a priority action, following rules set up by regulatory
authority DSIN in 1995 for very low level waste (VLLW). That
material will be evacuated to a dedicated disposal centre
that French waste agency ANDRA plans to open at the beginning
of the next decade. The programme is expected to cost 910
million French francs and generate 7 300 m3 VLLW,
2 870 m3 LLW and 160 m3 ILW.
Cleaning
and decommissioning operations at the UP1 reprocessing plant
on the Marcoule site started in 1998. A joint venture including
CEA, EDF, and COGEMA under the name of CODEM was officially
created in May 1996. CODEM is responsible for the overall
management, funding and control of the decommissioning and
dismantling operations, while respecting the constraints of
nuclear safety, environmental protection and cost-effectiveness.
The Marcoule plant, first of a kind in France, was commissioned
in 1958. During its lifetime, 20 000 tons of spent fuel (AGR)
were reprocessed. The cleanup operations of Marcoule site
are scheduled for a 30-years period and are divided into 3
main programmes:
- Deactivation
of the UP1 plant and its associated facilities.
- Decommissioning
and Dismantling (D&D) of facilities leading to a final
status of 'Facility Classified for the Protection of the
Environment' (ICPE).
- Handling
and conditioning of radioactive waste temporarily stored
on site.
Remote
technologies and robotics are widely used in COGEMA plants
for operations such as maintenance, which are somewhat similar
to those to be conducted for D&D. Thus, when the Marcoule
D&D project started, it was expected that remote technologies
and robotics would be extensively used. Chemical decontamination
could be good enough to allow operator intervention in most
cases, thus reducing the use of remote technologies to very
specific fields such as mapping out radiation levels in the
facilities and D&D specific equipment.
USA:
The Saxton Nuclear Experimental Corp. (SNEC) obtained
NRC approval in April 1998 to remove large components and
dismantle the containment building of its research reactor,
which operated from 1962 to 1972. The plant's fuel was evacuated
to DOE's Savannah River site shortly after shutdown. With
this NRC approval, the plant moves into its third and fourth
phase of decommissioning. The components will be evacuated
to a LLW disposal site. Most of the equipment will be shipped
to a volume reduction facility for processing or to a federally
licensed disposal site. The Saxton site is scheduled to be
released for use by 2000. Total cost of decommissioning is
expected to be about US$22 million.
The
NRC accepted the application and Safety Analysis Report for
WESTFLEX in June 1998. The WESTFLEX system is designed
to allow users to manage spent fuel through plant decommissioning
without having to repackage the materials, thus allowing cost
reductions and enhanced efficiency. Consumers Energy will
use this system to manage spent fuel from the Big Rock Point
and Palisades nuclear power plants. Delivery is scheduled
for early 2000.
previous
section / top / next
section
|
