News (2004)

18 November 2004 - Quintessa study helps underpin public consultation on the long-term management of low and intermediate level radioactive waste in Ontario, Canada

During late 2002 and early 2003, Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) contracted Quintessa to undertake a preliminary assessment of the long-term radiological safety of four permanent repository concepts for the management of low and intermediate level radioactive waste at the Western Waste Management Facility on the Bruce Site, Ontario, Canada.

The safety assessment adopted the International Atomic Energy Agency's recommended approach to safety assessment and used site-specific information on the characteristics of the Bruce site. A reference scenario was devised to illustrate the expected evolution of the repository and the surrounding natural environment for each of the repository concepts. In addition, potential future human intrusion into the repository (e.g. borehole drilling into repository) was also considered in a separate scenario. The AMBER assessment tool was used to evaluate the scenarios and it was concluded that the "Deep Geologic Repository" concept could confidently be expected to meet Canadian and international safety standards.

On the basis on the safety assessment and other work commissioned by OPG, the Municipality of Kincardine has passed a Council Resolution affirming the Deep Geologic Repository "...as the preferred course of study in regards to the management of low and intermediate level radioactive waste". During the remainder of 2004, the Council, with technical assistance from OPG, will provide the community with information on the proposed repository (see artist's impression to the right). In January 2005, an independent polling firm will contact each household by telephone to determine whether they support the Council Resolution. If the community supports the option, OPG will undertake further technical studies and develop a case for repository licensing, to be submitted to environmental regulators.

Further details concerning OPG's Deep Geological Repository proposal can be accessed by clicking here or by contacting Kevin Orr. Quintessa's safety assessment of OPG's repository concepts is available by clicking here.

For further information about Quintessa's safety assessment services, please contact Richard Little.

2nd November 2004 - Quintessa and GoldSim Agree to work in Partnership

Quintessa is delighted to announce that it has signed an agreement to collaborate with the GoldSim Technology Group (GTG). Together, we will seek to provide excellence in consultancy, training and support for the GoldSim software, to existing and new clients across the globe.

Our Complementary Skills
Both companies are committed to providing clients with the highest quality solutions, founded on the understanding that can be gained by simulating complex systems using state-of-the-art software. The GoldSim software developed by GTG complements Quintessa's experience in the development and application of models to address environmental and energy issues.

'The Right Model for the Job'
At Quintessa we recognise the importance of using the right software to evaluate each individual problem. If the model doesn't appropriately reflect the system being considered, its results can be misleading. We are therefore particularly pleased to be partners of GTG, as the addition of GoldSim to our existing suite of modelling tools (see Quintessa's Software Page) further enhances our capability to develop the right models for a given issue of concern.

Key Features of GoldSim

• Quantitatively address the inherent variability and uncertainty that is present in real-world systems (using Monte Carlo simulation).
• Superimpose the occurrence and consequences of discrete events onto continuously varying systems.
• Build top-down models using hierarchical containers that facilitate the simulation of large, complex systems while keeping them easy to understand and navigate.
• Dynamically link external programs or spreadsheets directly into a GoldSim model.
• Directly exchange data between any ODBC-compliant database and a GoldSim model.
• Insert graphics, notes and hyperlinks (to documents, websites, and presentations) in order to clearly explain a model to diverse audiences.
• Create custom designed graphical interfaces ('dashboards') to explain and demonstrate a model, and allow non-experts to use it.
• Save models as files that anyone can view and run using a free application (the 'GoldSim Player').

Modularity and Evolution of GoldSim
The GoldSim software is built using a modular framework. Add on modules provide additional functionality for specialized users. New modules are continuously being developed by GTG to enhance the capabilities of the code - for example, an Optimisation module will shortly be available.

Breadth of Use of GoldSim
GoldSim has been used by and/or for a diverse set of customers and clients, including the U.S. Department of Energy, Bechtel, Booz Allen & Hamilton, Caterpillar, Caremark, EMC, DeBeers, Petrobras (Brazil), and Taisei Corporation (Japan). The software has also been used at almost 200 academic institutions in nearly 40 countries worldwide.

Further details of GoldSim can be found at www.goldsim.com.

For further information about Quintessa's GoldSim services, please contact James Penfold.

12th October 2004 - Verification of Raiden3 for cement-bentonite interactions

Raiden3, Quintessa's fully coupled reaction-transport code, has been verified for problems involving the interaction of hyperalkaline fluids with bentonite by inter-comparison with the published results from an independent code. For a copy of the report, please click here.

4th October 2004 - Quintessa Opens Branch Office at Mizunami

Quintessa is pleased to announce the opening of a new branch office in the city of Mizunami in Gifu prefecture Japan, close to the deep underground research laboratory that is currently being constructed by the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC). For more information, please contact Richard Metcalfe at:

Quintessa Limited K.K.
303 Blanche Lapine
1090-3 Terakawado-cho
Mizunami-shi, Gifu
509-6121 Japan

Tel/Fax: +81 572 68 0420

1st October 2004 - Sarah Watson joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Sarah Watson to the permanent staff of the Henley-on-Thames office, following three years as an Associate Consultant to Quintessa. Sarah has a BA in natural sciences (Geology) and a PhD in Geophysics from the University of Cambridge and carried out post-doctoral research on modelling melt generation by plumes at Oxford University before specialising in hydrogeological modelling consultancy. She played a key role in performance assessments carried out for Nirex, and has worked on groundwater flow modelling and performance assessments for a number of overseas radioactive waste disposal agencies.

13th September 2004 - Online Database for CO₂ Storage Features, Events & Processes

Of the many methods that have been proposed to reduce the amount of CO2 that is released to the atmosphere, geological storage of CO2 is starting to be tested in many commercial-scale projects worldwide. Widespread deployment of such technology will depend on gaining acceptance for the technology from policy makers and the general public. Hence there is a clear requirement for a capability to undertake safety and performance assessments for individual applications of this technology.

To ensure that any future assessments incorporate comprehensive consideration of all potentially significant factors, Quintessa has developed a generic FEP database (http://www.quintessa-online.com/co2/) for the geological storage of CO2. FEPs are the features, events, and processes that are relevant to describe the behaviour of CO2 in the system being assessed. The FEPs in the database have been included for their relevance to the long-term safety and performance of the storage system after injection of CO2 has been completed and the injection boreholes have been sealed.

The database currently includes around 200 FEPs in a hierarchical structure, with individual FEPs grouped into eight categories. Each FEP has a text description and an associated discussion of its relevance to long-term performance and safety. Key references from the published literature are included to enable retrieval of more detailed information for each FEP. The database incorporates hyperlinks to other relevant sources of information (reports, websites, maps, photographs, videos, etc.), and is searchable in a variety of ways.

For more information, please contact Philip Maul.

1st September 2004 - Quintessa launches 3-D geological modelling service

Quintessa has launched a 3-D geological modelling service involving the integration of data from disparate sources, data validation, testing of alternative interpretations and the construction of three dimensional block models incorporating lithostratigraphical and structural data. The geological model below was developed using the Petrel software package.

For more information, please contact Andrew Martin.

14th July 2004 - Regulatory criteria for de-licensing nuclear sites

In April 2004, the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published a consultative document on proposed regulatory criteria for de-licensing nuclear sites under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965. The purpose of the document is to provide clear policy guidance to nuclear site operators and stakeholders, in order to make regulatory decision making more transparent. It discusses the "no danger" principle, which is established as the condition for de-licensing in the Nuclear Installations Act, and proposes quantitative criteria for the practical interpretation of this principle.

Quintessa has recently submitted a response to the consultation with aim of helping HSE to develop a robust and coherent basis for de-licensing of nuclear sites in the UK. To download a pdf file of Quintessa's response, please click here.

14th July 2004 - Spatio-temporal predictions of faulting/fracturing

Quintessa has developed a probabilistic methodology for making spatial and/or spatio-temporal predictions of faulting/fracturing for both regional and local (URL/repository) scales. The underlying concept involves modelling spatial patterns of known faulting, and updating these distributions with additional datasets (e.g., geophysical) through the Bayesian paradigm.

For more information, please see the Bayesian approaches to faulting/fracturing page on the Quintessa web site and/or contact Andrew Martin.

1st July 2004 - Kazuhiro Yamada joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Kazuhiro Yamada (yamada@quintessa.co.jp) to the Yokohama office. Kazuhiro majored in mathematical engineering (time series analysis, geometrical algorithms) and has seven years experience in the development and application of real-time pattern recognition systems. At Quintessa he will focus on applications of nonlinear time series analysis, multi agent simulation, and knowledge engineering.

10th May 2004 - Hisanori Wakamatsu joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Hisanori Wakamatsu to the Yokohama office. Hisanori majored in geology at Nagoya University and since 1990 he has been engaged in geology/hydrogeology investigations as a consulting engineer. He has been involved in various fields of study including active fault investigations, water resource development/environmental conservation for groundwater, and soil pollution investigations as well as geological/hydrogeological studies for radioactive waste disposal. From 1991 to 1994, Hisanori was engaged in hydrogeological projects on secondment to Chubu Works, Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (currently Tono Geoscience Center, Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute). He is presently engaged mainly in projects relating to geological structure, and to groundwater flow and mass transfer.

The photograph to the right shows Hisanori looking at a fault outcrop in the Koetoi Formation at Horonobe.

1st April 2004 - Claire Watson joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Claire Watson to the Henley-on-Thames office. Claire has a first class honours degree in theoretical physics and applied mathematics, and a PhD in applied mathematics (Instabilities of Curved, Heated Mixing Layers within the Atmosphere) from the University of Birmingham. Prior to joining Quintessa, Claire worked in the Ocean Applications division of the Meteorological Office where she was responsible for their Relocatable Shelf Seas Model.

1st April 2004 - Andrew Martin joins Quintessa

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Andrew Martin to the Yokohama office. Andrew trained as a geologist at the University of Cambridge and carried out field based research for a PhD on Miocene volcanism and collision tectonics as a Monbusho Scholar at the University of Ibaraki, for which he was awarded the Young Scientist Award by the Geological Society of Japan. During the last three years he has developed and applied probabilistic models on local and regional scale volcanism in Japan at the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute.

22nd March 2004 - Performance Assessment Workshop for UKAEA staff

Quintessa recently ran a one-week residential course in Performance Assessment (PA) for UKAEA technical and project management staff from Dounreay and Harwell sites.

The course, which drew on IAEA training material, focused on the use of PA to determine short- and long-term safety and environmental impacts from radioactive waste disposal, contaminated land and authorised radioactive discharges.

The workshop demonstrated the structured and systematic approach to PA through lectures and practical exercises. Topics included the definition of scenarios, the development of models (for the source-term, geosphere and biosphere), analysis of results, confidence building activities, and the broader use of PA studies in safety cases.

Further information about the provision of training courses can be obtained from James Penfold.

19th March 2004 - Quintessa announces release of The Evidence Support Logic Application TESLA Version 1.2

Quintessa is pleased to announce the release of TESLA 1.2, a decision support modelling application based on Evidence Support Logic. TESLA is a tool to assist in the evaluation of complex situations where there are multiple and sometimes conflicting sources of evidence, as well as residual uncertainty, that need to be taken into account. The aim is to assist systems modellers and decision makers to document the logic and justification that underpins their reasoning, to identify and visualise potential sources of bias and their implications, and to provide a well documented audit trail back to the raw data.

TESLA supports:

• Integration of data and expert judgement in interpretation and modelling;
• Descriptions of the sufficiency and interdependency of individual sources of evidence relating to a defined hypothesis, or decision;
• Explicit identification of the uncertainties associated with features, processes and characteristics of the system being evaluated;
• Exploration of the significance of particular features or processes through sensitivity analysis;
• Comparative analysis of alternative interpretations to allow ranking on the basis of evidence for, evidence against and remaining uncertainty; and
• Identification of the most cost effective areas for targeting data acquisition in order to build confidence / reduce uncertainties in the system to an acceptable level for a decision to be made.

For more information, please contact tesla@quintessa.org.

15th March 2004 - Modelling of Waste Package Evolution Scenarios for the Nirex Phased Disposal Concept

Following the development of waste package evolution scenarios for the geological disposal of cemented intermediate-level wastes (see news story dated 15th August 2003), Quintessa has developed a model to investigate the importance of time dependence and heterogeneity effects on post-closure repository performance*. The waste packages and surrounding engineered barriers were discretised and their physical and chemical evolution was modelled together with the impact on radionuclide migration. In particular, the production, release and transport of organic complexants, and the effects of their concentrations on solubility and sorption, were explicitly modelled. If you would like a copy of the report, please contact Nirex at info@nirex.co.uk.

* Modelling of Waste Package Evolution Scenarios for the Nirex Phased Repository Concept. QRS-1064B-1. David Hodgkinson, Peter Robinson and Sarah Watson, November 2002.

15th March 2004 - UK Government Consultation on Decommissioning the UK's Nuclear Facilities

In November 2003, the UK Government published proposals to modernise its policy on decommissioning nuclear facilities. The suggested policy takes account of the proposed formation of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. It requires the development and review of comprehensive strategies for decommissioning, and encourages the development and spread of best practice. It emphasises the need for proportionate regulation of decommissioning operations and expands on the Government's view of future uses of decommissioned sites.

Quintessa has submitted a response to the consultation with aim of helping the Government to develop a well-founded, robust and coherent basis for decommissioning in the UK. To download a pdf file of our response, please click here.

9th March 2004 - Quintessa develops Raiden3 - fully coupled reactive geochemical transport and flow code

Raiden3 is the latest evolution of Quintessa's fully coupled reactive geochemical transport and flow code. Previous versions of Raiden have been used on a variety of projects for Japanese and European clients; for example to model the geochemical evolution of engineered barriers, natural analogues and CO2 sequestration scenarios. Geochemical evolution can be modelled using a range of user-defined kinetic mechanisms, instantaneous reaction mechanisms and ion exchange for minerals, and coupled porewater chemistry. Flows in the system are fully coupled to the evolving geochemistry through variations in porosity, but can be decoupled and imposed on the system if desired. Geochemical properties and transport properties can be specified to be time/temperature/chemistry dependent using user-defined expressions.

Raiden3 uses a finite difference discretisation of the underlying equations based on a compartmental spatial grid to offer great flexibility when modelling complex 3D geometries. Standard quasi-uniform discretisations of 2D and 3D systems can also be made easily.

For more information please contact Steven Benbow.

23rd February 2004 - Quintessa teams up with Faulkland Associates for stakeholder engagement/consultation consultancy

Quintessa has teamed up with Faulkland Associates (www.faulkland-associates.co.uk) to provide leading-edge consultancy for stakeholder engagement and consultation to its clients in the radioactive waste and carbon dioxide sequestration sectors. Faulkland Associates is a new Oxford based consultancy that specialises in evaluating stakeholder engagement/consultation programmes and in preparing independent analyses of submissions. It also supports organisational learning on stakeholder issues and advises clients on related pressure group matters.

Faulkland Associates director, David Collier, left the nuclear industry in 1992 to found Greenstreet Consultancy Limited (later Greenstreet Berman Limited), where he worked on a wide range of stakeholder and human factors projects for clients as varied as BNFL and the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) before setting up his new specialist company.

4th February 2004 - Governance in European Radioactive Waste Management - COWAM 2

Quintessa is a participant in the newly-established COWAM 2 project on radioactive waste management governance, which has been developed within the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme. COWAM 2 is a follow up to the COWAM(Communities and Waste Management) concerted action, which ran as a networking activity from 2000 to 2003.

The aim of the new project is to move from an identification of common ground on key issues, which took place in COWAM through collective reflection on experiences in decision making processes, to partnership in the development and practical implementation of solutions. During 2003, Quintessa assisted the project co-ordinator to define the content of a work package within COWAM 2 concerned with the "Influence of Local Actors on the National Decision-Making Process" and we will participate in this area during the course of the new project. Initial activities to develop further the detailed content of the work package with interested parties will take place over the next 2-3 months, while the first plenary meeting of COWAM 2 is currently planned for early July 2004.

For further information please contact Mike Egan.

12th January 2004 - Quintessa contributes to TRENDS in the European Offshore Energy Industry

The network has 64 partners and 6 observers from 13 countries. Quintessa is co-leader with Greenstreet Berman and UK Assist of network activities relating to Stakeholder Dialogue. The aim of this work package is to identify opportunities for stakeholder communication on issues relevant to risk management in European production, with a particular focus on offshore energy production. It is planned to develop a seminar later in 2004 with the aim of promoting the ongoing sharing of experience in consultation on priority areas of stakeholder concern.

For further information please contact Mike Egan.