News from 2016

News Items

AMBER 6.1 Released

15 Dec 2016

Quintessa is very pleased to announce that the latest version of AMBER was released to existing customers with software maintenance agreements in September 2016.

BIOPROTA C-14 Workshop, November 2016

6 Dec 2016

Quintessa is part of the technical support team to the latest BIOPROTA project relating to improving understanding and modelling of C-14 in the biosphere. This project is centred on model-data and model-model comparisons based on three experimental/observational data sets.

James Kite Joins Quintessa

21 Nov 2016

Quintessa is pleased to announce that James Kite has joined the Henley-on-Thames office, from the 21st November.

Quintessa Going to GHGT-13

25 Oct 2016

The Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT) conference series has established itself as the principal international conference on greenhouse gas mitigation technologies especially on CCS (CO2 Capture and Storage). GHGT-13 will be held in Lausanne, Switzerland, 14-18 November 2016.

Quintessa Revamps its Website

27 Sep 2016

Quintessa's website has been evolving since its inception back in 1999, and we are pleased to announce that we have just launched the latest update to its design.

Simon Rookyard Joins Quintessa

8 Sep 2016

Quintessa is pleased to announce that Dr Simon Rookyard has joined its Warrington office from 8th September.

IAEA Publishes Report on Environmental Change in Post-closure Safety Assessment of Solid Radioactive Waste Repositories

18 Aug 2016

From 2009 to 2011, the IAEA organized a collaborative programme entitled Environmental Modelling for Radiation Safety (EMRAS II), which concentrated on the improvement of environmental transfer models and the development of reference approaches to estimate the radiological impacts on humans, as wel…

Wave Energy Converter Design and Optimisation

16 Aug 2016

With global attention focussing on climate change and the rising level of atmospheric CO2, efforts to generate electricity from renewable sources are an important area of research. Ocean waves represent a potentially vast source of renewable energy, with coastal waves estimated to generate about 1…

Implications of Voidage for Post-closure Safety of a Geological Disposal Facility

27 Jul 2016

Radioactive Waste Management Limited (RWM) is undertaking a programme of work to consider further the implications of voidage for post-closure safety of a geological disposal facility (GDF) for higher activity waste. In this context, voidage is defined as macroscopic voids, within or around waste p…

DECOVALEX 2019

12 Jul 2016

The international DECOVALEX (DEvelopment of COupled models and their VALidation against Experiments) research project has been at the forefront of advancing the understanding of coupled thermal-hydrological-mechanical-chemical-gas (THMCG) processes in support of the safe geological disposal of radi…

Lessons from UK CCS Programmes, 2008 - 2015

6 Jul 2016

The Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA) has recently published a report on key lessons learned by those who have sought to develop Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) following the decision of the UK Government to cancel the UK CCS Commercialisation Programme in November 2015.

Modelling the SEALEX experiments at Tournemire URL

22 Jun 2016

The SEALEX experiments investigate the performance of sealing systems for radioactive waste disposal facilities. Quintessa has recently published two papers which use numerical modelling to analyse data from the experiments and contribute to understanding the processes observed.

Quintessa Presents Modelling of Borehole and Shaft Seals at the International DOPAS 2016 Seminar, Turku, Finland

7 Jun 2016

Richard Metcalfe participated in the final meeting of the EC-supported project “Full-Scale Demonstration Of Plugs And Seals” (DOPAS), which was organised by a Posiva-led consortium in Turku, Finland from the 24th-27th May 2016. The meeting was attended by about 130 people who represented around 50…

Unity2 Awarded Contract for NDA DRP Framework

31 May 2016

Quintessa is delighted to announce that the Unity2 team has secured a position on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Direct Research Portfolio Lot B framework. This framework will enable the NDA to receive support in meeting their research and development needs that arise from some of the most…

LoTAS: Load Trace Analysis Software developed for EDF Energy

13 Apr 2016

Quintessa has developed LoTAS (Load Trace Analysis Software) for EDF Energy to help manage and analyse the fuel grab load traces that are recorded whenever a fuel assembly in an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) is raised or lowered.

Quintessa Achieves Investors in People Accreditation

25 Feb 2016

Quintessa has achieved the prestigious Investors in People (IiP) accreditation. IiP is the UK’s leading people management standard and helps organisations improve business performance through their employees.

AMBER 6.0 Released

11 Feb 2016

Quintessa is very pleased to announce that the latest version of AMBER was released to existing customers with software maintenance agreements in December 2015. AMBER 6.0 represents the culmination of several years of intensive work that has resulted in: spatial awareness and 3D visualisation of AM…

Significant Milestone Reached in Disposal of Radioactive Sources using Technology Assessed by Quintessa

21 Jan 2016

Many countries without nuclear power have only a small inventory of radioactive waste, primarily consisting of disused sealed radioactive sources (DSRS). Successful tests of a promising technology for the disposal of such sources have been recently completed in Croatia under the auspices of the Int…

Quintessa Supports EDF Energy in Nuclear Reactor Safety

11 Jan 2016

As reported by the BBC on November 19 2015, as part of a routine inspection at the Hunterston B power station in Ayrshire, cracks were discovered in the graphite bricks which make up the core of one of two nuclear reactors. Similar cracks were found in the other reactor at an inspection in 2014. Qu…

Sellafield Enabling Innovation Frameworks

7 Jan 2016

Sellafield have awarded Quintessa a place on its Enabling Innovation Frameworks (EIF). The new EIF builds on the very successful pilot EIF. It involves companies working as a single integrated team, to provide a unique range of services across different functions and operating units within Sellafie…

Richard Little Appointed Quintessa Managing Director

1 Jan 2016

Richard Little has been appointed as the Managing Director of Quintessa. Richard has more than 25 years' nuclear consultancy experience and has provided support to organisations in over 20 countries and to international organisations including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear…