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To get a permit to build a research reactor, would-be
operators need to submit an initial decommissioning plan for the
eventual shutdown of their new facility. This, however, was not a
requirement back in the 1950s, 60s and 70s when most research reactors
that are now nearing the end of their working lives were built. The
result: many unused reactors sit idle in the middle of university
campuses, research parks and hospital compounds, because their operators
lack the proper plans to decommission them.
“Our research reactor has recently received a licence to continue operations for at least a few more years, but we need to decide what we are going to do with it afterwards,” said Ketut Kamajaya, researcher in charge of the decommissioning of the Triga-2000 research reactor in Bandung, Indonesia.
There were 246 operational research reactors in 55 countries at the end of 2015, and over 180 that had been shut down or were undergoing decommissioning, according to the IAEA’s Nuclear Technology Review 2016. More than 300 research reactors and critical assemblies have been fully decommissioned. Around half of the operational research reactors are over 40 years old — making ageing management and decommissioning the key challenges for the research reactor community today.
Many countries do not have the institutional, legal and regulatory framework, expertise and technical infrastructure required for decommissioning, said Vladan Ljubenov, waste safety specialist at the IAEA. “Countries without a nuclear power programme typically have significantly less expertise in decommissioning and often lack the facilities to manage all but low level waste,” he said. While much of the decommissioning waste from a research reactor would indeed be low level waste, countries also need to deal with the small amounts of medium and high level waste generated.
Sometimes countries also lack the funds for decommissioning, even though in the long run they would save money by decommissioning facilities they can no longer use, said Vladimir Michal, Team Leader for Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation at the IAEA. Unless a research reactor has obtained a decommissioning license from its regulator, the safety and security regulations for operational reactors apply, even if the reactor is not in use and may not even have any fuel left. “Complying with regulatory requirements over time is more costly than biting the bullet and decommissioning,” Michal said. “It is better and safer to be under the decommissioning regime than in limbo.”
This is the approach Indonesia is taking, Kamajaya said. There are already plans in place to shift medical isotope production from Bandung to the country’s two other research reactor facilities. Training of scientists on reactor physics and thermal hydraulics will also move to the other locations. “Once we shut down the reactor, we will want to decommission it as soon as possible,” he said. In order to prepare for the shutdown, experts from the operators have participated in several IAEA technical cooperation projects, and have had the chance to witness ongoing decommissioning work in Australia and Belgium.
In Uzbekistan, the government decided to permanently shut down its research reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Tashkent in July 2016, and begin decommissioning as soon as feasible, said Umar Salikhbaev, Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics. “We are working very closely with the IAEA on the preliminary decommissioning plan, which we want to submit to the government by May,” he said. This follows the decommissioning of the FOTON research reactor in Tashkent, which began last year and is scheduled to be completed by mid-2017. The reactor fuel was repatriated to Russia as part of a programme coordinated by the IAEA last September.
Old reactor, new reactor
“Our research reactor has recently received a licence to continue operations for at least a few more years, but we need to decide what we are going to do with it afterwards,” said Ketut Kamajaya, researcher in charge of the decommissioning of the Triga-2000 research reactor in Bandung, Indonesia.
Once we shut down the reactor, we will want to decommission it as soon as possible.180 to go
There were 246 operational research reactors in 55 countries at the end of 2015, and over 180 that had been shut down or were undergoing decommissioning, according to the IAEA’s Nuclear Technology Review 2016. More than 300 research reactors and critical assemblies have been fully decommissioned. Around half of the operational research reactors are over 40 years old — making ageing management and decommissioning the key challenges for the research reactor community today.
Many countries do not have the institutional, legal and regulatory framework, expertise and technical infrastructure required for decommissioning, said Vladan Ljubenov, waste safety specialist at the IAEA. “Countries without a nuclear power programme typically have significantly less expertise in decommissioning and often lack the facilities to manage all but low level waste,” he said. While much of the decommissioning waste from a research reactor would indeed be low level waste, countries also need to deal with the small amounts of medium and high level waste generated.
Sometimes countries also lack the funds for decommissioning, even though in the long run they would save money by decommissioning facilities they can no longer use, said Vladimir Michal, Team Leader for Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation at the IAEA. Unless a research reactor has obtained a decommissioning license from its regulator, the safety and security regulations for operational reactors apply, even if the reactor is not in use and may not even have any fuel left. “Complying with regulatory requirements over time is more costly than biting the bullet and decommissioning,” Michal said. “It is better and safer to be under the decommissioning regime than in limbo.”
This is the approach Indonesia is taking, Kamajaya said. There are already plans in place to shift medical isotope production from Bandung to the country’s two other research reactor facilities. Training of scientists on reactor physics and thermal hydraulics will also move to the other locations. “Once we shut down the reactor, we will want to decommission it as soon as possible,” he said. In order to prepare for the shutdown, experts from the operators have participated in several IAEA technical cooperation projects, and have had the chance to witness ongoing decommissioning work in Australia and Belgium.
In Uzbekistan, the government decided to permanently shut down its research reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Tashkent in July 2016, and begin decommissioning as soon as feasible, said Umar Salikhbaev, Director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics. “We are working very closely with the IAEA on the preliminary decommissioning plan, which we want to submit to the government by May,” he said. This follows the decommissioning of the FOTON research reactor in Tashkent, which began last year and is scheduled to be completed by mid-2017. The reactor fuel was repatriated to Russia as part of a programme coordinated by the IAEA last September.
Old reactor, new reactor
U.S. nuclear power plant
outages have been higher this summer (June through August), averaging
4.3 gigawatts (GW), or 51% more than in 2015. Summer outages were at
their highest in June, reaching 9.9 GW, or about 10% of total U.S.
nuclear capacity, on 
