Advances and innovations in nuclear decommissioning 1 introduction

Advances and innovations in nuclear decommissioning 1 introduction Advances and innovations in nuclear decommissioning 1 introduction Advances and innovations in nuclear decommissioning 1 introduction Advances and innovations in nuclear decommissioning 1 introduction Advances and innovations in nuclear decommissioning 1 introduction

Introduction M Laraia Independent consultant, Rome, Italy 1.1 Introduction If one looks at the shutdown rate of nuclear facilities (especially reactors) and decommissioning strategies country by country, many novelties have emerged since 2011, when the publishing process of Ref [1] was almost complete Due to time constraints the impacts of the Fukushima accident (Mar 2011) were scarcely taken into account in the drafting of Ref [1] Full consideration to decommissioning a reactor after a severe accident is given in this book (Chapter  9) The immediate impact of the Fukushima accident has been the premature shutdown of a number of power reactors in Japan (which was to be expected) and in Germany (more surprisingly) Apart from these two countries, the other nuclear countries chose not to shut down their generating reactors on account of the Fukushima accident (but some countries chose to slow down or temporarily cancel the construction of new units) As highlighted below, the circumstances in the United Kingdom and the United States deserve special considerations in that they exemplify typical factors and trends in reactor shutdown and decommissioning strategies worldwide In the United States, the early retirements of six nuclear reactors over the last few years have been a major blow to the nuclear industry Two purely economic retirements (Kewaunee and Fort Calhoun, both single-reactor sites), one due to tax and local opposition (Vermont Yankee, one reactor), and three based on unbearable costs of repairs (Crystal River, one reactor, and San Onofre, two reactors) indicate that there is a variety of operational and economic problems The reactors that were shut down were not competitive because the United States has the technical ability and plentiful, diverse resources to meet the need for electricity with less expensive and less risky options [2] Other nuclear utilities made it known that several more reactors may close down within the next couple of years and reach the decommissioning phase Some of these have had their operating licenses extended an additional 20 years, but this factor has not been enough to reverse the trend towards early retirement As of late, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) noted that in the current market, if old reactors need significant repair, it may not be worthwhile to so and extend operation The EIA stated “Lower Power Prices and Higher Repair Costs Drive Nuclear Retirements” [3] But the situation is more complicated than that; it is not only reactors in bad condition that are at near risk of shutdown As old reactors become more costly to manage, they may become uneconomic to stay in operation Actually, the first reactor that retired in 2013 (Kewaunee) was in good operating condition and had just had its license extended for 20 years, but its owners concluded it Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-101122-5.00001-6 © 2017 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved 2 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning could not compete and would soon start producing losses in the electricity market, so the decision was made to decommission it First, in most parts of the United States, the electricity price is set by natural gas In those areas where the wholesale price of electricity is set by the market, prices have been decreasing considerably In parallel, the demand for electricity has been decreasing due to growing efficiency of electricity-consuming equipment While nuclear fuel costs are currently low, nuclear power plant (NPP) operation and maintenance costs and ongoing capital costs are high As reactors age, these costs rise If a reactor is inefficient (i.e., high operating costs), needs major repairs, or safety retrofits are in order, it can be easily pushed beyond the point of nonprofitability The second factor is reliability In the years 2011 and 2012 there were frequent and prolonged outages Most outages were due to large reactors with operational problems (among those being Crystal River, San Onofre) The reactors with the longest outages, and related high repair costs, Crystal River and San Onofre, have permanently been shut down It should also be noted that older reactors have shorter refueling cycles, 18 months, than newer reactors, which have 24 months Therefore, over time older reactors are inevitably doomed to lower load factors Third, small units that stand alone—geographically or organizationally—will typically have higher costs and are more prone to premature shutdowns (e.g., Fort Calhoun) These factors generally reflect economies of scale because large, multiunit sites integrated into corporate fleets of reactors can share operational costs Fourth, the Fukushima effect poses more serious challenges as older reactors tend to become more distant from the state-of-the-art appreciation of safety Responding to growing safety concerns may become too costly for existing reactors, because modernization of older plants is made difficult by their designs The foregoing overview clearly shows that the rate of decommissioning projects in the US and elsewhere is going to rise over the next or decades This trend is not due to the gradual expiration of service lives (as it was believed only some years ago) but to political and economic factors Along with these developments and taking account of the high costs, the industry will have to constantly upgrade and optimize resources to achieve smooth and cost-effective completion of decommissioning projects The following sections of the Introduction highlight new challenges that are coming to the attention of planners and implementers These challenges were hardly addressed by Ref [1] and it is felt that they need proper coverage in this book There are a few clear lessons from US decommissioning projects that are underway First, the project tends to take longer and be more expensive than planned Second, the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel on-site considerably impacts the local communities, which was not anticipated at the onset of the nuclear project and will not be offset by social benefits This damage is significant because it tends to cause a tension between the utility, the regulators, and local stakeholders And experience has shown that in order to be successful, decommissioning should be based on sound working relationships between all stakeholders Experiences in the United States highlight another trend, namely the transfer of decommissioning responsibility (and licenses) from the former operating organization to one devoted only to decommissioning In Spain, the transfer of decommissioning Introduction3 responsibility to the state-owned company ENRESA has been legally enforced for many years, but this has remained an almost unique national approach until now The new US trend was already anticipated in Ref [1, Chapter 2] for the Zion NPP case The recent Lacrosse NPP case in the United States confirms the trend [4] The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the Lacrosse license transfer from the Dairyland Power Cooperative to LaCrosse Solutions LLC, a subsidiary of radioactive waste disposal and decommissioning company Energy Solutions LLC (currently responsible for Zion decommissioning) The move was intended to speed up decommissioning of the long-shutdown small boiling water reactor (BWR) In contractual terms, Dairyland will remain the owner of the La Crosse site and will be in charge of the spent fuel storage (possibly extending long after completion of the reactor decommissioning) LaCrosse Solutions will be the decommissioning licensee It has been recently learned that this form of ownership transfer may regard other shutdown reactors, e.g., Vermont Yankee The traditional decommissioning strategy for the United Kingdom’s Magnox reactors has been for many years a long-term safe enclosure (called “care and maintenance” in the United Kingdom) Following reactor defueling and preparatory activities for safe enclosure, final dismantling is deferred up to 100  years But recently the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) stated it was time to question this longheld assumption: Whilst we will celebrate as the first few sites are made safe and secure for a long period of quiescence, it is hard to ignore the question of what comes next Increasingly we find ourselves questioning whether the baseline strategy is appropriate as a blanket strategy for all reactors in the Magnox fleet Ref [5] Ongoing research has identified two major issues with a long-term safe enclosure First, it had originally been estimated that radioactive decay over many decades would allow activated waste to decategorize to low-level waste (LLW)—less expensive and less hazardous to manage and dispose of However, more recently it has been demonstrated that even after the long safe enclosure phase a major portion of the Magnox decommissioning waste will still not be eligible for LLW management Secondly, an updated cost model seems to infer the reduction in decommissioning costs over long periods of safe enclosure—for example, resulting from eased accessibility—is mostly offset by the significant costs of preparing for and managing the safe enclosure Thirdly, NDA-driven research proved that even after many decades of safe enclosure remote techniques would still be required for Magnox dismantling to minimize industrial risks and occupational exposures, which further reduces cost benefits The increasing deterioration of structures, systems, and components over the long periods of safe enclosure could increase dismantling costs even more NDA highlighted more risks associated with long-term safe enclosure, such as loss of skills, records and plant knowledge, managing assets (e.g., land) that could be profitably diverted to other uses, uncertainty over changing regulations, and occasional events such as the collapse of financial markets 4 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning At present there is another factor that seems to push utilities in many countries toward accelerated dismantling In the past, many utilities deferred decommissioning to accrue real (i.e., above inflation) interests to decommissioning funds Over the past few years, as the global economy worsened and central banks decreased interest rates, utilities have been unable to rely on high returns on investments Therefore, deferred decommissioning has become less profitable Reportedly, many decommissioning funds declined in performance In parallel, decommissioning costs seem to continue to rise As a result of these developments in some countries, utilities are more likely to move to total, immediate decommissioning before the financial balance worsens A different trend has emerged elsewhere over the last few years The management of the decommissioning of a number of multiunit sites within a national program may be inadequate or inappropriate if based on approaches and strategies developed for single-unit sites (see Chapter 12 for more detail) The varied nature of activities undertaken, their interfaces, and their interdependencies are likely to affect the management of decommissioning These issues can be more acute where some facilities are entering the decommissioning phase while others are still operational or even new facilities are being built Therefore, greater attention is now being paid to optimizing the decommissioning of facilities and sites within the overall decommissioning program in a country; one example follows The Chooz A reactor, which shut down in 1991, is the first pressurized-water reactor (PWR) dismantling project in France Feedback from the Chooz project will be used to optimize the forthcoming decommissioning of the entire fleet of French PWRs, incorporate synergies, and ultimately reduce decommissioning schedules and costs For example, the French nuclear operator (EDF) assumes significant savings from the standardization of equipment across its fleet-wide program (e.g., cutting tools for reactor vessel internals, first tested at Chooz) EDF can benefit from being engineer-architect for all its NPPs, allowing it to gather firsthand expertise from all the lifecycle phases, from design to decommissioning [6] In fact, the nationwide approach to decommissioning in France has a strategic outcome, quite opposite to the trend of immediate dismantling that is prevailing in other countries EDF has recently revised and considerably slowed down the decommissioning strategy for the long-shutdown gas-cooled reactors (GCRs), focusing first on the full decommissioning of one such reactor to gain experience for the others As a consequence the dismantling of a whole GCR fleet may be delayed for decades [7,8] In summary, it appears that the traditional debate between immediate vs deferred dismantling is still far from a conclusion on the global scale: each country will pursue an independent policy based on national circumstances and priorities 1.2 Planning The primary responsibility for planning and implementing a decommissioning project stays with the operating organization (the licensee) However, there are certain Introduction5 h­ igh-level responsibilities about national infrastructure, industrial priorities, education, etc., that belong to the government A fundamental International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reference [9] reads, The government shall establish and maintain a governmental, legal and regulatory framework within which all aspects of decommissioning, including management of the resulting radioactive waste, can be planned and carried out safely This framework shall include a clear allocation of responsibilities, provision of independent regulatory functions and requirements in respect of financial assurance for decommissioning Governmental responsibilities are often described in terms of policy and strategy Chapter 2 expands on the decisive role that safety and radiation protection requirements exert on the trends of the decommissioning industry It appears that the old IAEA estimate of the size of world’s decommissioning market until 2050 [10] still holds—disregarding inflation, currency exchange variations, etc because fluctuations of these parameters are included within the order of magnitude In 2004 the IAEA estimated that the overall decommissioning budget would be around One Trillion Dollars Military installations would be responsible for half of that figure Recent estimates confirm certain components of this old assumption For example Reuters [11] reports that the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that almost 200 of the 434 reactors in operation would be permanently shut down by 2040, and it estimated the cost of decommissioning them to be more than $100 billion (later on the IEA pointed out that $100 billion was just a tentative estimate, and the real cost could be as much as twice as high) In fact many experts feel that 500 million dollars per reactor (the basis of IEA estimate) is too low a figure Moreover these figures not include the cost of spent fuel storage and waste disposal Although the decommissioning technology might become less expensive (but so far there are no signs that the scale factor and the maturity of the industry are pushing costs down), the cost of spent fuel repositories is largely unknown The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that the cost of decommissioning in the United States—with some 100 reactors—ranges from $300 million to $400 million per reactor, but experience has shown that some reactors might cost much more French authorities estimate the country’s decommissioning bill to be between 28 billion and 32 billion euros ($30–$32 billion) German utilities have set aside 36 billion euros, which they claim is adequate—regardless of opposing views In Japan the cost of decommissioning the country's 48 reactors is estimated at around $30 billion The United Kingdom’s bill for decommissioning and waste disposal is now estimated at 117 billion pounds ($154 billion) [7,8], more than double the estimate made 10 years ago In addition to reactors, nuclear fuel cycle facilities (front- and back-end) are going to be decommissioned There are hundreds of these facilities, and the cost of their decommissioning is unlikely to be less than that of the reactors All in all, the global impressive figure of One Trillion Dollars quoted by IAEA [10] as an order of magnitude is still valid 6 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning The reader should note that the overall costs of decommissioning quoted above not take into account when individual facilities will be shut down within the next 30–40 years The cost figures refer to the whole pool of nuclear facilities in operation or already shut down Cost estimates for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities vary significantly from country to country, even for similar facilities These variations may have often sound, technical reasons but render the review and comparison of cost estimates difficult and vulnerable Therefore, the cooperation between the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), the IAEA, and the European Commission (EC) that resulted in the publication of Ref [12] was intended to produce a standard structure of decommissioning cost items either for cost estimation or to allow a meaningful comparison of costs (“apples to apples, oranges to oranges”) International Structure for Decommissioning Costing (ISDC) [12] updates an earlier cost structure dating back to 1999 The revised structure has aimed to include all foreseeable costs within any given decommissioning project [12] and other advances in cost estimates are addressed in Chapter 5 A national policy should typically include the following elements: defined safety and security objectives, allocation of national responsibilities and resources for decommissioning arrangements, identification of the main approaches for decommissioning, provisions for managing the radioactive waste generated, and provisions for public information and participation The IAEA has published a report on policy and strategy of decommissioning [13] The foregoing can be promptly read in knowledge management (KM) terms because KM is indeed an intrinsic part of decommissioning IAEA [9] states the following: “Ensuring that the necessary scientific and technical expertise is available both for the licensee and for the support of regulatory review and other independent national review functions” has clear KM implications Indeed KM is one of the new paradigms of the decommissioning, as will be highlighted in Chapter 4 An integrated approach to KM is essential The traditional treating of KM in isolation as a distinct activity is unlikely to bring any advantages Documented information, in the form of records, is critical to knowledge generation and maintenance It is here that the integration begins Any information package is always connected to other entities These entities could be, for example, other sources of information, the originator of the information, or a description of the methodology used to create the information and data Therefore the three aspects—people, documents and tools—should be viewed in conjunction Another aspect is essential: the generation and the preservation of knowledge are the two sides of the same coin, because one cannot exist without the other The decommissioning strategy reflects and elaborates on the objectives and requirements established by in the national policy [13] The strategy should take into account the specific conditions of the country in question in regard to decommissioning This is especially pertinent to nations with limited resources and little or no experience in decommissioning Relevant factors include, but are not be limited to, the following: ● ● ● Availability of scientific, technical, and financial resources Organizational structures of the responsible organization and regulatory body and their interactions Governmental direction and support, if any Introduction7 ● ● Potential impact of decommissioning on the local economy and on the local communities, and other stakeholders The cultural side: job market, leadership, team spirit, motivations, cross-cultural interactions, etc The last bullet of the above list calls for some elaboration It is clear that the cultural aspects of decommissioning are heavily reflected in organization and management of decommissioning For example, a dedicated effort is necessary in decommissioning to draft new work procedures, a tough task for those who may not have the full understanding of working in a hostile, partly unknown environment A related aspect is that dismantling procedures can hardly be the same across the wide range of a facility’s conditions Basically each room and each component may call for a distinct dismantling procedure Another cultural issue is linked to external consultants or specialists recruited for limited periods of time for training purposes or for solving specific issues The transfer of knowledge from external experts to the standing decommissioning organization (generally based on former operations staff) should ideally be accurate and comprehensive enough to allow the decommissioning organization to “digest” and use that knowledge in future instances The problem can be exacerbated by the short duration of the expert assistance, which, due to contractual factors, is often restricted to problem-solving and does not extend to an effective, comprehensive knowledge transfer Moreover, the external advisors will typically hold a different background from the decommissioning staff and may even speak a foreign language or jargon The “soft issues” of decommissioning, especially its cultural side, are the new frontiers of this discipline: in this book, they are presented in Chapter 3 The KM strategy must support and meet the expectations of all people concerned (the stakeholders); otherwise it has limited purpose What are their needs? When they need to know? In what form they want to receive the knowledge? There are many stakeholders with diverse interests in a decommissioning project Their interests will range from the full extent of technological and managerial aspects to key indicators of progress and impacts: financial institutions will be interested in how efficiently the money is being spent, while the environmentalist will be concerned about radioactive effluents or the reduction of site contamination It can be useful to refer to the network of stakeholders Each of them has individual interests and worries, but they will share information and interact with each other The notion of network can be extended to the different “packets” of knowledge about the overall decommissioning package One stakeholder may be content to know the general package features, but who should another stakeholder address to be informed about specific “packets” of the whole package? For example, who has the knowledge for advising on the transport of certain substances? This is not obvious a priori Therefore stakeholders are involved in a two-way process: they need to get knowledge, while somebody responsible for the decommissioning project must deliver that knowledge Therefore, communications with new stakeholders (e.g., the concerned man-on-the-street) will require technically competent staff who can additionally speak an understandable language The emerging roles of decommissioning stakeholders are described in more detail in Chapter 6 8 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning 1.3 Execution Chapter  shares important lessons learned from in-field experience, which are expected to facilitate decommissioning of nuclear sites Stakeholders such as nuclear operators, regulators, government officials, and others are expected to benefit from brief summaries of the lessons, advantages, and drawbacks of decommissioning methods and tools, as well as links to any records containing more details Generally, lessons learned is knowledge that could be of interest and orientation to the stakeholders Lessons learned include positive or negative impacts For example, lessons learned include significant and continual regulatory comments on submitted documents, postincident inspections, issues that have come to the operators’ attention and/or have been reviewed by the regulators, case studies delivering site-specific examples or good practices, or failures that should not repeated Sometimes the policy and strategy inherent to a national decommissioning program stem from nonnuclear, independently established policy and strategy of the government One such example is taken from Dolphin [14] The United Kingdom’s Government Construction Strategy was published by the Cabinet Office on May 31, 2011 The report announced the government’s intention to require collaborative 3D building information modeling (BIM) (with all project and asset information, documentation, and data being electronic) on its projects by 2016 Basically BIM is a process for sharing information throughout the entire lifecycle of an asset, from concept to demolition A BIM model is a 3D model consisting of a variety of information-rich objects that, once combined, create an integrated representation of an entire asset Nuclear decommissioning can involve the construction of new facilities (e.g., waste stores, retrieval systems); the modification of existing structures (e.g., the deplanting of buildings, replacement of old equipment); and the demolition and removal of structures, systems, and components In the strategy planned for the Magnox power stations in the United Kingdom the sites enter a safe enclosure period where the remaining assets must be properly maintained and inspected for almost one hundred years until they are finally removed During safe enclosure and final dismantling health and safety information should remain at hand to future users in a way that it does not rely uniquely on individual skills Dolphin [14] provides many examples of BIM applications to decommissioning One example of robotic development is given in the following, arbitrarily chosen among many prompted by the Fukushima 2011 accident in support of plant recovery and decommissioning [15] Robots are frequently used in the nuclear industry to reach almost inaccessible or highly contaminated areas At Fukushima, robots have been extensively used to survey the damage and more are being developed to undertake more complex tasks To this end, versatility is vital To name one application, Hitachi has supplied the remotely-controlled ASTACO-SoRa heavy-duty robot, which has been used for debris removal Other robots have been launched by Mitsubishi, Toshiba, and Honda Remotely controlled activities and robots are addressed in Chapter 9 of this book A submersible robot has been designed and manufactured by Hitachi to locate and assess leakage in buildings where radioactive water has accumulated during and after the accident This robot (weight: 32 kg; height: 33 cm; length: 60 cm; width: 45 cm) is Introduction9 capable of traveling horizontally underwater or along the bottom of a pool, as well as vertically, for example, up a wall by suction Being small, the robot can enter narrow spaces The robot is operated via cable A shape-changing robot has been developed to inspect impervious parts of the plant It consists of three segments: the main body and two crawlers The robot can take a straight shape for passing through narrow spaces, such as 10-cm pipes In another configuration, it can rotate its crawlers 90 degrees in respect to its main body to take a U-shape, with the crawlers ensuring stability when traveling over flat areas See Ref [16, Annex I-2] for more detail It has been known for years that laser cutting is a promising technique in decommissioning However, safety, deployment, and reliability concerns have so far prevented this technology from becoming of commercial use Recent developments are described in Ref [17], which might finally trigger the emergence of laser cutting as a mature technology TWI Ltd is working with the United Kingdom's NDA and various site license companies in the country to develop laser cutting technologies for dismantling and size reduction One of the technologies TWI has developed is a hand-held laser for cutting such metallic structures as piping, tanks, and supports in low-radiation areas TWI has also manufactured lasers for remote in situ dismantling using a “snakearm” robotic manipulator It has also cooperated with Sellafield on lasers that can be used for cutting up dismissed fuel skips to achieve optimal filling of waste containers Emerging technologies in nuclear decommissioning are described in Chapter 8 Finally, Chapter  10 deals with the option (and opportunity) of releasing materials, buildings, and entire sites under restricted conditions or with a predefined fate While the traditional end state of a decommissioning project (“greenfield”) is typically close to pristine (i.e., background) levels, experience suggests that in most cases where complete decommissioning has been achieved (delicensing of the site), completion of the works has been associated with prompt reuse of the site or buildings even when some minor contamination was still present (“brownfield”) Because of the value of the assets released by decommissioning, termination of one activity from the decommissioned site will lead to its reuse in a new activity While eventually any decommissioned site will be reused to new purposes, the essential factor is time (and money): reuse should be integrated with decommissioning, even at the cost of some contamination remaining (provided that safety is ensured at all times) It is likely that the trend towards Brownfields and immediate site reuse will grow in the future due to economic factors, especially the practical impossibility or the excess costs to reach unrestricted release at heavily contaminated sites (e.g., large, old reactors or nuclear fuel cycle centers) Reuse/redevelopment of industrial sites is a field where much should be learned from the nonnuclear sector (Fig. 1.1) 1.4 International experience The following describes the advances of some decommissioning projects since the early 2000s, with a focus on activities taking place after Ref [1] was drafted The projects described below are representative of various types of nuclear facilities More 10 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning Fig. 1.1  Mapocho railway station converted to multicultural center, Santiago, Chile Photo by M Laraia, 2010 information is given in dedicated chapters ([Chapter  11][Chapter  13]), for research reactors, and environmental remediation projects 1.4.1 Garigliano NPP, Italy In Italy, Trino, Latina, and Caorso NPPs were all shut down in 1986–87 following a national referendum Garigliano NPP had already been shut down in 1982 The initial decommissioning strategy for Italian NPPs was “protective storage.” But immediate dismantling was chosen by the government in 1999 for all Italian NPPs as a national strategy (the nuclear operator is a state-owned organization) Until recently practically no dismantling had started in radiologically controlled areas In fact the following list shows that active dismantling started much later, subject to the promulgation of the official decommissioning (dismantling) license: ● ● ● ● Latina, in Dec 2014 Trino, in Aug 2012 Garigliano, in Sep 2012 Caorso, in Feb 2014 Fuel from Latina, Garigliano, and Caorso NPPs has been already shipped to France and the United Kingdom for reprocessing Some fuel elements still remain in the Avogadro pool at Saluggia pending transfer abroad High-level waste (“glass canisters”) from fuel reprocessing will be returned from France and the United Kingdom to Italy to be temporarily stored into the future national repository (location is still to be determined) Some activities aimed at “passive protection” had already begun following plant shutdowns and have continued since Other activities started when the plants received a dismantling license Activities preparatory to nuclear decommissioning had been implemented soon after final shutdown in the 1980s and progressed continually until now Predecommissioning Introduction11 activities (under and following the initial “protective storage” license) and radiological decommissioning activities (since the date of the new decommissioning license) are described for Garigliano NPP, as an example, in the following Garigliano NPP, a small BWR of General Electric conception, was in operation until 1978, when it was shut down for maintenance; it never restarted In 1982 the plant was permanently shut down In 1985 the plant obtained a license aimed at “protective storage” (safe enclosure, the national strategy in force at that time) The Garigliano plant was close to reaching “protective storage” when the change of strategy occurred in 1999 By then the reactor had already been defueled (1985–87) and no fuel remained on-site The radiological characterization had been completed and safe enclosure of the reactor building and turbine building were achieved All operational wastes have been processed; redundant waste tanks had been demolished and modifications of the systems for decommissioning purposes were in progress The reactor circuits were drained, and, following defueling, the spent fuel pool was emptied and decontaminated from 1991 to 1993 This activity is described in Ref [16, Annex I-2] A waste treatment campaign addressed resins, sludge, and evaporator concentrates (280 m3) located in underground tanks The campaign used a mobile cementation system and was carried out from 1997 to 1998 Some 1500 400-l drums were produced (either shielded or unshielded) [18] In 1999, SOGIN (the state-owned national operator for decommissioning and waste management, which inherited the nuclear legacy from the former electric utility ENEL) took ownership of the plant with the aim of carrying out full site cleanup In 2007, activities were completed for the removal of asbestos from the turbine building In 2008, the electrical, ventilation, drainage, and liquid radiological monitoring systems for asbestos removal were restored In 2009, “hot” and “cold” chemical laboratories were installed In 2010 decontamination of the reactor building was completed, including removal of asbestos insulation The decree of environmental compatibility stated that the decommissioning activities will not affect the reactor and turbine buildings, designed by the famous architect Riccardo Morandi, which were declared part of Italy’s architectural heritage as established by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture In Sep 2012 a license was obtained for the dismantling of the power plant and the remediation of the site; it was issued by the Ministry of Economic Development, on the advice of the regulatory body (ISPRA) and other competent institutions This license allowed dismantling of the nuclear “island” to begin The construction of the new radioactive liquid effluent treatment system began in 2014 The remediation of trenches (formerly used for on-site burial of radioactive waste) is underway Buildings and ancillary facilities (ventilation, electrical systems) to be used for the remediation of the trenches have been either completed or are under construction [19] This is one example of environmental remediation in the context of a decommissioning project, as further explained in Chapter 13 of this book Following completion of the turbine building deplanting (started in 2014) the building will be converted to temporarily store the Garigliano decommissioning waste, pending waste transfer to the (future) national repository 12 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning In Mar 2014 the process for demolishing the stack, which is 95-m tall, began: four operational phases are planned In phase 1, a 12-m stack mockup was constructed to test the methods and tools that will be used in the actual dismantling of the stack Then the stack structure was reinforced The third phase included the top-down decontamination (scarification) of the stack’s internal surfaces The scarification was carried out by a robot of Italian design, which was remotely operated (completed in Jul 2016) The fourth phase is the stack demolition In the end a new smaller stack will be constructed [19] One should note that the initial dismantling strategy for the stack was by explosives The revised strategy takes into account the presence of adjacent nuclear buildings (Fig. 1.2) The Garigliano decommissioning activities are planned to end in 2024 (or at the latest, taking contingencies into account, in 2028) By then the radioactive waste containers stored on-site will be ready for transfer to the National Repository, allowing for the reuse of the site without radiological restrictions It should be noted that the Italian decommissioning strategy of immediate dismantling, while in line with IAEA recommendations, can turn out to be somewhat overambitious in timing, especially in regard to reaching the greenfield status This condition depends on the availability of a centralized national waste storage/disposal facility The dismantling and the waste treatment activities can be fully implemented, but without a national repository, the conditioned waste has to be kept on-site in an interim store, impeding full release of the site and producing additional running costs Therefore, the national strategy promulgated in 1999 called for the siting of the repository by 2005 and for its operation by 2009 Unfortunately both these targets have failed In 1999 the availability of a national waste repository was considered a prerequisite for dismantling: in fact, international experience (e.g., the Greifswald NPP in Germany) has subsequently shown that interim on-site storage of waste is an a­ cceptable option Fig. 1.2  Garigliano NPP: the spherical reactor building with the stack in the background Photo by M Laraia, 1980s Introduction13 allowing prompt dismantling to proceed Actually the four Italian NPPs are currently being dismantled without a national repository and the decommissioning wastes are being stored on-site It took many years (until 2012 and beyond) for nuclear dismantling to begin at the four Italian sites There are many reasons for the delay Local communities were against the on-site storage of decommissioning waste, as they feared that supposedly temporary stores will become permanent due to strong political hindrances to the siting of a centralized national storage/disposal facility Trying to overcome local opposition, law No 27/2012 on economic development was promulgated: through its Art 24 it establishes new procedures to reduce the timing of the licensing phases for decommissioning activities with a strong involvement of local administrations Another complicating factor could be that the main law regulating nuclear activities (DPR 230/1995) involves a number of state bodies (each with veto power) in the licensing of decommissioning activities The siting of the national waste repository is still undecided At the time of writing, the incumbent government has reiterated action to finalize the siting process soon 1.4.2 Barsebäck NPP, Sweden At Barsebäck NPP, the dismantling process began about 2 years after the plant was shut down With a decommissioning period of about 5 years, a site can be expected to be released for other use about 7 years after shutdown The regulators are concerned that a longer timetable will mean there will not be enough competent staff left to deal with the dismantling But decommissioning waste from Barsebäck cannot be disposed of until the ­disposal facility (SFR) has been extended and relicensed for short-lived, low- and intermediate-level decommissioning waste, which is expected to happen in 2023 Finally, perhaps taking care of regulatory inclinations, it appears that some dismantling is starting before 2023 (see the last part of the Section 1.4.2) It is estimated that the dismantling work will take some 5–7  years Site release for unrestricted use is foreseen around 2029 The two BWR units in Barsebäck were permanently shut down 1999 and 2005, respectively Barsebäck and are two adjacent installations structurally linked via electrical buildings, control rooms, and personnel buildings A number of process systems are also integrated between the units The facilities were prepared for a period of care and maintenance pending dismantling (offsite shipment of fuel, downsizing of organization, adjustment of supervision and maintenance, energy saving measures, etc.) A summary of the main activities to date include the following See Refs [20,21] and other references indicated below: ● ● ● Transport of spent fuel elements completed (Dec 2006) Fuel was transferred to the interim storage facility (CLAB, Oskarshamn) Decontamination of the primary system (Dec 2007–Jan 2008) [22] Current activities in “service operation” (the Swedish term for “care and maintenance”) since Dec 1, 2006 This means placing the plant in the lowest energy mode, reducing the 14 ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning need for monitoring, minimizing residual safety risk, and optimizing the costs Service operation will end in 2021 (subject to the status of the SFR extension works) when preparation for final dismantling starts and a new organizational structure is established Characterization of materials and site (2009–2012) [23] Planning of decommissioning (taking into account Sweden‘s decommissioning approach—“rip & ship”) Stakeholder management/communication [21] (Fig. 1.3) The Barsebäck owner (BKAB) has built networks and competence by being a member of national and international committees (SKB, IAEA, OECD/NEA, WNA, WANO, EPRI, etc.) Rebuilding of the electricity systems and operation systems The goal was to adjust the electrical systems for the actual demands and requirements for the service operation, to create a site easier to survey, and to reduce costs for operation and maintenance The central control room has been unattended since Dec 17, 2007 and the supervision of service operation is handled by a system of VDI (duty engineers) and LOP (alarm operators) VDI is on duty during 24 h per day Guard personnel (BC) serve as LOP and make contact with VDI when an alarm activates VDI is responsible for making decisions and taking steps should the need occur BC is manned around-the-clock Hazardous material such us turbine oil and chemicals has been removed from the site Some preventive maintenance has been switched over to corrective maintenance Inventory of existing documents is in progress An overall decommissioning plan has been presented and accepted by the owner and the regulators Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) A new management system, a new safety analysis report and a new safety technical regulation for service operation has been created and approved by SSM Operational waste is stored on-site Core grids from the operational period are stored on-site in pools waiting for an approved transportation cask and will be sent to interim storage Ion exchange masses from the operational period are stored in tanks New equipment has been installed at Barsebäck to solidify these masses in concrete Fig. 1.3  Demonstration against the closure of Barsebäck NPP Credit: IAEA, 2009 An Overview of Stakeholder Involvement in Decommissioning Nuclear Energy Series No NW-T-2.5 Introduction15 The following describes in detail the most recent activities at Barsebäck Segmentation of reactor internals is one of the most time consuming tasks within a nuclear decommissioning project Barsebäck has established a project that includes segmentation and packaging of internal parts of the reactor tanks The storage will be in a local newly built facility (Project HINT) Project HINT includes four subprojects (plus regulatory approval): Building of an interim storage facility for the reactor internals on-site, pending the availability of the final repository (SFR) The basic design has already been used in Forsmark NPP in Sweden On Jul 1, 2016, BKAB inaugurated the interim storage The segmentation work of the reactor internals started in late 2016 and will be finished in 2019 The internals will be segmented underwater in the reactor hall (RH) pools They will then be put in steel tanks (unconditioned) and will be transported to the interim storage Modernization of RH overhead cranes due to new regulatory requirements Transportation and logistics from RH to interim storage (handling equipment) On Nov 2, 2015, it was disclosed that Westinghouse had been awarded a contract to dismantle the reactor pressure vessel internals [24] Under the contract signed with plant operator BKAB, Westinghouse is to dismantle, segment, and package the reactor pressure vessel internals for final disposal In order the carry out this work, Westinghouse will implement its proven, remotely controlled underwater mechanical cutting techniques and employ specifically designed equipment it will fabricate and test at its facilities in Västerås, Sweden The project is expected to take about 4 years to complete 1.4.3 The Georgia Tech Building, United States Georgia Institute of Technology’s Neely Research Center was a structure that at one time was connected to the school’s 5-MW, heavy-water-cooled research reactor Originally in operation for more than 30 years, the building and the reactor were used frequently by the school’s nuclear engineering students until the reactor was shut down in the late 1980s The Georgia Tech (GT) Research Reactor was decommissioned in 1999–2001 The reactor vessel, concrete bioshield, and lead tank were removed However, the reactor’s companion facility, where source encapsulation and other broad-scope research activities were conducted, still remained intact In 2012—after 12  years—the building that housed the reactor (called Neely Building) was characterized, internally decontaminated, and finally demolished to make way for the Marcus Nanotechnology Research Center [25] The main decommissioning contractor was Ameriphysics, with Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) assisting with characterization The history of Neely Research Center included the following: ● Supported GT research reactor operations Spent fuel and source storage pool Pneumatic lines Hot cell used for dismantling and packaging fuel elements ● ● ● 16 ● Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning Encapsulation of high activity sources Co-60, Cs-137, Cf-252, Sr-90, etc GT Broad Scope Research Activities High Activity Gamma and Neutron Sources ● ● ● Following reactor dismantling, the GT Building showed significant signs of deterioration The prolonged semiabandonment period between the reactor dismantling and the completion of decommissioning on-site had exacted a toll The building decommissioning was also complicated by the lack of alternative places to research activities still being managed inside the GT Building Related to this, another complication was the involvement of several GT departments: this is to be expected when doing decommissioning within an active research center where interdepartmental research is the rule State and local police involvement was significant, especially during the removal and transport of high-activity sources Approvals were granted by the Georgia Department of Nuclear Resources (GA DNR) and the Georgia Department of Transportation (GA DOT) In particular the involvement of GA DNR turned out to be slowing down activities, possibly due to the regulators’ limited familiarity with decommissioning projects Lack of familiarity often means overconservativeness A unique challenge was determining how to scan the building’s storage pool When the reactor was in operation, the source storage pool was used for cooling spent reactor fuel—in addition to other high-activity sources—and for keeping radiation levels below acceptable levels Using a Trimble Spatial Station with a tracking prism (a laser scanner) ORAU Health Physics managed to produce georeferenced scan data, which were then used by ORAU Geographic Information System to map the collected data over a 3D graphics of the facility The scan described the dimensions of the room and provided a precise illustration of where the contamination was located Decommissioning of the pool posed the following challenges: ● ● ● ● Pool characterization required the removal of 1-cm thickness of concrete As the result of the evaporation and higher Cs-137 concentration, the pool water (some 16 m3) had to be disposed of as radioactive waste There was very fine silt left in the bottom of pool with a few cm of water, which had to be absorbed in ready mix concrete and turned into solid waste Obtaining soil samples under the pool (part of the scoping survey) required access below 2 m of concrete (fortunately, no soil contamination was found and there was no need for environmental remediation) Finally, demolishing the GT building was no easy task—workers must first cut through the concrete that encased a welded steel envelope All included, the decommissioning project lasted from Oct 2011 to Dec 2012 In 2013 the site had been cleared and could be reused for other purposes 1.4.4 Fuel Fabrication Plant, Bosco Marengo, Italy The Bosco Marengo Fuel Fabrication Plant began operating in 1973 Until 1987, when Italy opted out of nuclear energy use, the plant had produced fuel elements for nuclear Introduction17 power plants in Italy and abroad Following the closure of nuclear activities in Italy, the plant gradually converted operation to production of advanced ceramic materials such as for prostheses, porous components of fuel cells, cutting tools, etc In 1995 all nuclear activities came to an end In 2003 the operator applied for a decommissioning license In 2005 SOGIN, as the national decommissioning and waste management operator, took over ownership [19] At the time nuclear activities ceased, there were at Bosco Marengo 112 t of nuclear fuel, which were all shipped abroad The last shipment took place in Nov 2006 In 2008 a decree was obtained for the dismantling of the plant, which was approved by the Ministry of Economic Development, on the advice of the Regulatory Body (ISPRA) Also in 2008 a contract was issued to start dismantling the plant; site activities started in Dec 2008 Between 2008 and 2010 decommissioning activities concerned the dismantling and (dry and wet) decontamination of the equipment previously used for fuel fabrication The dismantling of the assembly line was completed in 2009; the decontamination of removed materials was completed in 2010 The demolition of the ventilation system and the liquid waste treatment systems was completed in 2013 In the same year 611 overpacks containing operational radioactive waste were refurbished The Bosco Marengo decommissioning activities are planned to end in 2017 By then the radioactive waste containers will be ready for transfer to the National Repository Bosco Marengo will then be the first nuclear site in Italy to reach the state of unrestricted release In the meantime operational and decommissioning wastes are stored on-site, pending transfer to a new interim store being equipped to start operation in 2017 The 960m2 interim store has a capacity of 4080 m3 of radioactive waste By the end of 2014 there were 448 m3 low- and intermediate-activity wastes stored at Bosco Marengo In 2014 a mobile plant was installed for the processing of liquid waste and sludge As part of the decommissioning of the Bosco Marengo plant, SOGIN carried out in early 2016, in addition to radiological monitoring, the characterization of soil-­subsoil and groundwater media Some groundwater samples downstream from the plant exceeded the contamination threshold concentrations for chromium and other chemicals However, it was proved the groundwater contamination was unrelated to plant activities but was due to industrial and agricultural activities in adjacent areas [26] 1.4.5 Bevatron, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, United States The Bevatron was built in the 1950s at the Berkeley’s National Lab for a cost of $9 million (~$76 million 2012) It began operation in 1954, firstly as a proton accelerator It was built to discover the antiproton (indeed discovered in 1955) Most of the information below is taken from Ref [27] In order to create antiprotons in collisions with nucleons in a stationary target while conserving both energy and momentum, the proton beam should have energy of approximately 6.2 GeV At the time it was built, there was no way to confine a particle beam to a narrow aperture, so the beam space was about 4000 cm2 in cross section 18 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning The combination of beam aperture and energy required a 12,000-t iron magnet and a huge vacuum system The accelerator had a diameter of about 60 m In the years following the antiproton discovery, much pioneering work was done here using beams of protons extracted from the accelerator proper, to hit targets and generate secondary beams, not only protons but also neutrons, pions (a pion is a particle having a mass approximately 270 times that of an electron), “strange particles,” and many others There was also a concrete shielding of 13,500 t Initially the Bevatron was built with no shielding on top, but shielding was constructed later when the skyshine effect was detected The Bevatron occupied 12,000 m2 of land It used a significant amount of power, which was very expensive and eventually led to its closure During its lifetime the Bevatron was converted from protons to a heavy ion accelerator for high-energy physics experiments; later on it was converted to a nuclear medicine treatment center Finally Bevatron was shut down in 1993 When the Bevatron was shut down the scientists, technicians, and engineers were reassigned to other tasks They disbanded and no planning for decommissioning was made The building sat idle for 15 years (1993–2008) while DOE pondered on what action should be taken for the facility Note that in general an extended postshutdown, no-action time is hardly conducive to successful decommissioning First it causes the loss of knowledge (the “tacit knowledge” attached to individual memories and experience) Secondly it increases deterioration of structures, systems, and components, which will be more expensive to fix later A deliberation of Berkeley City Council reads: The Building 51 structure housing the Bevatron is deteriorating and consumes disproportionate maintenance resources It does not meet current building codes, the roof leaks in several locations, and portions of the structure not comply with current seismic design standards…The structure is seismically unsafe Its demolition would provide a future safe working environment for an as—yet unidentified activity at Berkeley Lab Ref [28] Project Milestones are recapped in the following Isolate old utilities and establish reliable utilities It is common practice in most decommissioning projects to discontinue the old electric systems and install new ones Remove shielding blocks Some blocks were slightly activated (mostly from the early operation when Bevatron accelerated protons: as expected, heavy ions used later had much less penetration) Activated blocks were categorized as LLW Remove Bevatron accelerator When the accelerator was removed, the interior of the building was then cleared Demolish the building structure Retaining walls were reinforced The building superstructure was preweakened before demolition Eventually the superstructure was demolished in a controlled drop Remove foundations and slabs This included removing the foundation system including pile/caisson caps, grade beams, shallow caissons, and facility floor; demolishing the deep Introduction19 tunnel; and removing the cooling tower basins This process took over a year because they had to systematically manage the radiological hazards in the foundations and the soil Therefore this project was not just decommissioning, but also environmental remediation Remediate soils and then backfill For the Bevatron project a novel approach was used to document the probability of facility and site contamination; it is called hazards mapping The activities conducted in producing a hazards map included the search of historical records and interviews with former personnel familiar with the facility The historical documents included fire department reports, occurrence reports, chemical inventories, spill reports, lessons learned, radiological surveys, asbestos and lead inspection reports, and photos It was also important to understand the accelerator operations that might have produced contamination The interviews and records helped establish if there were any incidents that might have left residual contamination This information was the input to derive hazard maps, which were plans of the facility with areas of suspected contamination These hazard maps were provided to the characterization team to orient their predismantling investigations The hazard maps were also provided to the demolishers to support on-the-job characterization efforts Much more radioactive material was found than expected initially Lessons learned include the following: (1) it would have been advisable to have a single contact at the decommissioning organization who understood the release criteria and who clearly forwarded objectives to the offsite labs doing compliance measurements; (2) the lack of clearly defined minimum detectable concentrations resulted in offsite labs testing to stricter standards than needed and ultimately unnecessarily categorizing some materials as radioactive waste The lack of these provisions impacted the remediation of shielding blocks, slabs, and foundations and cost an additional $10 million Tritium was a special case Expected concentrations were based on the following: ● ● ● ● Activation generated mainly prior to 1974 (three half-lives) Significant amounts were not expected It was expected tritium be found near other activation products Tritium was expected to be found in soil and groundwater under thin floors Instead tritium was found in unexpected places and concentrations such as the following: ● ● ● ● Under thick foundation slabs Was not under slabs with highest activation Levels were over 150 Bq/L (more than expected) Was inconsistent with expected equilibrium conditions Possible (unconfirmed) sources of tritium contamination are the following: ● ● Accelerator cooling water spill/leak Migration from high activation to low activation areas due to groundwater flow The demolition of the Bevatron began in 2009 and completed in early 2012 The cost was $47.6 M, 230,000 person-hours, and 1450 m3 of soil cleanup The entire facility was demolished to complete the decommissioning, yielding more than 29,000 t of material that was then transported in over 1420 shipments to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) for disposal as LLW and mixed LLW This 20 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning material included over 750 concrete shield blocks, as well as pieces of the Bevatron itself, such as beamline pipes, enormous magnets, and other steel components The rainy season provided an additional challenge to the project Rainfall for the city of Berkeley from November through March is heavy As a result, nearly every piece of metal scrap and concrete rubble had to be packaged wet A large quantity of an effective absorbent material that would meet the NNSS no-free-liquids disposal criteria was required 1.5 Conclusions The following conclusions can be extracted from the foregoing Essential points are given more focus in following chapters Decommissioning policies and strategies change reflecting the discovery of new issues, growing experience, and national and international achievements It is a task of the decommissioning practitioners to stay aligned with novelties and innovations in the field Transparent and adequate relations with all stakeholders are essential to the smooth progress of decommissioning Identification of and interactions with the stakeholders should be considered earlier than the onset of a decommissioning project In practice, anybody who claims the stakeholder’s rights is indeed a stakeholder Early planning is vital to decommissioning success This should be supported by competent and motivated teams Participation of contractors in planning and execution of decommissioning is likely to be almost mandatory for all but the smallest projects, but it requires integration and harmonization of a culture often different from the operations staff’s Real time assessment of decommissioning projects is crucial In particular, this concerns ongoing expenditures and cash flow Deviations from the planned schedule and budget should be identified and corrected as soon as possible Uncertain and diverging costs undermine the credibility of the decommissioning industry Human factors need highest attention This also includes “soft” factors such as motivation, leadership, team spirit, cross-cultural interactions, etc Early characterization of radioactive waste types and identification of waste management routes are essential in decommissioning planning The lack of waste disposal facilities especially can delay the release of a decommissioning site, even though waste storage is an acceptable interim measure The importance of an effective and secure record management system throughout a facility’s lifecycle and beyond is widely appreciated This is part of the broader notion of KM, which may extend long after the end of decommissioning and includes not only the readability of records, but also the capability of using the information provided Feedback from decommissioning experience should be sought, assessed, and disseminated to all parties The acquisition and reporting of lessons learned is of great assistance to the decommissioning team and should be fostered Debates, seminars, and other international events are critical for sharing information among peers in this field Introduction21 References [1] M.  Laraia (Ed.), Nuclear Decommissioning—Planning, Execution and International Experience, Woodhead, Cambridge, ISBN: 978-0-85709-115-4, 2012 [2] M. Cooper, Renaissancebe in Reverse: Competition Pushes Aging U.S Nuclear Reactors to the Brink of Economic Abandonment, 2013 http://216.30.191.148/071713%20 VLS%20Cooper%20at%20risk%20reactor%20report%20FINAL1.pdf [3] U.S Energy Information Administration, Lower Power Prices and High Repair Costs Drive Nuclear Retirements, 2013 www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11931 [4] Nuclear Street, NRC Transfers La Crosse License to La Crosse Solutions, 2016 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World Nuclear News, UK's Nuclear Clean-Up Cost Estimate Dips to $15 4 Billion, 2 016 http://www.world -nuclear- news.org/WR-UK -nuclear- clean-up-cost-estimate-dips-to154-billion -1 5 0 716 02.html [9] International... 40–47 [15 ] World Nuclear News, Swimming, Shape-Changing Robots for Fukushima, 2 014 http://www world -nuclear- news.org/C-Swimming-shape-changing-robots-for-Fukushima -1 7 0 314 4.html [16 ] International... http://www.arpa.emr.it/Piacenza/download/Bolla.pdf, (in Italian) [19 ] Sogin,http://www.sogin.it/it/chi-siamo /decommissioning- degli-impianti-nucleari/ dove-siamo/ (in Italian) 22 Advances and Innovations in Nuclear Decommissioning [20] H.