Quintessa has developed a White Paper highlighting the importance of well decommissioning in the transition to a net zero carbon-emitting economy. The paper provides background information on:

• general characteristics of wells and decommissioning principles;
• general requirements and timescales associated with well decommissioning, based on current regulations and guidance;
• current well decommissioning approaches and specific considerations; and
• key risk-relevant issues.

Find out more or request a copy of the White Paper.

Updated international guidance has recently been published for biosphere modelling in support of long-term safety assessments of solid radioactive waste disposal facilities through the IAEA MODARIA II programme and supported by the BIOPROTA forum. Quintessa employees have been actively involved in helping produce this guidance. Full details…

As part of the Euratom Beacon (Bentonite Mechanical Evolution) project, Quintessa have compiled a database of experiments relevant to the mechanical evolution of bentonite that is now available on the Beacon website in a searchable webpage format. Quintessa's software development team has designed a user-friendly, searchable format to present the information. Each experiment links to a PDF with further information about the experimental aims, methods and key results provided by the Beacon partners. Full details...

Quintessa has also produced new releases of its AMBER and TESLA software.

AMBER is contaminant transport and fate modelling tool for environmental, biological and engineered systems.

TESLA is a decision support tool that draws on multiple and uncertain sources of qualitative and quantitative evidence.

Quintessa employees have been attending and giving presentations a range of conferences during the last 6 months. These have included: the Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) conference in February, at which Richard Metcalfe gave a presentation on the importance of using multiple lines of evidence in the containment risk assessment (CRA) for underground storage of CO₂; and

the Waste Management conference in March, at which Louise Bruffell presented a paper on environmental modelling work undertaken as part of Quintessa’s support to the IAEA MODARIA programme. The programme has been focussed on the development of guidance on stakeholder-engaged decision analysis for legacy nuclear and NORM site management, and the role of environmental models in supporting decisions. Louise and Alan Paulley were also panellists for a session presenting the draft MODARIA guidance.

Quintessa is pleased to welcome Vicky Gaskin to its Warrington office as a member of the Geosciences team. Vicky has been investigating and resolving a wide range of land quality and environmental impact challenges within the nuclear industry for 25 years. She has worked across a variety of nuclear licensed sites as well as complex sites in other highly regulated industries.

In addition, two students, Jodie Stone and Josh Nicholas, have joined us from the University of Bath on year-long placements as part of their sandwich degrees in Mathematics and Physics, respectively.