The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority released a report Friday laying out 17 options for improving management of the United Kingdom’s so-called problematic radioactive waste.
Problematic wastes are defined as those that are unsuitable for existing processing facilities. The materials include: intermediate-level waste; radium/thorium-contaminated waste; bulk fines/particulates; reactive metals; and some 30 other materials. Some of these wastes have very small volumes, such as waste produced from batteries, solvents, and pyrochemical material.
Presently, NDA licensees and non-NDA estate radioactive waste generating organizations manage their own problematic wastes to fit their own needs, according to Friday’s report.
“If an estate wide strategy for problematic radioactive waste is developed in the near-term, there is a potential to not only save time and money on the treatment of these wastes, there is also a potential to remove these activities from the site critical path, bringing further significant savings and earlier solutions,” the report states.
The 17 options include not changing the current strategy; avoiding the creation of problematic radioactive wastes; promotion of timely characterization of waste; information exchange between waste producers; early collaboration; sorting problematic waste from bulk waste; transferring waste to an existing waste processing facility; use of a mobile characterization plant; use of a mobile treatment plant; better use of the supply chain to treat waste; a problematic waste treatment service; one or more new treatment facilities; use of robust containers; flexible treatment and packaging; international coordination; segregating and storage until treatment technology is available; and designing a standard treatment facility that can be built on multiple sites.
NDA plans to release a near-term opportunities paper in 2017 to more fully develop a plan.
