OPPORTUNITIES NOT TO WASTE

The nuclear industry's power station programme may have ground to a halt with Sizewell B, but relief is at hand. A new source of contracts worth œ170 million a year is beginning to come on stream now that attention is switching from start-ups to shut-downs.

The aging Magnox reactors have had their day and a range of atomic test and waste plants are being closed. The industry now faces the problem of what to do with a legacy of defunct sites containing dangerous radioactive wastes.

A whole mass of contracts, mainly civils related and ranging from several thousand pounds up to œ20-œ30 million, are starting to come out, as the industry faces up to the problems.

The task ahead is massive, risky and uncertain. No country has yet grappled with the problem of closing down and decommissioning its old nuclear plants. Current estimates put the cost of the clean up programme at between œ8-œ12 billion over the next 100 years. This does not include the liabilities of Nuclear Electric, Scottish Nuclear and British Nuclear Fuels, which are estimated to be around œ22 billion.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority Government Division (UKAEAGD) has been given the unenviable task of decommissioning and cleaning up a range of different facilities on seven sites scattered across the UK. All the sites are different with facilities dating from 1947 onwards and therefore requiring individual solutions. Nobody has done it before, there are no blueprints - pioneering territory, in fact - and the UKAEA is looking to the construction industry to help solve the problems.

The objectives are threefold: to manage the UKAEA liabilities safely and avoid leaving problems for the future; to minimise the net present value of managing the liabilities, using a 6% real discount rate; and to deliver maximum value for money through its planning and procurement activities.

Opening up its contracts to wider competition is central to the latter objective. The new thinking is explained by Dr Roy Nelson, director of DRAWMOPS, the arm of UKAE that will manage the clean-up. 'What we want to do is to encourage a more competitive environment. Ideally, what we would like to see eventually is a limited number of contractors which know the sites, know how we work, and know our safety requirements.'

Nice work for those who get it. DRAWMOPS is appointing, through open competition, private sector managing agents to help it plan and manage the contracts. 'We will be responsible for planning and procurement, but we will have working with us professional experts to manage the contractors,' said Dr Nelson.

The managing agents will help study the problems at each of the sites under a non-adversarial contract, which will be lightly incentivised to help reduce total project costs. The agent will also help write the specification for the tenders, advertise them on the open market and then manage the projects, along with any claims and variations.

In addition to the managing agents, DRAWMOPS has assembled six teams of experts from within its sister division AEA Technology, which formerly acted as an internal 'contractor', but is to be privatised. These six teams of experts are specifically assigned to certain projects. Four of the six will work with the winning contractor's management team, giving it the benefit of their knowledge and expertise of that site. These sites are the A59 Winfrith, B459 Harwell, the Dounreay fast reactor and the engineering support group at Dounreay. Irrespective of its privatisation, AEAT will not be allowed to tender for these projects.

The remaining two teams, assigned to the Radwaste facilities at Winfrith and Harwell will remain UKAEA employees, but be managed by the contractor. They will remain with UKAEA as the projects require a constant effort over a long period of time and are not geared towards a specific operation.

Nelson says that the UKAEA's aim is to achieve best value for money through competitive tendering, unless there is a clear argument against doing so - only one credible supplier, for example. 'We want to use competitive tendering, not only for reasons of price, but because we want to force contractors to think of innovative processes. We want to get best value for money and to bring in ideas from the market place,' said Nelson.

Nelson says he would like to reach a stage whereby around three major contractors become 'established' on each of the major sites. At a later date as decommissioning declines, the UKAEA may want to form closer partnership arrangements with contractors during the later care and maintenance stages.

UKEA is keen to include the major contractors - the likes of Laing, Taylor Woodrow and Sir Robert McAlpine.

Taylor Woodrow has had a long involvement with the nuclear industry and is already at work with the UKAEA Government Division on its programme. 'We are operating as a consultant to the UKAEA on a number of things, in addition to working as a contractor. We feel that waste management and decommissioning are part of our commitment to the nuclear industry,' said a Taywood spokesman.

Several Taywood firms - Taymel, Taywood Engineering, Taywood Civil Engineering and Taymech are currently involved in tendering for management roles and hands-on decommissioning and operational work.

Taymel is working on a range of contracts, including decontaminating and demolishing the B35 building at Harwell. It is developing an estimating methodology and parametric database for RDS (Research Development and Strategy) at Harwell. Among others, it is working on the development of the 100-year overall decommissioning strategy.

The UKAEA's procurement preference is for fixed price contracts. Term contracts may be used where quoted costs can be made for typical jobs of a similar nature. Incentive contracts might be considered where only one contractor or supplier can do the job, while reimbursable contracts would only be used as a last resort.

DRAWMOPS has a budget of between œ150 and œ200 million a year, but before contractors rush in they need to be aware of the challenges they face. 'Decommissioning is not the reverse of construction,' warned Nelson.

'With construction you are in control. You have a design from which nobody should deviate without good cause. With decommissioning you are faced with what's there - a range of sites that are all different and that have been changed and upgraded over the years. You don't know how much of the site is contaminated, so decommissioning is inherently an uncertain and risky task,' he said.

A pertinent example is Pile 1 at Windscale which caught fire in 1957, damaging the core and allowing fuel to leak out. The pile has been left untouched since that date. Nobody knows where the escaped fuel is or what condition it is in. Somehow the fuel and graphite rods have to be removed, which begs the question - if you don't know what the problems are, how do you write a tender specification?

This is one of the most difficult tasks facing the DRAWMOPS team. 'We could say - okay, here's the site - turn it into a green field, but we can't do that without a big risk payout. It's not an option,' said Nelson. Instead, the UKAEA, aided by the particular site managing agent, will carry out a series of exploratory investigations.

'In the case of the Windscale pile, we've got to get in and find out where the fuel is and what condition it is in. Then we can write a safety case and a proper specification. Once that is done we will divide the decommissioning into chunks that can be specified with some certainty.

'Smaller contracts will enable us to manage the risks more effectively. Once the uncertainties are reduced it may then be appropriate to let a larger contract,' explained Nelson.

The policy on how to go about decommissioning sites depends on the classification of the contaminated wastes within the facilities. Low level waste (contaminated clothes for example) can be dealt with fairly easily, through treatment or burial. High level waste, of which the UKAEA has very little, has to be reprocessed. It will either go to British Nuclear Fuels or UKAEA will build its own plant, whichever is cheaper.

The main problem is the intermediate level waste, such as contaminated concrete and structural steel. At present there is no real solution to its disposal. In theory, NIREX - the Government body responsible for storing nuclear waste - is supposed to build a deep underground repository to house such waste. In reality, it will clearly be years before it is able to do so.

The UKAEA has to decide whether to remove the intermediate level waste to an above ground repository or leave it where it is and monitor it carefully. The crucial factors are safety and expense over the long term. These factors have to be carefully assessed during the decommissioning programme.

Decommissioning is divided into three stages. Stage 1: the removal of mobile radioactive items - fuel, coolant, process material, rigs - and decontaminate as necessary, leaving the building shell and core. Stage 2: dismantle and remove most of the remaining radioactive materials. Stage 3: demolish the site and return it to a green field state with no radioactivity above normal background levels.

The first stage will require a range of different tasks and Nelson expects to see consortia emerging with chemical, mechanical and civil engineering skills. Stage 2 will require a mix of civil and specialist skills, while the third stage will be a civils task.

For UKAEA the crucial question is one of timing. When to to undertake each of the three stages? It could leave the sites as they are with the fuel in them. This would mean very high levels of care and maintenance - in short, expensive.

Alternatively, it could carry out all three stages at once, which would again be very expensive as it would require a vast amount of money up-front. However, since the fuel is the main source of radioactivity, overriding safety requirements may well demand that Stage 1 is carried out as soon as possible.

Once the actual source of radioactivity is removed the facility becomes considerably safer. The building is stripped to the shell and core and can then be effectively mothballed under a less expensive care and maintenance programme. If a deep level underground waste repository was available it would probably be worth starting Stage 2 - the removal of the remaining contaminated material - immediately. But as the repository is not ready, it may prove much cheaper to delay Stage 2 for 20, 30 or even 70 years.

The advantage of this option is that the longer the sites are left, the less contaminated they will be, since the rate of radioactive decay declines over time. Some intermediate level waste will be removed and stored above ground.

UKAEA is currently putting the finishing touches to a new above ground waste store at its Harwell headquarters in Oxfordshire, which is being built by Tarmac Construction and Jordan Engineering. Several other sites will also require new waste storage facilities, most of which will go out as design and build contracts.

As of November 1994, UKAEA had already let 34 contracts and was advertising a further 85 for prequalification or tender. There is a wide range of work for consultants, contractors and specialist subcontractors. Smaller firms should not be put off investigating the available work.

While it is true that many of the contracts are large and complex and therefore only suitable for major firms, there are also a host of smaller contacts to consider. These range from cleaning, clearing, road repairs, material supply and scaffolding to site investigation, studies for future projects, inspection contracts and so on.

Dounreay is the site with the most liabilities. The clean-up is expected to cost about œ100 million over the next five to 10 years. Attention will also be focused on the decommissioning of Windscale Pile 1, which is now out for prequalification. Other work is coming through at Harwell and Winfrith.

The project to watch will be the decommissioning of the Windscale Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor. The WAGR will be taken through all three decommissioning stages.

'We are doing this to demonstrate that the techniques exist and to show the public that it can be done,' said Nelson. The site should be returned to a green field state by 2001.

The nuclear decommissioning programme could turn out to be quite a blessing for the construction industry. The flow and number of public sector contracts varies alarmingly in most sectors, but the nuclear decommissioning work has to be dealt with now and should ensure a steady stream of projects.

The principal attraction for UK contractors should also be that they will develop a unique expertise in a field that can only get bigger internationally. All the other nuclear nations are going to have to face up to the decommissioning problem at some time in the future.

The UK is ahead of the field and if UK contractors rise to the challenge, they will have the chance to dominate the international market.