9 Apr (NucNet): The UK nuclear regulator’s budget for 2014-2015 is 62.7 million pounds (GBP) (104 million US dollars, 76 million euros), GBP five million of which will go towards the “national priority” of hazard reduction and remediation at the Sellafield nuclear site in northwest England, a report shows.
In its annual plan, which shows a budget of GBP 16.7 million for civilian nuclear reactors and GBP 3.3 million for the decommissioning of fuel and waste, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) said it will develop a strategy to support Sellafield Ltd in addressing the many years of “slower than ideal progress” to address hazard reduction.
ONR said it will support the delivery by site licensee Sellafield Ltd of its high hazard and risk remediation programmes, focusing on securing “accelerated, safe and secure retrievals” from legacy ponds and silos facilities.
The Sellafield site comprises of a wide range of nuclear facilities, including redundant facilities associated with early defence work, as well as operating facilities associated with the Magnox reprocessing programme, the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp), the Sellafield mixed oxide (MOX) fuel plant and a range of waste treatment plants.
In the annual plan, the ONR also said it will complete Step 2 of the generic design assessment (GDA) of the Hitachi-GE Advanced Boiling Water Reactor by August 2014. Step 2 is a review of the “fundamental acceptability” of the proposed reactor design concept within the UK regulatory regime. The aim is to identify any fundamental design aspects or safety shortfalls that could prevent the design from being licensed in the UK. It also provides a basis for planning subsequent assessment.
Horizon Nuclear Power, a subsidiary of Hitachi, is planning to use the ABWR technology at two nuclear sites, Wylfa in north Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.
The ONR will also restart work on the GDA of the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design. Westinghouse was issued with an interim design acceptance confirmation (DAC) by the ONR and an interim statement of design acceptability (SoDA) by the Environment Agency in 2011.
But Westinghouse must complete work on the GDA issues satisfactorily before it can be issued with the final DAC and Soda. The plan did not say what issues remained outstanding.
In January 2014, Westinghouse parent company Toshiba reached an agreement in principle with GDF Suez of France and Iberdrola of Spain to take a 60 percent stake in NuGeneration Limited (NuGen), the UK-based nuclear energy company which plans to build three Westinghouse nuclear reactors at the Moorside site in northwest England.
The annual plan is online:
www.onr.org.uk/documents/2014/onr-annual-plan-14-15.pdf
