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Nuclear liabilities

 Definition

Nuclear liabilities are costs that the organisation is expected to have to meet in future as a consequence of its current and past nuclear operations. (Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economical Co-operation and Development, 1994)

 Assessment

The nuclear liabilities of NECSA are assessed on an annual basis in order to:

 monitor the discharge of liabilities during decommissioning and waste management operations, and to
 to provide information that assists in the budget and funding planning of future decommissioning operations.

 Assessment Calculations

 Assessments are carried out according to the following steps, within a framework of policy, assumptions, definitions and costing principles:

 Inventory: A comprehensive inventory of all facilities, areas, equipment and materials that constitute nuclear liabilities is compiled by means of detailed surveys.

 Processing strategies: Materials are categorized and processes defined according to which each material category can be processed until the liability associated with it is fully discharged. For example in the case of contaminated steel such processes could entail the decontamination of the steel to clearance levels as well as the treatment, conditioning and disposal of the waste generated during decontamination.

 Process capacities and costs: The capacities, throughputs and cost of each of the processes are determined. In order for the assessment to be accurate, the processes modeled in this way must accurately represent actual processes currently used, or be realistic representations of processes that need to be established in future.

 Long-term plan: A long-term plan is established according to which decommissioning and waste management will take place.

 Assessment calculations: The UKAEA software package, Strategic Planning System (SPS), which was developed specifically for the assessment of nuclear liabilities, is used for storing the relevant data and for calculating an optimised total site liability.