News story: NDA shows off its expertise on the world stage

Addressing hundreds of delegates at the 2018 Civil Nuclear Showcase, Dr Simper told the audience that “all aspects of the NDA’s experience is commercially available”.

Run by the UK’s Department of International Trade, the event promotes opportunities for international collaboration across all areas of the nuclear sector.

Dr Simper highlighted the progress being made in decommissioning and hazard reduction at the NDA’s 17 nuclear sites across the UK, including:

• the removal of waste from the oldest and most challenging plants at the Sellafield site in West Cumbria
• the removal of almost all of the spent nuclear fuel from the Magnox nuclear reactors
• innovative technology being used to safely carry out decommissioning work in a variety of challenging and hazardous environments

Dr Simper said:

The UK nuclear industry leads the world in many areas of its work to decommission and clean up the legacy from the earliest days of the civil nuclear legacy,

Even though we have different reactor types, our waste management, decommissioning and spent fuel management capabilities are very applicable to Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China and other markets.

We are eager to work with international suppliers and industry colleagues, maximising the benefit of our learning and experience.

The event provides an opportunity to network with a diverse mix of senior international and UK delegates representing government, utilities, technology providers, major contracting companies and all tiers of the supply chain.

Recently, technology that was developed through NDA funding was used to measure radiation levels in the damaged Fukushima reactors. The RISER drone carries a sophisticated radiation detection and mapping system which was originally used to examine conditions in the remaining Windscale Pile chimney at Sellafield.