The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on Wednesday named former Fairfield Energy CEO David Peattie as its new chief executive officer. As of Tuesday he leads the agency’s decommissioning and cleanup of 17 legacy nuclear sites across the United Kingdom.
With the blessing of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary of State Greg Clark, the NDA Board approved the appointment.
At Fairfield Energy, Peattie oversaw management of North Sea assets, including activities related to the Dunlin Alpha Platform decommissioning, according to the NDA announcement.
“The NDA, its subsidiaries and Site Licence Companies, have a highly-skilled and focused workforce, and I look forward to working with them to drive forward progress on clearing our sites for future generations,” Peattie said in a statement.
Peattie replaces outgoing CEO John Clarke, a 30-year nuclear sector veteran who spent five years as NDA CEO. Peattie started his career in the energy sector in 1979 as a petroleum engineer at British Petroleum, and subsequently served in a number of roles in technical, commercial, and senior management positions during his 33 years at the company.
Also this week, NDA Chairman Stephen Henwood stepped down from his post on Tuesday, after a nine-year run. Former NDA Non-Executive Director Tom Smith is taking Hendwood’s spot.
NDA employs more than 200 staff members. For 2016-17, the agency had a total budget of £3.2 billion.
U.K. NDA Installs Massive Silo Emptying Plant at Sellafield
A £100 million ($124 million), 350-metric-ton silo emptying plant is now in place at the Sellafield nuclear site, the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced Tuesday.
The system will be used to extract radioactive waste from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo, a storage facility built in the 1960s that is known as one of the most hazardous buildings in western Europe. The facility contains 10,000 cubic meters of intermediate-level waste originating from the U.K.’s commercial nuclear industry. The silo accepted waste from U.K. nuclear stations until it closed in June 2000.
“This is an enormous step forward for the Sellafield decommissioning programme,” NDA Chief Executive John Clarke said in a statement. “It is the culmination of 20 years of work to get to the position where we’ve got the first machine in place that will retrieve waste from these silos.”
After the material is removed from the silo, it will be packaged into nuclear skips and transported to modern waste stores at Sellafield ahead of development of the U.K.’s Geological Disposal Facility. The machines will start operations in 2018, according to the announcement, and will take about 20 to 25 years to complete the material removal.
