Page 166 - Beyond Decommissioning

Experience and lessons learned 147

owned by the NDA and operated by contractor Sellafield Ltd. As most of the plant has
now been decommissioned, uranium-based materials are foreseen to be stored onsite
until 2120. The other part of the Capenhurst site includes Urenco’s operating centri-
fuge uranium enrichment plant.
Urenco subsidiary Capenhurst Nuclear Services (CNS) has now taken ownership of
the NDA segment of the site, merging it with the adjacent Urenco-owned site to create
one nuclear licensed site. The transfer of 7 ha of land started in December 2011, when
the NDA signed agreements with Urenco. Transferring ownership of land on the site
required removal of Energy Act designations.
Operations formerly carried out by Sellafield Ltd. at Capenhurst were transferred to
CNS, including decommissioning and waste storage, and the processing of
by-product/legacy material from uranium enrichment.
The transfer is a component of the NDA’s asset use program which has transferred
to the private sector land from, for example, Wylfa, Oldbury, and Springfields sites
(WNN, 2012b).

6.1.11 Chernobyl Site, Ukraine (Leister et al., 2005)
The Chernobyl site comprises Units 1, 2, 3, and 4 (the one damaged by the 1986 acci-
dent), the uncompleted units 5 and 6, stores for radioactive solid and liquid waste, a
spent fuel storage facility and other infrastructure. The entire of Chernobyl site is
under decommissioning since final shutdown of the last operating unit in 2000.
The managing organization is also responsible for the shelter building being upgraded
to safe containment rendering ecologically safe the damaged Unit 4.
In consideration of the significant contamination remaining in and around the
Chernobyl site, unrestricted release is out of the question. Instead the area will be grad-
ually converted to a brownfield site including the following facilities bound to remain
in operation for the following 100 years:
– An interim storage facility for radioactive waste (solid and liquid waste stores; interim store
for long-lived low and intermediate level waste and for high-level waste; interim store of
radiologically contaminated metals; cooling ponds; and store for high-level waste);
– A facility for radioactive waste management (liquid radioactive waste treatment plant;
industrial complex for solid radioactive waste management; and areas for cutting and
decontamination of dismantled components); and
– A facility for the treatment of fuel-containing-materials inside the Unit 4 shelter building.
Already in operation are:
– A centralized storage facility for treatment and long-term storage of disused spent radioac-
tive sources; and
– Some near-surface disposal facilities.
In a few more years, the ongoing decommissioning project and the conversion of the
shelter building into ecologically safe systems inside the safe containment will make
some more activities possible, including:
– Ukraine’s National Center for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities;