MAIN CONFERENCE DAY TWO | 30 JUNE 2011
8:15 Registration and Coffee
9:00 Opening Remarks from the Chair
Gary Bolton
Senior Research Technologist
NATIONAL NUCLEAR LABORATORY, UK
9:10 Innovative Technologies for Condition Monitoring of Waste Containers
Gary Bolton
Senior Research Technologist
NATIONAL NUCLEAR LABORATORY
- Importing technologies from the oil and gas industries
- the SMART corrosion coupon concept
- application of electrical field measurement for corrosion monitoring
- In situ monitoring from within waste packages
- battery-less and wireless technique for enabling embedded sensors
- impact on the letter of compliance process
- development of a proof-of-concept ILW waste package demonstrator with battery-less and wireless internal sensing
9:50 Site-Specific Considerations for Legacy Waste and New Build Waste
- Managing on-site treatment of legacy waste
- waste reconditioning to provide packaged waste that is immobile, stable and of minimal volume
- what systems are there to facilitate handling of spent fuel post-storage?
- conditioning of highly active radioactive liquids
- Planning for disposal into a repository
- what level of handling will be involved in removing packages for final disposal?
- how accurate can projections for future state of packages be?
- geo-political considerations for a long-term disposal strategy
10:30 Morning Refreshments
11:00 Improving Waste and Spent Fuel Storage Safety: The ENISS Response to the WENRA Safety Reference Levels
Bernd Lorenz
Senior Manager, ENISS Initiative, FORATOM
- WENRA issued Safety Reference Levels (SRLs) for harmonizing the safety of storage in Europe
- ENISS as one of the major stakeholders carefully analysed the SRLs with respect to their applicability and the gain for safety
- Between WENRA and ENISS a fair and open exchange of opinions could be developed
- Industry together with national authorities performed benchmark excercises
- The SRLs proved to be applicable, especially for spent fuel storage facilities
- The benchmark revealed some potential for improvement of the SRLs
- At the end of this process optimized SRLs can now be issued and applied to the benefit of all parties involved
- Further work will be done at the area of decommissioning in the near future, hopefully with similar results
- As one consequence from the WENRA/ENISS work ENISS is now active as observer in the IAEA WASSC, NUSSC and RASSC
11:40 PANEL DISCUSSION: Tackling Interim Storage as Part of New Build: Contracts, Licensing and Site Selection
Jan Coufal
Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities Project Manager
CEZ GROUP
Senior Representative,
Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
U.S. NRC
- Regulation of new build and establishment of waste management programmes
- how much focus should a new build program have on interim storage?
- what support can be offered to ensure standards are met?
- what countries are most active in setting up waste management programmes?
- Site-licensing conditions
- what scope is there for revision of site licensing conditions as defined by Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII)?
- variation on interpretation of IAEA standards from country-to-country and site-to-site
- The effect of location on achieving compliance with nuclear site licensing conditions
- comparison of above ground and in-ground structures
- practicality and cost effectiveness
- what criteria are used to make the final decision on site selection?
- Management of high level waste in the US - a regulatory perspective
- extended storage and transportation
- ultimate disposal
- reprocessing
12:20 Networking Lunch
1:50 The Potential Impact of Thermal Power Uprating on a Spent Fuel Interim Storage Capacity
Vusi Twala
Corporate Specialist - Used Fuel
ESKOM HOLDINGS
- Plan for a 10% thermal power uprate for Koeberg reactor units
- strategy for increasing new-fuel reload sizes
- strategy for alleviating anticipated congestion in spent fuel storage pools
- Overview of previous pool capacity expansion project
- licensing and installation of high-density racks
- technical aspects: structural design, criticality evaluation, spent fuel pool cooling
- licensing of four dry storage casks
- Project for transient interim storage facility installation
- options considered for storage capacity expansion
- selection of a preferred storage option
- plans for on-site and off-site storage facilities
2:30 Overcoming Logistical Challenges in the Preparation and Operation of a Spent fuel Storage Facility
Jan Coufal
Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facilities Project Manager
CEZ GROUP
- Making the preparation works for the storage in 2002 with plans to be put into trial operation in 2014.
- Changing the supplier of the fuel and its effect on the supply chain
- Dealing with the challenge to shorten the preparation and implementation of storage in half the planned time
- What prospective maintenance issues were considered when the Temelin Spent Fuel Storage Facility was put into trial operation in September 2010?
3:10 Afternoon Refreshments
3:40 Developing a Strategy for the Transport of Spent Fuel to a Centralised Facility
Javier Fernandez-Lopez
HLW Engineering Dept., ENRESA
- Current status of Spanish spent fuel management strategies
- wet and dry interim storage processes and associated transport issues
- The ATC: The Spanish Centralised Interim Storage solution for spent fuel
- Transport and storage issues that have to be jointly considered from interim storage installations to the ATC
- regulation guiding, thermal, shielding and criticality
4:20 Material Science Requirements for Interim Storage Facilities
Fredrik Glasser
Professor of Chemistry
UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN
- Achieving maximum life spans for facilities using conservative designs and conventional materials
- making concrete a major component to reduce material incompatibility and satisfy structural aspects
- placing liquid and particulates in a cement conditioned concrete construction
- key properties of portland cement- based compositions reviewed in the context of nuclear waste containment
- limitations due to incompatibility of glass waste forms with Portland cement
- Why is enhancing concrete durability such an important component of the site selection process?
- assessing durability of composite materials and waste-cement-concrete aggregate interactions
- taking into account the behaviour of steel
- Incorporating inspection and repair into site design and operational planning
- Potential safety benefits of increasing research on the long term performance of existing underground concrete structures
5:00 Closing Remarks form the Chair and Close of Conference
* Subject to final confirmation