Nukem Nuclear Technologies has completed a clean-up project at Millstone 1 in the USA, following decommissioning. The project got underway with onsite activities in late January and was completed in early July 2000.
The scope of the work included component preparation for volume reduction, waste characterisation and classification, volume reduction processing and packaging and transportation for disposal of the irradiated material inventory comprising 83 control rod blades, 9 local power range monitors and 332 stellite bearings. Other miscellaneous materials and underwater vacuum filters were also part of the scope, with the inventory shipped for disposal using five TN-RAM and one 8-120 casks. Nukem claims that its TN-RAM cask is the only cask specifically designed and licenced to transport highly irradiated hardware because of its large volume and high shielding.
Nukem was recently awarded a fuel pool cleanout project at Energy Northwest’s Columbia station, near Richmond. The company will use remotely-operated processing equipment to compact and shear the waste, which comprises 40 control rod blades, 47 local power range monitors, four fuel channels, seven startup sources and other miscellaneous waste.
