Babcock, which until 2008 ran the Windscale site as UKAEA Ltd, has formally handed over to the Licence Company Sellafield Ltd, with whom Babcock has been working for nearly three years. The co-operative effort was designed to provide the management and other structures to take forward the site programme of decommissioning and refurbishment projects. The Windscale programme will now be scaled down, allowing re-allocation of resource to other higher hazard projects.
With the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)’s decision to integrate the Windscale site with the Sellafield site in 2008, Sellafield Ltd became the licence holder. A number of Babcock senior personnel were embedded in key positions within the Windscale site management team under a Resource Enhancement Contract.
Under the contract Babcock, building on the work it started as the site licence company, has assisted in full site management, including the decommissioning programme and refurbishment of the strategically important Post Irradiation Examination (PIE) facility. The company has contributed to ensuring site licence and legislation compliance as well as, primarily, delivering project performance. Key projects have related to the Windscale Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (WAGR) decommissioning (a European demonstration project for safe and cost-effective nuclear reactor decommissioning), and preparation of the Pile 1 and 2 reactors for decommissioning, with Babcock providing the senior project manager for both projects.
Achievements in the last 3 years have included completion of campaign 9, the latest and one of the most technically challenging phases in the WAGR decommissioning programme (completing the removal of the steel pressure vessel which had housed the reactor core). A further achievement has been the first photographic survey within the Pile 1 reactor core since the 1957 fire. The team also developed a prototype of the machine which will retrieve the nuclear material remaining within the fire-damaged reactor, as well as developing a waste management strategy. One innovative development here has been the production of a decommissioning safety case in a ground-breaking interactive electronic format, with significant advantages to users.
In addition to its management role, Babcock also provides a number of other services and technical expertise to the Windscale site, including the development of polymer waste encapsulation methods to encapsulate fuels and isotopes waste from the decommissioning of the Pile 1 and 2, and trials are on-going.
As a result of the progress that has now been made, while the final decommissioning phases of WAGR continue in preparation for possible demolition, the Pile reactors can now move into a surveillance and maintenance period. This allows deferral of the decommissioning project and re-allocation of resource to address other high priority issues on the Sellafield site.
Decommissioning activities started at Windscale in the mid 1980s. Windscale is expected to be a useable brownfield site by around 2050.