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Report for NDEP
Report for NDEP
Report for NDEP
Report prepared for NDEP
Repository performance confirmation links the technical bases of repository science and societal acceptance. Among the countless aspects of monitoring, performance confirmation holds a special place, involving distinct activities combining technical and social significance in radioactive waste management. Discussion is divided into four themes: 1. A distinction is drawn between performance confirmation monitoring and other testing and monitoring objectives, 2. A case study illustrates confirmation activities integrated within a long-term testing and monitoring strategy for Yucca Mountain, 3. A case study reviews compliance monitoring developed and implemented for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and 4. An approach for developing, evaluating and implementing the next generation of performance confirmation monitoring is presented. International interest in repository monitoring is exhibited by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme 'Monitoring Developments for Safe Repository Operation and Staged Closure' (MoDeRn) Project. The MoDeRn partners are considering the role of monitoring in a phased approach to the geological disposal of radioactive waste. As repository plans advance in different countries, the need to consider monitoring strategies within a controlled framework has become more apparent. The MoDeRn project pulls together technical and societal experts to assimilate a common understanding of a process that could be followed to develop a monitoring program. Experience from two repository programs in the United States sheds light on how performance confirmation has been executed. Lessons learned can help the next generation of performance confirmation. (author)
This paper identifies how a joint Sellafield Ltd/Nuclear Management Partners Tactical Review Team and main contractor, SA Robotics, developed and successfully deployed a solution to clean and coat the wall surface of an aging structure on the Sellafield Site. This involved removal of redundant pipework from the wall, cleaning and coating of the surface using a bespoke designed robotic manipulator with various end effectors. This system was able to safely and in a controlled manner remove the pipework, clean down the wall and prime and coat it within the required programme duration which was 5 months earlier than a previous shielding only option. This was done in a high radiation field and in the challenging conditions of winter in Northern England. (authors)
Report prepared for NDEP
A team composed of the facility owner Oskarshamn Kraftgrupp AB (OKG) specialists and external experts was appointed to develop a basis for decision on an overall strategy for the management of the material and waste arising from the decommissioning of two BWR NPPs at the Oskarshamn site in Sweden. To be able to provide a good basis for decision the full waste management chain from generation to disposition had to be assessed, categorized, quantified and analysed with regards to costs, environmental impact and risks. A systematic approach was applied taking benefit of the existing decommissioning studies, well recognized decommissioning concepts and the combined knowledge and experience in the project team. In total four different waste management concepts were compared individually and in combinations. This paper discusses the important aspects in the work to develop a state of the art waste management in decommissioning. It also contains reflections and gives certain recommendations for decommissioning planning in general as well as an overview of some specific findings, results and recommendations from the actual project at Oskarshamn. (authors)
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Technical Area 55 (TA 55) utilizes several different container types to store and transfer special nuclear material and waste for numerous programs. The Nuclear Process Infrastructure - Infrastructure Operations Group (NPI-2) analyzes and certifies containers to meet the specifications for distinct processes and storage. Engineering analysis performed on these containers include but are not limited to: leak testing, filter efficiency testing, pressure drop test, drop testing, water penetration testing, polymer (o-ring) hardness testing, and thermal steady state testing. Of all of these tests, thermal steady-state testing is most crucial to ensure critical components for specific containers do not fail under an internal heat payload. This testing provides data for setting heat payload limits for different containers. The Pipe Over-pack Container (POC) is a vented carbon steel container with a removable lid designed for storing or transferring nuclear waste. Additionally, TA 55 has been tasked to manage and store all of its Transuranic (TRU) waste for the foreseeable future. Being able to place more material into a single container conserves the physical storage space available at TA 55. The Pipe Over pack Handling and Operations Manual requires each user to ensure that the maximum temperature of each component in the POC is not exceeded. Conducting a thermal steady-state test with a combustible waste matrix on the POC can benefit stakeholders on increasing the material limits of the container. The results of these measurements will establish new wattage limits to meet LANL's transportation requirements. The current LANL Transportation Safety Document (TSD) limits the amount of heat source plutonium to 10 grams per POC, corresponding to approximately 5 Watts of heat. The result of this test was provided to the Packaging and Transportation (OS-PT) group to evaluate new wattage limits that can satisfy the needs of TA 55, while maintaining a safe packaging configuration. (authors)
Determination of the nature and extent of contamination is a critical task in any Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) Facility Investigation. Nature and extent are typically defined through field investigation results. In some cases, however, physical and/or programmatic limitations on field work can impede efforts to define nature and extent based on field work alone. Both physical and programmatic restrictions affected efforts to characterize soil contamination at Waste Management Area C, on the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site. As a result, fate and transport modeling was undertaken to enhance the definition of the nature and extent of soil contamination at Waste Management Area C. (authors)
When dealing with radioactive waste management and its regulation, there are various national approaches. At the same time there is a growing tendency towards consideration of fundamental principles and standards thus forming the underlying basics in detailing the customized regulatory framework for specific applications. Dealing with legacy waste poses some particular problems as at the time of its production current safety principles were sometimes not well established. Considering today's standards this frequently requires remedial actions. Usually, this involves considerable effort and cost as well as radiation exposure for the involved personnel. Resolving legacy waste related problems not only benefits from an established regulatory framework but allows conclusions on how deal with legacy waste problems in general. The most important lessons learned from such operations might be how to prevent the production of legacy waste in the first place, thus avoiding further problems. By reflecting on practical applications from a number of countries the presentation is set to carve out the crucial recommendations from internationally recognized standards that give a substantial dividend in terms of not only time and budget but most of all safety and radiation exposure when properly implemented. The scope of the examples given ranges from dealing with legacy waste to avoiding it and includes recommendations towards essential features of best practice as seen from the perspective of an independent expert organization. (authors)
The Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), through support from the Department of Energy (DOE), is offering an Environmental Management (EM) Trainee-ship program that is shaped by the inherent challenges in EM-related missions and seeks to cultivate the technical foundation and practical skills required to address these challenges. The trainee-ship program includes multiple new fellows per year of support (MS and/or PhD students) and builds on the existing core robotics curricula while introducing specialized topics that ensure a thorough understanding of EM-relevant concerns. The trainee-ship incorporates supervised research opportunities with CMU faculty advisors and through collaborations with DOE national labs (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Savannah River National Laboratory). These research opportunities aim to produce specialists who have the skills required to envision, develop, and deploy autonomous and semi-autonomous systems that directly address DOE-EM needs. Specifically, the Robotics Institute identifies two specializations in addition to the three core areas that students must master in order to develop these kinds of systems: (1) a theory perspective of how to develop autonomous systems for applications in constrained environments, and (2) a practicum that challenges students to build systems that can operate in constrained EM-relevant environments. The DOE Trainee-ship in Robotics is formulated to provide a course of study that balances theory and practice with opportunities for field evaluation in collaboration with domain partners toward addressing relevant DOE-EM challenges through robotics. (authors)
In order to meet recycling criteria or to fulfil Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) for disposal there are many different management concepts for radioactive waste that can be applied. Which concept or set of concepts to use to optimize waste management depends on several factors, among them, the regulatory framework for recycling, the availability of a disposal facility and the acceptance criteria for disposal. The required pre-treatment and other pre-disposal activities should be carefully analyzed for each of the disposal options, as they are significant contributors to the total cost for managing the waste. Waste Acceptance Criteria are living documents that should be updated when regulatory framework changes as well as when new treatment methods and new packaging and barrier systems develop. Each waste treatment facility, has its own specific limitations and therefore its own WAC/CFA (conditions for acceptance), which depends both on the plant design and national legislation. Many waste owners, countries or licensees, have their preferred, and in some cases well established, waste routes for certain waste streams. In some countries, the full chain from waste treatment through to disposal of radioactive waste is in place, whilst other countries still are in the process of establishing their repository program. The worst case scenario for any licensee or waste owner is waste which is not possible to qualify for disposal. This can be due to poor or degraded waste containers, unspecified content in waste packages, or wastes that are not suitable for disposal in their current form. Such deficiencies result in expensive actions related to waste retrieval, new characterisation and/or costly investigations. The EDF Group has a fleet of waste treatment facilities and has, for decades, provided waste treatment services to domestic and international customers. This paper will discuss important waste owner considerations and EDF experiences related to the optimization of the waste management process. This will be from both a treatment and an end-state perspective. (authors)
The Middlesex Municipal Landfill (MML) Site is a former municipal landfill in Middlesex, New Jersey that operated between approximately 1940 and 1974; it is currently part of FUSRAP. Because of the lack of waste management regulations at the time, unregulated disposal of municipal and industrial waste occurred, including the acceptance of radioactively contaminated soils from the Middlesex Sampling Plant (MSP) that were used as cover material on the northwest side of the landfill. The radioactive MSP contaminated soils are described as 'FUSRAP-related materials.' In some areas of the landfill, FUSRAP-related material exists comingled with other non-FUSRAP radioactive waste (such as an antique radio-luminescent marker and concrete construction material with elevated gamma readings). However, in other areas of the landfill (specifically the street's right-of-way, called Pershing Avenue, which borders the landfill), non-FUSRAP material is isolated. Several lines of evidence and statistical tools were used to differentiate FUSRAP-related materials from non-FUSRAP-related material, including Z-Score analysis, Tukey-Kramer Honestly Significant Difference test, box-and-whisker plots, Wilcoxon Signed Rank test, and Principal Component Analysis. (authors)
Risk management is a tool that has been used by project managers for several decades to help manage scope, cost, and schedule baselines and to improve the likelihood of project success. More recently, the risk management process has been applied to the management of companies and corporations under the designation of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) where it is used to help ensure success in meeting strategic objectives. All of this focus on risk (related to events or conditions that may occur) is normally done without considering how issues (related to events or conditions that will or has occurred) may impact the allocation of resources required to address risks, and perhaps more importantly, how resources required to support normal work scope may be impacted. This paper suggests the use of an integrated risk and issue management process, where risks and issues are managed concurrently using similar but separate and distinct processes. The benefit of using an integrated process is the organization and centralization of data related to risks and issues that becomes available for decision makers to use in prioritizing and allocating limited resources between performing normal work, addressing risks, or resolving issues. Applying integrated risk and issue management to any activity will lead to better decisions, whether the activity is personal, project, program, or enterprise. (authors)
Report for NDEP
Report prepared for NDEP
This panel focused on challenges and lessons learned in radioactive waste packaging, transportation, compliance, and receipt for fabricators of radioactive waste packaging. World-wide companies are urged to participate. Participants provided their perspectives and suggestions on how to increase efficiencies through eliminating inconsistencies between specifications and other requirements to provide products at a reasonable cost and enhance communication to enable better service. Panelists with presentations: PACTEC (Bill Smart); Waste Packaging Strategy and Challenges at Whiteshell (Miles Smith); Challenges and Lessons Learned in Radwaste Packaging, Transportation, Compliance and Receipt (Dan Payne)