Nuclear Waste Retreatment / Retrieval – Concepts and Technologies

Abstract

Like other countries, Canada faces a major challenge in dealing with the nuclear legacy waste that has arisen from nuclear operations dating back to the 1940s. The liabilities consist of outdated and unused research facilities and buildings, a wide variety of buried and stored radioactive waste and affected lands.The current waste storage conditions do not fulfill in all cases the latest criteria for safe storage, nor do they allow the disposal to a final repository. Consequently the waste has to be retrieved safely, treated and repacked considering the current waste acceptance criteria.For the retrieval of the waste in various countries customized solutions have to be designed which consider the kind of waste, grade of waste and package degradation and current storage conditions. In this presentation, AREVA NP will lay out different examples of concepts and technologies for nuclear waste retrieval and retreatment.