Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Upon completion of the operations of a nuclear power plant, the owner/utility needs to begin a process that transitions from the operating state to a safe storage regime and eventually dismantling of the facility. The duration and activities of the transition stage, safe storage stage, and decommissioning stage are complex and costly. While these activities have been performed in other countries such as USA or UK, Canada has had only limited experience in the full suite of decommissioning activities. The existing methods and technologies do work but have been established for a regulatory regime different than Canada's. As such, there is significant potential in denveloping new methods and techniques that may reduce work time or costs or that are safer and more suitable for the Canadian regulatory and environmental requirements. This work partnered with UNENE and Ontario Power Generation, endeavours to improve the safety and economy of Canadian decommissioning activities by concentrating on technologies that improve site characterization, radioactive species capture to reduce dose, and management of the decontamination processes. One aspect of the work will explore new methods to detect low energy radioactive species that will improve our understanding of the risks involved in the decommissioning work thus providing better site characterization. Another aspect of the work will improve the capture efficiency of aerosol particles that may be produced during dismantling processes. A third aspect of the work will integrate current practises in Canada and world wide into establishing a management system of the processes. This system will allow the utility to select the optimal techniques for each individual environment within the plant. Collectively, the work will allow for a reduction in worker dose through control of secondary contamination and more efficient work processes.The results of the work will provide a direct benefit to a safe decommissioning of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station and other nuclear facilities in Canada. The students trained in this project will obtain employable skills to assist OPG and other companies as they return nuclear facilities to a retired state.