Rad waste conditioning work package
Orano offers consulting services to support the development of interim storage and/or disposal rad waste conditioning solution
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Several types of nuclear waste are now the subject of an internationally recognized technological treatment and packaging solution (compaction of used fuel structure components, vitrification of waste coming from used fuel recycling, cementing of dismantling and operation waste).
Nevertheless, these solutions do not cover, by far, the entire waste natures likely to be produced by a nuclear facility.
A waste producer has often to choose a treatment process and a conditioning solution while their feasibility and adaptability to physical and chemical nature of the waste and to the quantities to be treated, packed, transported and stored are not yet fully demonstrated. Moreover, the solution cost or the regulation evolution about transport and storage makes the decision harder.
Orano, due to its activities in the fuel cycle domain, has produced an important nuclear waste variety for more than forty years, and operates for its own benefit a lot of proven waste treatments and conditioning processes.
Aware that each situation is specific, Orano, as solution designer, performs scenario studies based on its rich feedback and adapts its processes and packages according to the waste quantity and its physical and chemical nature.
The development of the storage and/or disposal package solution which has been specifically selected for one waste type includes different kinds of work (R&D process, definition file of waste package, transportability control, demonstration of the package acceptability regarding national and international safety standards and of the acceptability for the selected disposal).
Orano offers to nuclear waste producers to take advantage of its experience by guiding them in the establishment and deployment of the conditioning solution adapted to their waste and, when requested, by taking charge of a part or the totality of the studies to be performed.
- Solutions studied and technologically and economically adapted to the nature of each waste family and to its inventory
- For each step preceding the conditioning of the waste, a panel of proven solutions which is associated to an innovation range allowing to cover all the radioactivity families and a large array of physical and chemical characteristics
- Treatments which lead to package adapted to storage and/or to transport and disposal depending on the requirements
The Orano Decommissioning and Waste Strategic Planning Department (DPS2D) is responsible for the strategic project management of all projects related to End-of-Cycle Operations. It consolidates and develops safe and efficient waste management routes by ensuring the overall consistency of management solutions and systems, in order to achieve a global route optimized from a technical and economic point of view. As such, DPS2D is responsible of Work Packages for projects requiring the development of a conditioning solution.
Endowed with varied and specialized human resources (waste expertise, R&D, innovation, finance, project management), it also relies on all the operational departments of the Orano group.
Thus, it is all the expertise deployed by Orano to develop its own waste treatment and packing solutions that is offered to its clients.
- Definition of R&D programs for packages and treatment processes adapted to each waste inventory
- Cost estimation of development, investment and operating (treatment, packing, storage, transport, disposal)
- Writing or verification of waste package definition files
- Qualification of the chosen solution
- Assistance for package acceptance by the national safety authority and/or by the disposal center
- Demonstration of the package acceptability for the selected disposal
- Control of package transportability and means of transport definition (including nuclear transport casks)