Solid Radioactive Waste Strategy Report.pdf - UK EPR

EPR UK
N° NESH-G/2008/en/0123
REV. A PAGE 243 / 257
13.3.4.2.3Building Operations
There will be three broad operational periods for the spent fuel storage facility.
The first period will be when spent fuel is being received and placed into the storage vaults.
This period will start within 10 years of the reactor start date, since the fuel will need to be
stored in the reactor cooling pool for up to 10 years before it can enter dry interim storage.
This first period will finish about 10 years after the reactor ceases operations and the last
batch of fuel has completed its initial cooling period. (Note, the reactor is designed for an
operational lifetime of 60 years.)
There will then be a period when there are no loading or unloading operations, although
monitoring of storage conditions will continue. This is expected to last 30 or 40 years,
depending upon developments in the UK radioactive waste strategy and the availability of
facilities for further storage or disposal.
The final period is when the stored fuel assemblies are retrieved and exported to another
facility. After this the facility will be decommissioned. The facility is therefore expected to
have an operational life of around 100 years.
An EPR core reactor has 241 fuel assemblies; it is assumed core renewal is completed every
18 months, with about one third of the fuel assemblies being replaced each time.
The baseline design assumption for the storage facility is that it will serve only a single
reactor with an average of 3400 fuel assemblies requiring storage.
Discharges arising from the ventilation of building rooms (i.e. personnel access areas and
fuel handling cells) will be filtered.
Mode of Operations
Operations in the transport container reception, preparation and shipping building are
performed manually by operators, using overhead cranes for handling and a protective
platform for transport container preparation operations before docking.
In the process building, all operations are performed remotely from a centralised control
room, namely:
· Transport container docking/undocking operations;
· Spent fuel unloading operations and identification;
· Canister loading and transfer for storage in the vaults.