Universität Basel

FoNEW | Forschungsstelle für Nachhaltige Energie- und Wasserversorgung

Best Practices for Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants: How to ensure efficient plant decommissioning under different regulatory schemes

Summary

When nuclear power plants were built, focus was placed on constructing, licensing, and operating instead of on decommissioning. Rather, decommissioning was seen as a distant problem that was discounted away. This failure to plan properly has led to poor outcomes for the few decommissioning cases already conducted (McIntyre 2012). Nevertheless, hundreds of plants around the world must be decommissioned in the coming decades, many without adequate planning, experience, capacity, or funding.

Within the SNSF funded project “Best Practices for Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants: How to ensure efficient plant decommissioning under different regulatory schemes” we aim to review and identify the best practices to achieve a timely, safe, and cost-efficient decommissioning of nuclear power plants globally. We build on a three-step research process: review, economic analysis, and synthesis of best practices.

In the first project step, we research and analyze the status quo of nuclear decommissioning policy and practice in the U.S., France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, the U.K., Lithuania, and Japan. Based on this deep understanding of the “situation on the ground” in each individual country, we identify general decommissioning regimes. In a second project step, we conduct analyses on each of the identified regimes focused on four main themes: legal and regulatory; financial provisions; external conditions; and decommissioning production. Third, and finally, we synthesize the findings from the country reviews and analyses to compare the various approaches and to compile a set of best practices for current and burgeoning nuclear power countries. Throughout the project, we place a large emphasis on consultation and dissemination with industry, government, and regulators from nuclear power countries.



Decommissioning Reports

We investigated sic countries in detail with regard to their nuclear decommissioning structure:
France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US

The full report is available as DIW documentation: Link
The individual country reports and the summary survey can be downloaded here:

 

Workshops and Conferences

Within the project several webinars, workshops and conferences are planned to exchange with stakeholders and disseminate the project findings.

Related Publications/Research

Project Duration

2020 - 2023

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