EDF subsidiary Cyclife announced on 9 November that it has been awarded three contracts to treat waste metal from nuclear energy operations in Spain, Finland and the UK.
The first contract is with Nuclenor, Spanish operator of Santa María de Garoña nuclear plant in Spain’s Burgos region. Garoña’s Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) was shut down in 2012 and is being maintained in safestore. The final decision to decommission it was taken in 2017. Cyclife is to transport approximately 1000 tons of large components and scrap metal to its facility in Nykoping (Sweden) where the less contaminated metal will undergo segmentation, decontamination and melting. The resulting ingots will go through a clearance process before being released for public use. will be returned to Nuclenor.
The second contract is with Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) in Finland. Cyclife began in November to transport to Nykoping more than 420 tons of metallic waste, resulting from the operation of Olkiluoto 1&2, for similar treatment. The more contaminated metal will be returned to TVO in 200-litre drums. This reduces the amount of waste that TVO, which lacks space at its site, will need to put to final disposal.
Cyclife UK has won a contract with LLWR Ltd, which manages the UK's low-level waste repository in Cumbria. This is for the treatment of mixed metals from the Sellafield site. LLWR has asked Cyclife UK’s Metals Recycling Facility to treat 16 containers of metal waste a month during the contract, equivalent to between 700 and 1800 tons of metal.
