Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Ten Years of the NDA, 2005-2015

Decommissioning of Nuclear Installations: Strategies, Practices and Challenges

Moscow, Russian Federation

9-11 November 2015

John Mathieson

Head of International Relations

NDA

Overview • The NDA

• The NDA Estate

• Sellafield

• Dounreay

• Magnox

• LLWR

• Geological Disposal

• The future

Chaplecross Cooling Towers

UK Nuclear History

3

THORP Fuel pond

Calder Hall 1956

Windscale Piles

Magnox

WAGR Construction

Dounreay

Wylfa NPP

NDA – established 2005

Roles and responsibilities

5

policy

strategy

delivery

NDA mission

“Deliver safe, sustainable and publicly acceptable

solutions to the challenge of nuclear clean up and

waste management.

This means never compromising on safety or

security, taking full account of our social and

environmental responsibilities, always seeking value

for money for the taxpayer and actively engaging

with stakeholders.”

NDA Strategy - March 2011

6

NDA

• Budget for 2015/16 is £3.3bn (US$ 5.1bn):

- £2.1bn from Government

- £1.2bn income from commercial

operations

• ~210 corporate staff

• 18,000-strong workforce across

the NDA’s estate

• Decommissioning & clean up of 17 sites

• Geological disposal

• Spent fuel & HLW

• LLW disposal

• Pu, U management

• Reprocessing & vitrification

• Non-NDA liabilities oversight (NNLO)

– Including new build decommissioning

• Strategy

• Skills

• R&D

• Supply Chain

• Socio – economics

NDA’s Nuclear Provision

8

The Nuclear Provision:

• Best estimate of the cost to

clean-up NDA’s sites

• >£115bn undiscounted over 120

years

• £90-220bn range

• £70bn discounted

• EDF Energy responsible for its

decommissioning costs through

the Nuclear Liabilities Fund

• New Nuclear Build

organisations have to establish

Funded decommissioning plans

(FDPs)

9

Sellafield

10

Sellafield has more than 60 years of history

1940s/50s

• Nuclear build begins

• Initially a military

• programme

• Later civil programme begins

1960s/70s

• Waste stored safely – pending treatment

• Storage capacity extended incrementally

• Coarse segregation of waste arising from process

• Magnox reprocessing starts

1980s

• Main expansion of site

• Major waste treatment focus

• Environmental impact substantially reduced

• Decommissioning programme started

1990s

• True commercialisation of reprocessing—Thorp online

• Waste arising from processes treated in ‘real time’

• Product waste forms compatible with disposal concepts

• Health and safety executive reports

• Decommissioning gathering pace

• Sellafield landscape

changing forever

• NDA formed

• NMP become PBO

2000s

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5 High Hazard programmes represent 90% of the nuclear hazard potential

on the site

Pile Fuel

Storage Pond

Pile Fuel

Cladding Silo

First Generation

Magnox Fuel

Pond

Magnox Swarf

Storage Silos

Legacy

Ponds &

Silos

Highly Active

Liquor

Workstream

Sellafield achievements

Sellafield Product and

Residues Store, operational

2011

Pile Fuel Storage Pond retrievals, 2013

Windscale AGR

decommissioned 2011

THORP Fuel pond

13

Dounreay

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The NDA Estate - Dounreay

• The UK’s centre of fast reactor

R&D 1955 – 1994

• Scotland’s largest nuclear

clean-up and demolition project

• Experimental nature of the fast

breeder’ research work

– complex decommissioning

challenges

PFR clean-up

Demolition work

NaK destruction

Dounreay – achievements

• Dounreay contract firmly embedded

and delivering change

• Movements of DFR material to Sellafield

• 2 LLW vaults completed

• D1251 complex handed over to demolition.

• DFR pond drained and decontaminated

ready for demolition

• Local authority granted permission

to work on the Shaft and Silo project

15

Dounreay Low Level Waste Facility begins operations

Shaft & Silo

16

Magnox

Berkeley in operation Berkeley decommissioning

Berkeley heat exchangers en route to

Sweden

17

Magnox achievements

All 10 Magnox sites are in transition through the

following phases:

- Operations and electricity generation (Wylfa 1)

- Defuelling – removal of fuel from reactor and transported to Sellafield for reprocessing (Sizewell A, Calder Hall (SL), Oldbury)

- Care and Maintenance preparations – removal of hazards such as sludges/resins/asbestos (Dungeness A, Chapelcross, Trawsfynydd, Berkeley, Hinkley Point A, Bradwell and Hunterston A)

- Care and Maintenance (C&M) –reactor buildings & ILW store are left in a safe state until Final Site Clearance

- Final Site Clearance – Provision of a GDF will enable final decommissioning of the sites to take place

Wylfa extension to Dec 2015

Chaplecross Asbestos strip

C&M

18

Harwell and Winfrith

• Harwell – UK’s first Atomic Energy

Research Establishment (1946)

• Winfrith – Centre for ground breaking

reactor development from the

1950s – 1990s

• Both sites contained nuclear research

facilities, including plutonium handling

facilities, radioactive laboratories,

nuclear waste treatment

and storage facilities.

• Decommissioning is well under way

at both sites.

Harwell building demolitions

Waste storage at Winfrith

19

The NDA Estate - LLWR

• Low Level Waste Repository near Drigg has operated as a LLW disposal facility since 1959

• Compacted wastes come from Sellafield by rail

• Other waste arrives via road from facilities such as hospitals and research establishments

• LLW is disposed of in engineered concrete vaults

• Vault 9 opened in 2010

• Key emphasis on recycling and reusing material to reduce the volumes being disposed of at LLWR

• VLLW to special licenced landfill

Geological Disposal Development

Process

21

During the next 10 years we expect:

All Magnox stations defuelled and

spent fuel reprocessed to

long-term stable form

Four Magnox sites to have entered

Care and Maintenance

Progress on high hazard reduction,

including retrievals from

Legacy Ponds and Silos

All NDA’s non core assets to

have been disposed of

Chapelcross defuelling

Legacy Ponds

22

During the next 20 years we expect:

All other Magnox sites to have

entered Care and Maintenance

Decommissioning to have been

completed at Harwell and Winfrith

At Dounreay, all ILW to have been

removed from the shaft and all

residues from the Dounreay Fast

Reactor (DFR)

At LLWR, the Plutonium

Contaminated Material (PCM)

facilities to have been removed

Confirmation of a site’s technical suitability

to host a GDF

Harwell

Dounreay Fast Reactor

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www.nda.gov.uk