Decommissioning a nuclear power station isn’t quite as straightforward as emptying its contents and going home for the day. A vast amount of work is required to correctly retire a nuclear power station from service and restore the site.
Why Decommission a Nuclear Power Station?
Due to their hazardous nature, nuclear power stations have a licence to operate for a certain number of months or years, and once their proposed operational lifetime is up, the site must be decommissioned and a specific process followed. This is not only a legal but a moral requirement, as it could otherwise put the lives of people working there at risk.
What Is the Process of Decommissioning a Nuclear Power Station?
Once a nuclear power station’s licence has been terminated, decommissioning takes place and follows a very strict set of rules. The process involves decontaminating the site to cut down on any leftover radioactivity, removing any remaining nuclear fuel and all contaminated materials to be disposed of safely. The facility is then demolished or prepared for demolition in the future.
What Decommissioning Options Are There?
As suggested, not all sites are demolished on the spot after a licence to operate is terminated. Some are dismantled immediately, whereas others are used as storage – if the facility is deemed suitable – and a few sites are classified as safe, whereby any highly hazardous waste is disposed of and the site has been carefully monitored over time for remaining radioactivity.
Who Runs the Decommissioning Process?
When a nuclear power station has run its course, a specialist decommissioning company enters with a plan and carri-_es out the numerous stringent steps to legally and officially decommission the site.
Pioneering companies like RAICo https://raico.org are manipulating the latest technology to find ways of using robotics to work in hazardous situations such as in the decommissioning of certain facilities.
Not only have continuous developments in technology allowed us to understand how to safely decommission nuclear power stations, but they also now allow AI to reduce the danger to humans.
