Decommissioning Strategy Options for MR Reactor at the Kurchatov Institute, Moscow

The principal decommissioning goal for the nuclear installations of the Kurchatov Institute is the removal of spent fuel, reactor facilities and radioactive waste from the Institute’s site. As the result of decommissioning, the buildings, constructions and areas should be cleaned to residual contamination levels acceptable to the stakeholders. These levels are determined in view of possible options for the rehabilitation of the Institute’s areas under conditions of compliance with acting legislation for safety provisions for staff, population noting the proximity of the site to the local urban environment. Research reactor MR was commissioned in 1963 for reactor materials testing and finally shutdown in 1993. The reactor power with the experimental loops was 50 MWt. Several features were identified for the development of a decommissioning strategy for this reactor, namely: – the strategy should consider many factors in a broad approach with international, inter-industry and long-term perspectives; – the current situation for decommissioning is uncertain and must account for the views of a variety of stakeholders on possible final conditions and further use of the site and the route to achieve these; and – a lack of sufficiency in the national legislation base for execution of the work and the possible options for its completion. On the basis of worldwide experience, the strategy for decommissioning of reactor MR was determined as follows: – determination of the options for the final rehabilitation of the Institute’s areas; – determination of the stakeholders and their priority concerns; – determination of the strategy options for achievement of the final status; – determination of the main factors influencing the selection of the decommissioning strategy; – selection of the most acceptable strategies on the basis of a multi-attribute analysis; – determination of the main stages and principles of implementation of the selected strategy; and – development of the decommissioning activities considering the work that will be required. As the result of the multi-attribute analysis, the following conclusion has been made: – the preferred final status of the facility is for a nuclear re-use application; – the preferred decommissioning option is immediate dismantling.