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Home | Reference & Education | Environmental The nuclear legacy is the inheritance of the early nuclear development of 60 years ago when there was little regulation and a new science was forging ahead, largely without adequate controls. Legacy liabilities were largely created in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Priorities and regulatory requirements were very different then from today. At that time the focus in many countries was on the development and application of nuclear technology for weapons and civil purposes. The priorities were to develop new approaches and to drive forward new technology. The long term implications of operating practices were not clearly understood then and as a consequence we have limited information concerning a number of legacy facilities. In some cases there are few reliable design drawings. In these cases the biggest challenge is not how to tackle a particular task but to determine what exactly has to be dealt with. Today’s nuclear plants have rigorous safety systems and procedures built into them and the disposal of nuclear waste is an ongoing procedure, not something to be cleared up years later. The decommissioning of an AGR or PWR reactor will be a wholly different task from decommissioning the earlier generation of Russian RBMK or British Magnox reactors. Modern nuclear plants, such as AGRs and PWRs have been designed with clean-up in mind and can be decommissioned much more easily. Of the 442 nuclear power reactors in the world, 88 have been in operation for 30 to 40 years, 200 for 20 to 30 years, 109 for 10 to 20 years and 45 for less than ten years. This means that 209 power reactors, about two-thirds of them, are expected to exceed their original 30 year design lifetime in ten years time. Until recently there was relatively little experience in the conduct of decommissioning of aged nuclear plants and the nuclear industry, under the umbrella of the IAEA, is engaged in the first such exercises and the documentation and recording of the procedures for future use. The first decommissionings were carried out on a theoretical basis but as the numbers of plants closed increases, a corpus of solid experience is being assembled and dissembled for global application. At present, several large facilities are undergoing decommissioning in a number of countries including: Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US, and more are scheduled for decommissioning as they approach the end of their lifetime in the Russian Federation, or as a result of their early shutdown in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia and Sweden for safety reasons or concerns. Article Source: http://www.articlewheel.com
Author - Euan Blauvelt - Director of Research, www.absenergyresearch.com"> ABS Energy Research ABS Energy Research. ABS Energy Research publishes research on the www.absenergyresearch.com/energy-market-research-reports/nuclear-energy-market-research"> nuclear energy industry which it has been following closely since its foundation 15 years ago.
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