CURRENT DECOMMISSIONING PROJECTS

Table I shows the current decommissioning projects in the area under review, that is Europe but excluding the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). They are broken down by country (in alphabetical order) and type of nuclear facilities, namely:

— nuclear power plants,

— research reactors,

— other nuclear facilities.

The last item includes facilities, such as hot cells, laboratories, fuel production plants, reprocessing plants and plants for uranium ore production and process-ing. However, it cannot be guaranteed that every small plant currently under-going decommissioning is listed here. Furthermore, there are several purely military facilities that are not within the scope of this paper. The table shows that 50 nuclear power plants, 50 research reactors and approximately 50 other

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facilities are currently being decommissioned. Figure 1 shows how these pro-jects are distributed among individual countries. As expected, the larger coun-tries operating nuclear facilities, namely France, Germany and the United Kingdom, have the majority of projects.

However, focusing just on the numbers does not reveal anything about the magnitude of the decommissioning task. In order to assess the importance of the groups of facilities it is necessary to compare some typical and charac-teristic data for the types of facilities mentioned above. The data have been compiled for a nuclear power plant, a research reactor, a uranium mine, a fuel production plant and a reprocessing plant using the following criteria:

MERTIN and SCHIFFER

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TABLE I. DECOMMISSIONING PROJECTS IN EUROPE (EXCLUD-ING CIS)

Country Nuclear power plants Research Other nuclear

(incl. pilot and prototype plants) reactors facilities^a

Austria 1

Belgium 1 1 2

Bulgaria 1

Denmark 1 1

France 11 11 11

Germany 15 12 8

Greece 1

Hungary 1

Italy 4 4 4

Netherlands 1 1

Norway 1

Poland 2

Romania 1

Slovakia 1

Spain 1 4

Sweden 2 1

Switzerland 1 2

United Kingdom 12 10 17

Yugoslavia, Fed. Rep. of 1

Total 49 55 44

a Excluding uranium mining and milling facilities.

— mass or the volume of buildings and facilities to be decommissioned,

— activity inventory,

— indicator nuclides,

— quantity of radioactive waste expected.

The comparison is presented in Table II. The right hand side of the table shows the data for fuel facilities, of which there are only a few in Europe. Each needs special attention and plant specific solutions. They constitute only a small fraction of the total future decommissioning task. The left hand side of the table shows commercial power reactors and research reactors. Research reactors are usually of a special type and also need special technical attention. Due to their low mass, they constitute only a minor fraction, with commercial power plants representing the major part of the current decommissioning task.

Considering that nuclear power plants already dominate the decommis-sioning scene and will do so even more in the future, it is appropriate to con-centrate on the decommissioning of nuclear power plants in the following in order to assess the magnitude of the decommissioning task. Figure 2 shows all 49 nuclear power plant decommissioning projects, their electrical capacity (ver-tical axis) and their periods of operation (horizontal axis). The type of the plant, namely gas cooled reactor (GCR), boiling water reactor (BWR), pressurized

MAGNITUDE OF THE DECOMMISSIONING TASK 79

1 1

FIG. 1. Distribution of current decommissioning projects in Europe.

MERTIN and SCHIFFER80 TABLE II. COMPARISON OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES

Nuclear power plant Research reactor Uranium mine Fuel production plant Reprocessing plant

Mass/volume 200 000 Mg 25 Mg 500 million m^3a 65 000 Mg 120 000 Mg

Radioactive inventory 1 ¥10¹⁷Bq 7 ¥10¹⁰Bq 2 ¥10¹⁵Bq 5 ¥10¹¹ Bq 1 ¥10¹⁸Bq^b

Nuclide(s) ⁶⁰Co;¹³⁷Cs ⁶⁰Co;¹³³Ba ²²⁶Ra

234U;²³⁵U; ₁₃₇

Cs;²⁴¹Am

` ²³⁶U;²³⁸U

Quantity of

5000 Mg 5 Mg — 1000 Mg 5000 Mg

radioactive waste

Number of projects Many Many Few Few` Few

aOverburden + tailings.

bIncluding the leftovers of HAWC.

MAGNITUDE OF THE DECOMMISSIONING TASK 81

water reactor (PWR), heavy water reactor (HWR), fast breeder reactor (FBR) and high temperature reactor (HTR), is also given. While at first glance the pic-ture may appear quite complicated, it gives a good overview of the general sit-uation, the range of affected nuclear power plants in Europe and the current situation with respect to decommissioning. Five groups of decommissioning projects can be distinguished.

1.1. Group 1

Starting with the range up to 300 MW(e), in addition to prototypes and pilot plants of various designs, there is a large group of GCRs. These are basi-cally British first generation MAGNOX plants commissioned in the early 1960s (for instance, Berkeley and Hinkley Point).

FIG. 2. All 49 nuclear power plant decommissioning projects in Europe.

1960 197 0 1980 19901990 2000 250

500 750 1000 1250

P(MW )_e

Peri od of Operat i on

GCR BWR PWR HWR FBR HTR

Electrical Capacity

Period of Operation

1.2. Group 2

The next group consists of five PWRs of 440 MW(e). These are plants of Russian design, the so-called WWER-440, located at Greifswald, in Germany, and decommissioned in the wake of German reunification in 1990.

Incidentally, a large number of other plants were also decommissioned around 1990.

1.3. Group 3

In the 500 MW(e) range are GCRs commissioned around 1970. These include four French first generation plants (Bugey-1, Chinon-A3 and St.

Laurent A1 and A2), as well as Vandellós 1 in Spain.

1.4. Group 4

This group consists of three BWRs of more than 600 MW(e), which were commissioned after 1970: Barsebäck 1 (Sweden), Würgassen (Germany) and Caorso (Italy). Two of them, namely Barsebäck and Caorso, were shut down as a result of the moratoriums in Sweden and Italy. Würgassen was closed for economic reasons.

1.5. Group 5

Finally, there are the special cases with a capacity of more than 1000 MW, namely the Superphénix (France) and the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power plant, which was finally shut down because of an agreement with the German Government.

2. DECOMMISSIONING STRATEGIES FOR NUCLEAR POWER