Decontamination and Decommissioning

The Idaho National Laboratory Site has long played an essential part in American nuclear reactor research and development activities. It is also a cornerstone of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. The Naval Reactors Facility (NRF) on the INL Site, located in southeastern Idaho, was home to three historic land-based naval reactor prototypes—the Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse (S1W) prototype, the Aircraft Carrier 1st Generation Westinghouse (A1W) prototype, and the Submarine 5th Generation General Electric (S5G) prototype—that facilitated critical training for naval personnel and testing that helped develop the U.S. Navy’s nuclear fleet.

Starting in 1966, the Western New York Nuclear Service Center (WNYNSC)—comprising 3,300 acres of land in the town of Ashford, N.Y.—was used for the commercial reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Reprocessing was conducted in the Main Plant Process Building (MPPB) until 1972 when commercial operations ceased and were never resumed. Now, 50 years later, modern 3D modeling technology is ensuring that the MPPB can be demolished in a safe and effective manner, minimizing risk to the environment and the workers.

Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS), a subsidiary of the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), has adopted laser cutting as the primary technology for the removal of the reactor core of Dragon, a 20-MWt prototype high-temperature, helium-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor at Winfrith in Dorset, England. In addition, NRS is conducting trials to establish if laser cutting will be a viable technology for the decommissioning of the Trawsfynydd reactor, a first-generation Magnox reactor (CO₂ cooled, graphite moderated) situated in the Snowdonia National Park in Wales.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said the Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) has recycled more than 2,100 tons of noncontaminated metal debris since 2022 as it works to demolish three legacy Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program prototypes at the Idaho National Laboratory Site, saving taxpayers nearly $2 million in disposal costs while advancing the project’s environmental goals.

A new imaging technology is being used on decommissioned reactors at the Department of Energy's Hanford Site in Washington state, revealing a detailed look inside the sealed enclosures.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and its cleanup contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) completed the on-time removal of the Main Plant Process Building at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in New York. Located 35 miles south of Buffalo, the 150-acre WVDP site is home to the only commercial spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to operate in the United States.

All four steam generators at Germany’s Unterweser nuclear power plant have been removed from the reactor building, plant owner PreussenElektra has announced. The single-unit pressurized water reactor was shut down in 2011 as part of Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear energy. Decommissioning and dismantlement of the reactor began soon after PreussenElektra was granted a permit for the work in February 2018.

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded NorthStar Group Services subsidiary NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services a firm-fixed-price contract worth $536,749,731 for the dismantling, recycling, and disposal of the historic USS Enterprise (now also known as the ex-Enterprise), the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The work will be performed in Mobile, Ala., and is expected to be completed by November 2029.

A milestone was reached by Idaho Cleanup Project crews in the deactivation and demolition of the defueled Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse (S1W) naval nuclear propulsion prototype reactor plant, which had once served as a training ground for about 14,000 U.S. Navy submariners and plant operators.

The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.

NorthStar Group Services has announced that it has closed on an agreement to acquire ownership of the Vallecitos Nuclear Center from GE Vernova and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy for NorthStar's nuclear decontamination, decommissioning, and environmental site restoration.

A virtual meeting between representatives of the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in New York and the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) in Tennessee was held recently to share lessons learned from the ongoing demolition of West Valley’s main plant process building.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has updated its guidance for nuclear power plant owners and operators in estimating the cost of decommissioning their reactors. Licensed power reactor operators are required under NRC regulations to annually adjust the estimated costs (in current year U.S. dollars) of decommissioning their plants to ensure that adequate funds are available when needed.

Work has started at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to deactivate, decommission, and remove the Ion Beam Facility, which played a role in research and experiments that helped develop the nation’s nuclear arsenal during the 1950s and 1960s.

Work to prepare Hanford’s Reduction Oxide Plant (REDOX) for decontamination and demolition has been put on hold as the Department of Energy shifts focus to higher-priority work at the nuclear site in Washington state.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will soon, for the first time, begin using drones to internally inspect radioactive liquid waste tanks at the department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Inspections were previously done using magnetic wall-crawling robots.

Constellation Energy has announced that it will seek to restart Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania as part of an agreement with Microsoft to power that company’s data centers. Given the growing interest by tech companies in using clean, reliable nuclear power to meet their growing energy demands, the September 20 announcement to reopen TMI-1, which was shut down and defueled in 2019, was not a huge surprise.

The pursuit of returning two of the country’s retired nuclear plants into service is not only unusual—it is unprecedented and promises to make history.

That’s according to a piece coauthored by former assistant secretary for nuclear energy Katy Huff in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists regarding plans from Holtec and Constellation to restart Michigan’s Palisades plant and Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit 1, respectively.

Chantilly, Va.-based Amentum has been awarded a 7-year contract estimated to be worth €5.5 million (about $6 million) to consult on the dismantling of steam drum separators in Units 1 and 2 of Lithuania’s Ignalina nuclear power plant. Once the country’s largest generator of electricity, Ignalina was permanently shut down in 2009 and the plant’s two RBMK-1500 reactors are expected to be fully decommissioned by 2038.

The U.S. Navy’s Surface Ship Support Barge, converted in the 1960s from a WWII T2 tanker to a support barge to accept spent nuclear fuel during the refueling of nuclear aircraft carriers, was dismantled and disposed of by the nuclear decommissioning company APTIM as a first-of-its-kind vessel dismantlement project for the Navy. The project was executed under contract with Naval Sea Systems Command; however, regulatory oversight was accomplished through an interagency framework agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.