DECOMMISSIONING NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

Process or Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plants



Process or Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plants

Introduction

The decommissioning of nuclear power plants is now and again referred to as nuclear decommissioning, to mark the difference between 'conventional' decommissioning and dismantling projects. The main dissimilarity to the dismantling of a 'conventional' facility is the potential presence of radioactive or fissile objects in a nuclear facility that requires special safety measures. Nuclear plants were considered for a life of about 30 years. Newer plants are designed for a 40 to 60-year operating life.

Decommissioning engages numerous administrative and technical actions. It encompasses all clean-up of radioactivity and progressive demolition of the plant. Once a facility is decommissioned, there should no longer be any danger of a radioactive misfortune or to any individuals travelling to it. After a facility has been taken out of service it permits its issue from regulatory command and relieves the licensee of his blame for its nuclear safety. (USNRC, 2010)

There are two types of waste high-level and low-level nuclear waste. There are two different types of high level waster high-level waste, the first is reactor fuel that is spent and is no longer useful to create electricity but it is still very hot and extremely radioactive. The second is the waste materials from the reprocessed fuel. This method is no longer practiced in the U.S. but they would reprocess the spent fuel and make it useable again, the down side was that there is waste from this process. Since high-level waste is so dangerous it must be handled with care and must be stored in a safe place away from people because it can be radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. There is no complete way to store this waste at this point the only way is to keep it stored at its original plant. They are trying to get permission to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. (USNRC, 2010)

Low-level waste is anything that has come in contact with radioactive material. These are simple items like shoe covers that come in contact with anything radioactive. These low-level items are to be stored in safe containers at the site till they are no longer radioactive or once there are enough items they are transported to a low-level waste facility where they can be stored until they are safe.

There are three modes to closed down a plant decon, safstor, and entomb. The first decon is the fasts way this is the entire dismantle of the plant when possible. This needs the plant to remove any radioactive waste out of the construction and one time the NRC has accepted the then will revoke the permit of this plant. With this procedure the plant should take in account the security of its employees and the security of the public. The second it safstor, this procedure is a slower procedure of decon which it makes certain the plant is protected while letting the radioactive material to ...