Potential radioactive scrap metal quantities from nuclear power plants worldwide
- Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, IL (United States)
Approximately 12 million tons of scrap metals are likely to be generated worldwide during the next 50 years from decommissioning and dismantling nuclear power plants. A large portion of this material will be only slightly contaminated it at all, and, it it is releasable, it would have a scrap value of billions of dollars. Disposition of the metal is complicated because criteria for release of the metal vary among countries depending on whether the metal is surface of volumetrically contaminated. At present, there is no internationally accepted standard for release of low-level contaminated materials, though both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Commission of European Communities are in the process of developing recommendations. If the metals are not releasable, they will most likely be disposed of as low-level waste. However, currently available low-level waste repository capacity is limited and costly. Using repositories to dispose of metals that could potentially be decontaminated and recycled is probably not good resource management. This article presents estimates of metal quantities by metal type and contamination that will be come available as nuclear power plants are retired. Topics discussed are major issues related to inventory estimates, methods used to estimate metal masses; and metal masses summarized by reference plant category and total for world region by metal type and activity category. 1 fig., 4 tabs.
- OSTI ID:
- 210070
- Journal Information:
- Radwaste Magazine, Vol. 3, Issue 1; Other Information: PBD: Jan 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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