The First Step in the Final Shutdown of UP1 Plant [electronic resource] : Rinsing with Chemical Reagents
- Published:
- Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy, 2002.
- Physical Description:
- 8 pages : digital, PDF file
- Additional Creators:
- United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Access Online
- Restrictions on Access:
- Free-to-read Unrestricted online access
- Summary:
- The COGEMA UP1 reprocessing plant commissioned at Marcoule, France in 1958 handled roughly 20,000 metric tons of fuel from gas-cooled and research reactors. The commercial reprocessing activities of the UP1 plant ended in December 1997. CODEM , a joint venture created by the former users of the UP1 plant, including the utility Electricite de France (EDF), the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and COGEMA, was established to fund and supervise decommissioning of the plant. COGEMA was selected as the industrial operator of the decommissioning project, which is scheduled to span a period of about 40 years. COGEMA, with its CODEM partners, had made the decision to proceed to a ''Final Shutdown'' of the plant within a few years after the end of commercial operation. Final shutdown is intended to remove remaining fissile matter and highly radioactive materials, as well as some equipment, from the plant to ease the plant monitoring requirements compared with those applied when the plant was in operation. A two-step approach has been devised, including first the rinsing of the equipment with selected reagents in order to decrease the radiation exposure rate and contamination risk enough to allow further mechanical decontamination operations, such as high-pressure water scrubbing and equipment cutting. The reagents to be used and the methods employed to optimize their use in terms of quantities and sequence of use were selected by leveraging available experience, and by setting up a large-scale R&D program to test reagents both for general decontamination and for hot spots. This program also included treatment of the decontamination waste to demonstrate that this waste could be made compatible with solidification facilities of the UP1 plant, i. e., vitrification in the AVM facility and bituminization. The R&D results are described, as well as the initial results of plant decontamination.
- Report Numbers:
- E 1.99:828263
- Subject(s):
- Other Subject(s):
- Note:
- Published through SciTech Connect.
02/25/2002.
Waste Management 2002 Symposium, Tucson, AZ (US), 02/24/2002--02/28/2002.
Vignau, B.; Moulin, J.-P.; Hubert, N.; Chany, P.; Oriol, C.; Huot, M.
SGN, 1, rue des Herons, Montigny-le-Bretonneux, 78182 Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines Cedex (FR)
COGEMA, Establissement de Marcoule BP 170, 30206 Bagnols sur Ceze Cedex (FR)
CODEM, Chateau de Paniscoule, ZA de l'Euze, 30200 Bagnols sur Ceze (FR)
Sponsor not identified (US)
View MARC record | catkey: 14092655