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While the UK nuclear industry met the required safety and security standards last year, there remains room for improvement, the country's Chief Nuclear Inspector Mark Foy said today in his first annual report on the sector's performance. He said three key areas of focus are the management of ageing facilities, conventional health and safety, and delivering a holistic approach to nuclear security.

Source: World Nuclear News
Date: Saturday, 12 October 2019
Original article: world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/UK-chief-nuclear-inspector-issues-performance-repo

Half of the last remaining radioactive fuel elements inside the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) have now been removed, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL) has announced. The elements had been jammed inside the reactor, and their removal has been a top priority for its decommissioning.

 

DFR, at Dounreay in northern Scotland, achieved criticality in November 1959 and in October 1962 became the world's first fast reactor to supply electricity to the grid. Developed at a time of uranium shortage, the reactor's core was surrounded by a blanket of natural uranium elements that, when exposed to radiation, would "breed" to create a new fuel, plutonium. The reactor, which was cooled by a liquid sodium-potassium alloy, achieved a maximum electrical power of 14.5 MWe and was shut down in 1977.

Most of the core fuel was removed from the reactor after its closure, but almost 1000 elements from the breeder zone were found to be swollen and jammed, and were left in place.

Recovery of the jammed elements, using purpose-built remotely-operated tools that reached down into the reactor to cut the breeder elements free and lift them into a flask for removal to the next stage of the process, began in 2017. Locally manufactured tooling has played a big part in the successful removal of half the remaining radioactive fuel inventory inside the reactor vessel, DSRL said. Local companies who manufactured mechanical equipment included JGC Engineering and Technical, Precision Machining Services, and Calder Engineering. Contec Design Services carried out electrical, control and instrumentation works.

Decommissioning the 60-year-old DFR is one of the most technically challenging projects in the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's (NDA's) estate, DSRL said.

DSRL is the site licence company responsible for the clean-up and demolition of the former centre of fast reactor research and development. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Cavendish Dounreay Partnership, a consortium of Cavendish Nuclear, Jacobs and AECOM, and is funded by NDA to deliver the site closure programme.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Source: World Nuclear News
Date: Saturday, 12 October 2019
Original article: world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Half-way-point-reached-in-Dounreay-reactor-fuel-re

UK-based Cavendish Nuclear has been awarded a contract by Japan Atomic Energy Agency to support decommissioning of the Monju prototype fast breeder reactor.

Cavendish said the contract builds on its experience of decommissioning fast reactors in the UK. The company will use the skills and experience gained during the decommissioning of the fast reactors at Dounreay, which are at an advanced stage of cleanout and dismantling.

The main elements of the contract with JAEA involve technical support for creating a lifetime plan for the decommissioning of Monju and a feasibility study into the treatment of sodium coolant from the Monju site.

Source: Nucnet
Date: Friday, 30 August 2019
Original article: nucnet.org/news/uk-s-cavendish-wins-japan-fbr-decommissioning-contract-8-4-2019

The UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have completed the transfer of around 700kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Dounreay, in northern Scotland, to the USA.

Source: NEI Magazine
Date: Wednesday, 08 May 2019
Original article: neimagazine.com/news/newsheu-removed-from-dounreay-to-usa-7195680

Nuvia (UK) announced on 29 August that it has secured a multi-million-pound contract for Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) to design, procure, install and commission plant and equipment to remove the residual NaK (Sodium-Potassium) remaining in the Dounreay Fast Reactor’s (DFR) complex piping network. DFR was built during the 1950s at a time when there was a worldwide shortage of uranium for electricity generation and became the world’s first fast reactor to provide electricity to a national grid.

Source: NEI Magazine
Date: Thursday, 30 August 2018
Original article: neimagazine.com/news/newsnuvia-wins-contract-to-remove-coolant-from-dounreay-fast-reactor-6728387

The UK, US, and EU have agreed to turn the UK's excess stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) into medical isotopes to be used in cancer treatment, according to a 31 March statement by the UK Prime Minister's Office. The agreement was concluded in the framework of the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

Source: NEI Magazine
Date: Tuesday, 05 April 2016
Original article: neimagazine.com/news/newsuranium-swap-agreed-by-uk-us-and-eu-4857081

The final shipment of radioative waste from the Dounreay nuclear site in Caithness to Belgium has been completed.

Source: NEI Magazine
Date: Wednesday, 07 January 2015
Original article: neimagazine.com/news/newsdounreay-ships-last-of-radwaste-to-belgium-4483744

Workers at Dounreay have destroyed one of the most hazardous legacies of Britain’s earliest atomic research: the liquid metal coolant from the primary circuit of Dounreay’s experimental fast reactor.

Source: NEI Magazine
Date: Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Original article: neimagazine.com/news/newsdounreay-completes-sodium-destruction




Fifty years ago, on 14 November 1959, the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) first went critical. Three years later it became the first fast reactor in the world to supply power to the grid. The future of the iconic white ‘dome’, currently being decommissioned, will be determined by the mid-2010.

Source: NEI Magazine
Date: Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Original article: neimagazine.com/news/newsdounreay-fast-reactor-celebrates-fifty-years

The Nuclear Energy Institute has had a mixed reaction to the US Department of Energy's 2010 proposed budget, which would begin on October 1.

Source: NEI Magazine
Date: Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Original article: neimagazine.com/news/newsdoe-fy2010-budget-request-receives-mixed-reaction-from-nei