Bechtel and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy on Wednesday announced a partnership to provide decommissioning services for nuclear power plants in Germany and Sweden.
In a joint press release, the two companies’ highlighted their decades of experience in decommissioning operations, covering advance planning, licensing, project development and management, dismantlement, demolition, waste management, and site closeout.
“Our companies are committed to safety and efficiency across the entire nuclear plant lifecycle,” James Taylor, general manager of Bechtel’s Environmental business, said in a press release. “Bechtel has performed work from design to dismantlement for more than 150 nuclear plants over the last 60 years. This experience will be critical to delivering quality as Germany and Sweden move forward.”
Bechtel’s work in the government and commercial spheres includes construction of the Waste Treatment Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, decommissioning of Three Mile Island Unit 3 in New York state, and partnering in the design of the safe confinement arch placed over the damaged Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine.
The GE-Bechtel partnership has not yet secured contracts, but has “significant interest” in a number of opportunities, GE Hitachi spokesman Jonathan Mark said by email. He did not elaborate.
Germany is still operating eight of its 17 nuclear power reactors, but plans to close the remaining facilities by 2022, according to the World Nuclear Association. The price tag for decommissioning the 17 reactors, along with six additional commercial units, has been forecast at 48 billion euros.
Sweden has nine power reactors, with one already shut down and another three due for decommissioning by 2020, WNA said. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has already been contracted to support dismantlement of Units 1 and 2 at the Oskarshamn plant. That contract will remain separate from the new partnership, Mark said.
Bechtel and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy could expand their partnership into additional markets “provided the business conditions are conducive to this approach,” Mark stated.
Sweden’s Land and Environment Court has scheduled its main hearing in September on permit applications for a proposed spent nuclear fuel repository and nearby encapsulation facility.
”This is a welcome decision. The environmental assessment is an important step in our task to deal with all the radioactive waste from nuclear power plants in Sweden in a safe way. We submitted our application in 2011 and we are ready to have it examined by the court,” Christopher Eckerberg, president of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co. (SKB), said in a press release Monday.
The underground repository would be built at the village of Forsmark, within the east coast municipality of Östhammar, while the plant to encapsulate the fuel in copper and cast iron would be located in the nearby municipality of Oskarshamn.
The disposal method, which SKB calls KBS-3, involves placing fuel pellets within copper canisters that are stored underground in Bentonite clay within bedrock.
Sweden’s spent fuel is currently held in temporary storage at Oskarshamn.
SKB expects to submit its proposal for the hearing to the court by April 3, laying out the order in which it wants to address issues related to the project and how much time it will need for each, licensing project manager Helene Åhsberg said in a Q&A posted Friday on the company website. Hearings could be held in Stockholm, Oskarshamn, and Östhammar, she said. The court generally has two months to issue a ruling, but in this case would offer an opinion to the government. The Swedish government can prohibit the project, and the two municipalities also have veto authority.
The Australian government said Monday it has begun the review process for two recently volunteered locations in South Australia for its National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.
Two landowners near the rural town of Kimba, on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, in January offered use of their properties for the facility, according to a press release from Matthew Canavan, minister for resources and Northern Australia. Local residents now have 90 days to discuss the proposed sites to determine if they will advance to actual government consideration.
“A majority of neighbours, the [Kimba Council] and others, have already told us they support these nominations being taken forward for consultation, which is why they have progressed to this early stage,” Canavan said in prepared comments. “There is sufficient community support to begin this consultation. The next step is to assess if that support is broad enough to move to a site-specific assessment.”
The community will also have an opportunity to vote on the proposals in a postal polling conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission.
The national Department of Industry, Innovation, and Science will open an office this week in Kimba to provide information on the proposals. It will be open two days per week. Specialists from Geoscience Australia and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization are also readying to offer assistance during the 90-day consultation, the release says.
The nearly 100-acre facility would be used for permanent storage of low-level radioactive waste and temporary storage of intermediate-level waste. Australia holds roughly 4,250 cubic meters of low-level waste and 656 cubic meters of intermediate-level waste, left by production and use of nuclear medicine, research reactor operations, and other activities.
An extensive site selection process in recent years left only one location still in consideration prior to the latest offers: Wallerberdina Station, in Barndioota, South Australia. That property has made it to a second-phase evaluation, including technical studies.
