In January 2012, a Joint Review Panel was appointed by the federal Minister of the Environment and the President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). It was mandated to assess the environmental effects of Ontario Power Generation's project for the development of a proposed Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for low and intermediate level radioactive waste at the Bruce nuclear site, Ontario. The Panel was also mandated to obtain the information required for the consideration of the Licence to Prepare a Site and Construct the project. On 6th May 2015, the Panel submitted its Environmental Assessment (EA) Report to the Canadian federal government ... Full Details

Quintessa has contributed to the successful completion of a concept selection study (KVU) for an intermediate store for spent nuclear fuel and other long-lived radioactive waste in Norway. The study was undertaken for the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries by DNV GL AS and its partners Studsvik Nuclear AB, Quintessa Ltd., Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB and Samfunns- og Næringslivsforskning AS (SNF).

The study recommended sending all used Norwegian spent nuclear fuel abroad to be stabilised (reprocessed). In this case, Norway would receive a ... Full Details

The Nucleus alliance has been awarded 4-year framework contracts that provide contracting routes for the provision of specialist nuclear services to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and its Site Licence Companies, in addition to a wide range of other UK Public Bodies. Nucleus has been formed to enable the collaboration of leading specialist nuclear companies to deliver services in an innovative manner with an open approach to identifying the best team for each task. The core companies within Nucleus (NSG Environmental, Quintessa, Nuclear Technologies and Abbott Risk Consulting) bring together ... Full Details

Steven Benbow, Kate Thatcher, Claire Watson and James Wilson attended the 6th International Conference on Clays in Natural and Engineered Barriers for Radioactive Waste Confinement in Brussels on the 23rd to 26th of March 2015. The conference was organised by ONDRAF/NIRAS (Belgium) in cooperation with Andra (France), COVRA (The Netherlands), Nagra (Switzerland), NWMO (Canada), Posiva (Finland) and SKB (Sweden). Clays are exploited in most geological disposal concepts for radioactive waste, either as the host rock or as material for engineered barriers. The natural characteristics of clays ... Full Details

Quintessa recently hosted the biannual meeting for the Long-Term Cement Studies (LCS) project at Leander Club in Henley-on-Thames. This international project is a collaboration between Nagra (Switzerland; the project leaders), JAEA (Japan), Posiva (Finland), RWM (UK) and SKB (Sweden), and seeks to extend our understanding of cement and cementitious systems in the context of geological disposal of radioactive waste.

The historic Leander Club, one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world, provided a comfortable backdrop to the technical ... Full Details

The 41st annual Waste Management Conference (WM2015) was held in Phoenix, USA, on the 15th to 19th March 2015. The conference, which is organised by WM Symposia (WMS), concerns the management of radioactive waste and attracted around 2000 participants from across the world.

The technical programme included over 500 papers and 137 technical sessions and panels. France was represented as the feature country for 2015, with associated sessions, as well as a keynote speech from ... Full Details