Case Study - Decommissioning

Prepared by: Dr Don Allan

Scope of Work

• Project Review
• Application of the Waste Hierarchy
• Forward Project Definition

Background to the project

DBD was called in by a major organisation to drive a review of a project, aimed at the eventual demolition of a redundant plant heavily contaminated with alpha bearing residues.  The project was running well behind programme and consequently the client was faced with a significant overspend. 

The review identified a number of underlying issues:

• An inflexible technical strategy
• Contractual arrangements that gave no incentives to succeed
• An overly complex organisation
• A programme with no common ownership at the working level

The project was also expecting to generate large future inventories of Low Level Waste (LLW) and Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) from decommissioning activities.  The client organisation was sensitive to pressures from its stakeholders, arising from costs associated with LLW and ILW as well as landfill disposal. 

DBD deliverables

DBD helped frame and construct the review document that greatly strengthened the client’s position with its stakeholders.

Working with the organisation over a 3 year period, DBD revisited the original drivers and constraints for the project and encouraged the use of alternative technical strategies and techniques. 

DBD worked with the client in the application of the principles set out in the client’s own Integrated Waste Strategy.  This involved using the waste hierarchy to change the technical approaches regarding waste characterisation and processing to enable material to be re-classified into lower categories.

DBD also worked with the client to clearly establish the full scope of the project and the best approach to organising the delivery of the project into discrete packages.

The Results

A much more focused project team is now in place running the project.

A number of bulky items were reclassified from ILW to LLW by improved monitoring, with further quantities released from regulatory concern and disposed of as inactive material for potential re-use. 

A great deal of programme time, previously dedicated to the size reduction of large items for disposal as ILW, was eliminated.

Project definition has been improved, enabling discrete packages to be confidently put out to the supply chain.

Client Benefits

• Improved stakeholder perception of the project

• Reduction in forward ILW and LLW generation profiles, giving rise to substantial savings in waste disposal

• Greater flexibility for the operators, enabling them to open up alternative work fronts when problems are encountered in a particular area

• More economic use of the supply chain

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