France-based Veolia announced on 15 June that its Nuclear Solutions entity, through its subsidiary Kurion (Canada) has been selected to design, fabricate, and commission a major remote waste access and conditioning system at the Whiteshell Laboratories in Manitoba under a five-year agreement with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.
Veolia said the agreement builds on the successful deployment of similar technologies at Dounreay in the UK, and “represents a significant move into the Canadian market”. Veolia’s Nuclear Solutions will provide Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) with an integrated solution, which includes designing, fabricating and commissioning a system to remediate a range of intermediate-, and low-level waste from in-ground concrete standpipes and bunkers at the Whiteshell site, where decommissioning has been underway for more than a decade. The Whiteshell site has operated since 1963, and the current plan calls for decommissioning the entire site to be complete by 2024.
The system will use proven technologies to retrieve and sort the waste. The first two years will focus on the discrete design, fabrication and commissioning phases, while the following three years will involve operational support for the remediation system. Veolia’s Nuclear Solutions unites the operations of Veolia’s Kurion, Alaron and Asteralis businesses and is a leading player in nuclear facility clean-up and treatment of radioactive waste. It offers a comprehensive range of technologies, expertise and services. CNL is Canada’s leading nuclear science and technology organisation with expertise in physics, metallurgy, chemistry, biology and engineering.
