Applying Best Practical Environmental Optioneering (BPEO) to a Complex Clean Up Programme: A Ponds and Silos Case Study

The use of Best Practical Environmental Optioneering (BPEO) has long been part of informed decision making within the Nuclear Industry. However, BPEO has typically been applied to specific and discrete objectives, for example the selection of a technology to treat a particular nuclear waste stream. While this has sometimes been extended to cover a number of objectives, no one had applied BPEO to a programme of the size and complexity of that associated with Legacy Ponds & Silos at Sellafield. The programme, spanning more than 30 years, includes a range of different objectives covering ongoing management, recovery, conditioning, storage and ultimately disposal of nuclear wastes. This range of activities is applied across a number of facilities containing multiple, significant waste streams. This paper explains how BPEO was applied to the Legacy Ponds & Silos programme and discussed some of the learning resulting from that exercise.