The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Significant milestone achieved in Berkeley Decommissioning

13 March 2008

 

A significant milestone in the decommissioning of Berkeley Nuclear Licensed Site was achieved at the end of 2007 when the site’s Caesium Removal Plant Engineering and Operations team set a new standard in wet waste retrieval and in addition met an NDA Performance Based Incentive.

The project was originally planned to be contracted out, but the in-house team believed they could finish the job faster and cheaper.

The work involved retrieving, removing and processing for disposal all of the highly contaminated aloxite from the Berkeley Power Station sand pressure filters. The project team set up to do the work spent six months planning, designing and installing a custom made retrieval and processing plant.

 

Aloxite was used at the site as the filter medium in the Sand Pressure Filters within the Caesium Removal Plant.

The team used recycled water to reduce the amount of contaminated liquid for disposal at the end of the project. Water was fed from a storage tank to the lance which picked up the aloxite and deposited it in a 200 litre drum. The water was drained off and reused until the job was completed.

In all a total of 85 drums of aloxite was generated and disposed of to the Low Level Waste Repository, near Drigg in West Cumbria.

Again the team used innovation to reduce the volume of waste. The original intention was to sprinkle the aloxite into three disposal containers – known as Third Height ISO containers – layering it with cement powder to help the grouting process.

However the team devised an innovative Best Practical Means solution to reduce the volume and managed to get all of it into just two disposal containers.

NDA’s David Warner, Magnox South Programme Manager covering Berkeley, said:

“This was an outstanding piece of work carried out by a number of teams on the site. The team who devised the system for retrieving the aloxite did so in a highly innovative way and their plans included the decommissioning of their own plant once the job was completed. On top of this through their approach to reducing the volume of waste, in the end they saved the NDA £36k.”