Scottish Nuclear Waste Storage Facility Moves Forward

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--AMEC Foster Wheeler PLC (NYSE:AMFW) (London, England) has won the design contract for a nuclear waste storage facility at the former Dounreay nuclear power site in Scotland.

The 12-month contract, awarded by Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) (Dounreay, Scotland), will see the company provide detailed design, safety case and environmental assessments of the facility, which will be used to hold encapsulated waste from the ongoing decommissioning activities on the Dounreay site. The high- level waste storage facility will cost approximately $33 million. It will form an extension to the existing Dounreay cementation plant, which uses a remotely-operated process to condition and immobilize higher activity liquid waste for long- term storage by mixing it with cement in steel drums.

The new facility will provide more storage space for 500-litre waste drums and a drum inspection area. It is expected to be completed by early 2018.

"The decommissioning of the Dounreay site is an extremely demanding and complex process and one that is well suited to the skills we have in AMEC Foster Wheeler," explained Leigh Wakefield, business unit director for the company's Clean Energy business unit. "The design of this state-of-the-art facility is a key element in the decommissioning strategy of the site and one that we are looking forward to delivering for this important client."

In 1954, Dounreay became the U.K.'s centre for the research and testing of fast breeder reactors (FBR) and submarine reactors. Since then, three nuclear reactors were built there by the former Atomic Energy Authority, two of which were FBRs. The third was a thermal research reactor used to test materials for the programme. The last reactor was shut down in 1994, while the U.K. government stopped the commercial reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and waste in 1998.

Earlier this year, AMEC Foster Wheeler was part of a consortium that had a potential £22 billion ($33 billion) contract to clean up the Sellafield nuclear site cancelled by the U.K. government. Following a report from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) that cited delays, mismanagement and cost overruns, the contract held by consortium Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) for six years was pulled. For additional information, see January 15, 2015, article - U.K. Scraps Sellafield Nuclear Contract.

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