Waste Technology Section
Decommissioning of Facilities
Decommissioning of Facilities
Objective: To provide information and guidance and to support research on strategic, organizational, managerial and technological approaches to best practice in decommissioning, including assessment and minimization of decommissioning material/ waste.
Responsible Officer : Michele LARAIA
Rationale
Decommissioning is the inevitable legacy of operation of nuclear installations, and needs timely and effective management. A high number of nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities are reaching the end of their useful lifetimes and becoming candidates for decommissioning. Guidance on orientation of the project activities has been given by the International Action Plan on Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities as available in Annex 10 of GOV/INF/2004/10-GC(48)/INF/7. Within this project, the highest priority is given for 2008-9 to tasks related to planning, managerial and organizational aspects of decommissioning and their full integration into any given decommissioning project. It is felt that at the current state-of-the-art in decommissioning these aspects require more attention, particularly in Member States having limited resources.
Links:- The IAEA General Programme on Decommissioning
- The International Decommissioning Network (IDN) Homepage
- International Peer Review Services
Peer review services are provided at the request of member States based on international safety standards, good international practices and other relevant recommendations in this field. For more information on Decommissioning Peer Reviews, please read the following documents:
Major Activities
Planning and implementation of a decommissioning project is rather complex and is a multi-disciplinary process involving both technical and non-technical approaches. Several reports on technological aspects of decommissioning, including the dismantling of ´difficult¡ systems or components have been recently completed. Other reports on ´non-technical¡ aspects such as planning, organizational and management were also completed or are well underway. In addition, the Agency currently provides support to Member States through the Department of Technical Cooperation (in cooperation with the Waste Environment and Safety Section-WES).
For more information, see the pages below:
For Decommissioning-related IAEA publications, go to the Decommissioning Publications Page