UKAEA and NDA sign formal agreement to share knowledge and expertise, advancing the delivery of major decommissioning programmes.
- Memorandum of Understanding agreed to enable and encourage knowledge sharing, and improve best practice
- NDA's extensive experience will support the decommissioning of UKAEA's Joint European Torus (JET) with the development and implementation of safe, compliant, and efficient waste strategies, and with planning for decommissioning JET's auxiliary buildings at Culham Campus
- Solutions that are developed for UKAEA's unique challenges related to JET may have potential to be applied at NDA sites
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) have signed a formal agreement to share their knowledge and expertise, advancing the delivery of major decommissioning programmes.
The NDA is responsible for decommissioning the UK's 17 earliest nuclear sites - one of the largest and most complex nuclear decommissioning and remediation programmes in Europe.
UKAEA's decommissioning of the Joint European Torus (JET) will contribute invaluable insights to the development of future commercial fusion power plants and the planning of their whole lifecycle.
By embedding learnings from the NDA, the JET Decommissioning and Repurposing (JDR) team will be able to fast-track efficiencies and best practice into its planning and delivery processes.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formalises a working relationship between the two organisations which has existed for several years and reflects the number of shared challenges faced across the fusion and nuclear sectors.
Both UKAEA and NDA collaborate as partners through RAICo (the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Collaboration) and, ahead of the transition from plasma operations into shutdown, the JDR team sought advice from their NDA counterparts in areas such as waste disposal routes, processing facilities, and regulations.
Meanwhile, technologies and techniques which are developed for JET's unique circumstances may be adaptable for use in relevant parts of the NDA estate.
Zac Scott, Director of JET Decommissioning and Repurposing Programme at UKAEA:
"JDR is a world-leading programme in the fusion sector, but many of the issues we are facing are common in decommissioning. It is therefore important for the team at UKAEA to learn as we move into the next few years of delivery.
"Over the last year we have visited a number of NDA sites and met the teams delivering decommissioning across the country. Formalising our relationship with the NDA will help us to leverage their extensive knowledge and experience, along with research and development capabilities.
"At the same time, we will be able to share the lessons and solutions we have engineered for our own challenges which could be applied in the NDA estate. We certainly believe that this is a beneficial agreement for all stakeholders."
Clive Nixon, NDA Group Chief Nuclear Strategy Officer:
"The NDA group are at the forefront of nuclear decommissioning, we have one of the most experienced and skilled nuclear workforces in the world, developing pioneering solutions which have applications across the nuclear sector and beyond.
"The environment we work in is uniquely complex, so collaborating with UKAEA is extremely beneficial in terms of sharing expertise and knowledge to overcome some of the shared challenges we face.
"This agreement will enable us to build on the positive work we've done together to date to realise additional benefits including increased efficiencies for the taxpayer and accelerating delivery of our mission."
