After Shutdown, The Real Challenge Begins

SouadPederzani, Divisional Director Waste Management Center at GNS GesellschaftfürNuklear-Service

SouadPederzani, Divisional Director Waste Management Center at GNS GesellschaftfürNuklear-Service

In April 2023, the last three German nuclear power plants were taken off the grid. The decision to phase out nuclear energy, taken in the wake of the Fukushima accident, remains politically contentious today more than ever. The phase-out poses additional challenges for the national energy market's journey towards a carbon-neutral power supply. On the other hand, however, a globally unique waste management market has emerged around the simultaneous decommissioning of the entire German nuclear power plant park. GNS, as the joint waste management subsidiary of all German nuclear power plant operators, is active at all sites with its approximately 1,000 employees in a wide variety of trades and also supplies all the containers required up to and including final disposal.

"For the past 50 years, our company has exclusively operated in the field of nuclear waste management," explains SouadPederzani, director of waste management centre at GNS. "While previously, our CASTOR® casks for highly radioactive spent fuel elements constituted the largest portion of GNS's business, the focus on the German domestic market is shifting towards the disposal of wastes from decommissioning now." Pederzani, a graduate chemist, has been with GNS since 2010 and now oversees all disposal projects for radioactive waste from the public sector and primarily from the energy industry – currently about 500 projects. Pederzani states, "During their operation, nuclear power plants generate only small quantities of radioactive waste; the significant volumes accrue during the decommissioning of the facilities." Consequently, GNS is expanding its capacities for treating radioactive waste, both with mobile facilities for use within nuclear power plants and in its own facilities.

"Some waste streams are comparable to the waste generated during the operation of power plants; we have been using the required treatment technology proficiently and reliably for decades. Other disposal tasks become relevant only after shutdown. For these new challenges, we have to develop industrially applicable solutions in the shortest possible time and make them ready for series production," describes Pederzani, highlighting the unique situation in Germany. The technologies employed are not necessarily entirely new developments. The true challenge lies in adapting proven processes for use in the nuclear environment and with radioactively contaminated or activated materials while ensuring safety and scalability.

"The unique experiences gained from their challenging domestic market provide GNS with a valuable basis for further internationalizing their business."

"One of our most commonly used processes is compaction followed by drying to package waste efficiently and stably for final disposal," explains Pederzani. GNS supplies the necessary containers itself, including the MOSAIK® casks for intermediate-level waste and steel sheet containers for low-level materials. Additionally, GNS has developed innovative dismantling technologies, used, for instance, when dismantling the several hundred-ton reactor pressure vessel, the heart of every nuclear power plant. Whether handling cleaning rags or massive components, each action and processing step must be documentedcorrectly and in a way that can be traced over the long termto leave nothing to chance during preparation for final disposal years or even decades later.

During this national mega-project aiming for rapid and cost-efficient decommissioning of the German plants, GNS is gaining extensive experience, which can benefit customers in numerous other countries in the future. "Germany’s go-it-alone approach to the nuclear phase-outis a heavy burden for the domestic nuclear industry, but we can establish competencies and capacities regarding disposal that can position us as leaders worldwide," Pederzani asserts. "What we are accomplishing in Germany on a daily basis already is not even in the planning phase in many other countries." Building on this, the experts at GNS can provide consulting and technological support in addition to their day-to-day disposal operations. Today, GNS's facilities and containers are being used in numerous countries across four continents, with the demand increasing internationally due to planned extensions of plant lifetimes and even newbuild projects. The unique experiences gained from their challenging domestic market provide GNS with a valuable basis for further internationalizing their business.

In addition, even beyond the decommissioning of the nuclear power plants, the disposal specialists at GNS continue to have a significant workload: radioactive waste from medicine, research, and industry still requires secure treatment and packaging. SouadPederzani is convinced: "Our nuclear waste management solutions have proven themselves for over half a century, and they will be needed for at least as long again!"