PREDIS: Pre-Disposal Management of Radioactive Waste

Home   /   PREDIS: Pre-Disposal Management of Radioactive Waste

Galson Sciences is pleased to be one of the partners in the new EU project – PREDIS: Pre-Disposal Management of Radioactive Waste

GSL has a significant role in the project, with its main work being in the following areas:

Front end work

  • Understanding the importance of the problem around management of each of the waste types being investigated – metallics, liquid organics, solid organics and cemented waste packages – through preparation of state-of-the-art reports and inventory and technology databases considering the situation across Europe.  This work establishes the scale of the problem and the options and opportunities, and places in context the specific treatment approaches being investigated in the project.

Back end work

  • Evaluation of the disposability of products generated by the waste management process options investigated in the project, with quantitative consideration of the potential for diversion of treated wastes to near-surface disposal, versus the current baseline of geological disposal in many instances. The work includes the development of suitable Waste Acceptance Criteria.
  • Value Assessment of the waste management process options investigated in the project, considering technical, economic, safety and environmental impacts, compared to the current baseline.
  • Summary reporting of project outputs, including consideration of implications for optimised waste management and disposal, and guidance to store operators.

The PREDIS project press release is reproduced below:

12.10.2020 Press release

Improved pre-disposal treatment of radioactive waste – an overarching EU project with high innovation targets

As society places higher emphasis on environmental stewardship and reduction of waste streams, it is also important that the nuclear community takes efficient management of waste streams as a top priority. In addition, as more legacy waste sites are being cleaned and the nuclear power plant fleet of Europe moves towards decommissioning, there are greater volumes of radioactive wastes to process prior to permanent geological disposal.

The project “PREDIS: Pre-Disposal Management of Radioactive Waste” develops and improves safer treatment and conditioning methodologies and processes for wastes, for which no adequate or industrially mature solutions are currently available. The project addresses innovation and break-through technologies for better handling of low-level and intermediate level radioactive wastes, with a focus on treatment of metallic materials, liquid organic waste and solid organic waste which can result from nuclear power plant operation, decommissioning and other industrial processes. The project also addresses digitalization solutions for improved safety and efficiency in handling and assessing cemented-waste packages in extended interim surface storage. An example of this is digital twins and the use of artificial intelligence for big data mining from non-destructive evaluation methods.  Through all of these pre-disposal treatment activities, waste acceptance criteria are a critical parameter for optimizing the safe and efficient handling and minimisation of wastes over the whole life cycle, from cradle to grave.

PREDIS will produce tools guiding decision-making on the added-value of the developed technologies and their impact on the design, safety, environmental impact and economics of pre-disposal waste management and future disposal. It is anticipated that the project results are close to implementation by the end user community, which is ensured through their active involvement with the partners and the co-funding structure of this EC project. The project’s Strategic Research Agenda will highlight needs for future technology development, investments and needs also from the perspectives of competence development and preservation of knowledge.

“This project aims at achieving what individual companies and countries cannot do alone, and bringing these solutions to a wider, pan-European audience”, says project Coordinator Maria Oksa of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.  With 47 partners from 17 countries across Europe, the 4-year, 24 million euro project, which started 1 September 2020, should make great strides in the best practices and new technologies ready for global markets. Erika Holt, co-coordinator at VTT adds that “We strive to gather inputs from a wide range of actors who have needs for these technologies, are ready to be involved in our project demonstrations, and can later rapidly deploy the results.”