Privatising the UK nuclear industry

The UK Nuclear Industry continues to produce significant quantities of Low Level Waste (LLW) as decommissioning projects generating waste become more prevalent. Current infrastructure and projected increasing waste volumes will deliver a volumetric shortfall of storage capacity in the near future. Recently established as a stand alone site licence company, the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) near Drigg, in West Cumbria (formerly operated and owned by British Nuclear Group) is tasked with managing the safe treatment and disposal of LLW in the UK, on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The problem is complex involving many stakeholders with potentially different priorities. Previously, most nuclear waste generators operated independently with limited integration with other similar organisations. However, the current financial, programme and technical pressures require collaborative working to facilitate a step-change improvement in LLW management. Achieving this quickly is as much of a challenge as delivering robust cost effective technical solutions. NDA is working in partnership with LLWR to develop a LLW Strategy for the Nuclear Industry and has in parallel commissioned a number of studies by the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), looking at opportunities to share best practice. A National Strategy Group has been established to develop a working partnership between the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, LLW Repository Ltd, Regulators, Stakeholders and LLW Consignors, promoting innovation, value for money, and robust implementation of the waste hierarchy (avoid-reduce-re-use-recycle). Additionally the LLWR supported by the NNL have undertaken a comprehensive strategic review of the UK’s LLW management activities. Initial collaborative work has provided for the first time a detailed picture of the existing strategic baseline and identified significant national benefits from improving the way LLW is forecasted, characterised, segregated, and treated in line with the waste hierarchy. Implementation of volume reduction technologies, such as incineration and metal treatment, is critical to mitigate the LLWR capacity gap and reduce NDA’s liabilities. The cumulative effect of these solutions has the potential to reduce lifetime costs by several £billion and extend the life of the existing LLWR site to 2070 and possibly beyond. This work has informed the NDA’s UK Nuclear Industry LLW Strategy, published for consultation in June 2009 and the Draft UK LLW Management Plan which sets out how the strategy will be implemented. Technical and infrastructure solutions have been found to exist via the supply chain supporting deliver of the necessary step changes in the near future. Work continues to reduce the LLW inventory forecast uncertainties and evaluate strategic implementation options in more detail, e.g. benefits of national vs. local treatment and disposal solutions, plus on gaining the corresponding stakeholder acceptance and operational authorisations.

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Strategic Environmental Assessment for UK LLW Management

ASME 2009 12th International Conference on Environmental Remediation and Radioactive Waste Management, Volume 2 ◽

10.1115/icem2009-16392 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

Andrew Craze ◽

Pete Davis ◽

Matthew Clark

Keyword(s):

Environmental Assessment ◽

Waste Treatment ◽

Treatment Options ◽

Environmental Safety ◽

Nuclear Industry ◽

Strategic Environmental Assessment ◽

Low Level ◽

Metal Recycling ◽

The Uk ◽

Implementation Of The Strategy

NDA is delivering a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to underpin the UK Nuclear Industry Low Level Waste Strategy. The purpose of this assessment is embed sustainability issues into our decision making and to fulfil our requirements under the European Union’s Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive (2004/42/EU) and transposing UK Regulations, and to underpin the development of the strategy. The outputs of the SEA have provided input into particular aspects of the strategy, leading to a more robust and better informed result. Development of options to be assessed under the SEA has looked at a number of factors, including: • what the strategy is aiming to achieve; • expectation from stakeholders as to what should be addressed; • consideration of tactical approaches to implementation of the strategy in addition to high level strategic issues; • links to other projects and programmes (for example the Environmental Safety Case for the Low Level Waste Repository. The SEA aims to provide a robust assessment of the environmental and sustainability impacts of alternative strategies for providing continued capability and capacity for the management and disposal of LLW in the UK. The assessment also considers other, more tactical, issues around implementation of the strategy, for example: issues around the location of LLW management facilities; the environmental impacts of alternative waste treatment options (metal recycling etc); considerations of alternative approaches to the classification of radioactive waste and opportunities that would result. Critical to the development of the SEA has been the involvement of statutory and non-statutory stakeholders, who have informed both the output and the approach taken.

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The KNOO Research Consortium: Work Package 3—An Integrated Approach to Waste Immobilisation and Management

ASME 2009 12th International Conference on Environmental Remediation and Radioactive Waste Management, Volume 1 ◽

10.1115/icem2009-16375 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

Simon Biggs ◽

Michael Fairweather ◽

James Young ◽

Robin W. Grimes ◽

Neil Milestone ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Nuclear Power ◽

Integrated Approach ◽

Imperial College ◽

Nuclear Industry ◽

Atomic Scale ◽

Engineering Properties ◽

Work Package ◽

Process Scale ◽

Research Consortium ◽

The Uk

The Keeping the Nuclear Option Open (KNOO) research consortium is a four-year research council funded initiative addressing the challenges related to increasing the safety, reliability and sustainability of nuclear power in the UK. Through collaboration between key industrial and governmental stakeholders, and with international partners, KNOO was established to maintain and develop skills relevant to nuclear power generation. Funded by a research grant of £6.1M from the “Towards a Sustainable Energy Economy Programme” of the UK Research Councils, it represents the single largest university-based nuclear research programme in the UK for more than 30 years. The programme is led by Imperial College London, in collaboration with the universities of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Cardiff and the Open University. These universities are working with the UK nuclear industry, who contributed a further £0.4M in funding. The industry/government stakeholders include AWE, British Energy, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, Doosan Babcock, the Ministry of Defence, Nirex, AMEC NNC, Rolls-Royce PLC and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Work Package 3 of this consortium, led by the University of Leeds, concerns “An Integrated Approach to Waste Immobilisation and Management”, and involves Imperial College London, and the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. The aims of this work package are: to study the re-mobilisation, transport, solid-liquid separation and immobilisation of particulate wastes; to develop predictive models for particle behaviour based on atomic scale, thermodynamic and process scale simulations; to develop a fundamental understanding of selective adsorption of nuclides onto filter systems and their immobilisation; and to consider mechanisms of nuclide leaving and transport. The paper describes highlights from this work in the key areas of multi-scale modeling (using atomic scale, thermodynamic and process scale models), the engineering properties of waste (linking microscopic and macroscopic behaviour, and transport and rheology), and waste reactivity (considering waste hosts and wasteforms, generation IV wastes, and waste interactions).

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Atmospheric radiocarbon measurements to quantify CO<sub>2</sub> emissions in the UK from 2014 to 2015

10.5194/acp-2018-1042 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Angelina Wenger ◽

Katherine Pugsley ◽

Simon O'Doherty ◽

Matt Rigby ◽

Alistair J. Manning ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Frequency ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Atmospheric Model ◽

Nuclear Industry ◽

Air Masses ◽

Background Site ◽

Large Measurement ◽

Gas Measurements ◽

The Uk ◽

Co Observations

Abstract. We present 14CO2 observations and related greenhouse gas measurements at a background site in Ireland and a tall-tower site in the east of the UK that is more strongly influenced by fossil fuel sources. These data have been used to calculate the contribution of fossil fuel sources to atmospheric CO2 mole fractions from the UK and Ireland. Corrections were calculated and applied for 14CO2 emissions from the nuclear industry and other sources such as biospheric emissions that are in disequilibrium with the atmosphere. Measurements at both sites were found to only be marginally affected by 14CO2 emissions from nuclear sites. Over the study period of 2014–2015, the biospheric correction and the correction for nuclear 14CO2 emissions were similar, at 0.4 and 0.3 ppm fossil-fuel CO2 (ffCO2)-equivalent, respectively. The observed ffCO2 at the site was not significantly different from simulated values based on the EDGAR 2010 bottom-up inventory. We explored the use of high-frequency CO observations as a tracer of ffCO2 by deriving a constant COenhanced / ffCO2 ratio for the mix of UK fossil fuel sources. This ratio was found to be 5.7 ppb ppm−1, close to the value predicted using inventories and the atmospheric model of 5.1 ppb ppm−1. The site in the east of the UK was strategically chosen to be some distance from pollution sources so as to allow for the observation of well-integrated air masses. However this, and the large measurement uncertainty in 14CO2, lead to a large overall uncertainty in the ffCO2, being around 1.8 ppm compared to typical enhancements of 2 ppm.

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