In March, Quintessa delivered two five-day training courses on the safety assessment of near-surface disposal of radioactive waste and the associated application of the AMBER software tool. The courses were tailored to support the assessment of the proposed Romanian disposal facility (DFDSMA) for short-lived low and intermediate radioactive waste (LILW-SL) which is being undertaken by Kinectrics Nuclear Romania (KNR) under contract to the Nuclear and Radioactive Waste Agency (ANDR).
Romania has two CANDU reactors at the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) which have been operating since 1996 and 2007, respectively. ANDR is responsible for the safe disposal of the resulting waste, including the associated activities of siting, designing, construction, operation, closure and post-closure monitoring of final repositories. ANDR is currently developing plans for the design and construction the DFDSMA facility at Saligny for the near-surface disposal of LILW-SL arising from the Cernavodă NPP. KNR has been contracted to undertake the associated safety assessment.
The first training course provided by Quintessa was on-line and focussed on operational and post-closure safety of radioactive waste disposal facilities. It covered safety assessment scope and context, information needs and data gathering, scenario and model development, mathematical modelling, results analysis, and safety case presentation and took into account the context of the DFDSMA project. The second training course was in-person in Bucharest, Romania and was given by James Penfold. In addition to familiarising the participants with the AMBER software and its use, James and the participants worked to develop and implement appropriate models for the DFDSMA project.
