More than 60 years of use of nuclear energy has resulted in the accumulation of large volumes of radioactive waste, which have not yet found their conclusive disposal. Around 6.3 million m3 of wastes are piling up in unsafe stores in many countries, among which 4.7 million m3 are solid Low- and Intermediate Level Wastes (LLW and ILW or LILWl). These figures will soar as most of the world’s current nuclear fleet will reach the end of life and new radioactive waste will be produced each year (11.7 million m3 yet to be produced from future decommissioning activities by 2050).
These Wastes contain a wide range of deteriorated materials with various radioactivity emission levels and corrosion products. If not placed in an appropriate package and disposal in a suitably engineered multibarrier facility, they show a real risk of critical incidents, fire, explosion, radioactive release, contamination, and pollution.
To reduce the presence of these Wastes, the first step is to sort them precisely. This is an essential process. However today, nuclear waste sorting is slow and error-prone, especially with small items. Operations are driven by human teleoperators, who pick and separate the items with tools like remotely operated arms. In addition, legacy Waste are barely recognizable after years of physical and chemical changes. They are often undocumented as records of the original designs of the legacy sites and the inventories of their waste content may not be available or no longer represent the current situation. Consequently, there is a risk to jeopardize the entire process by casting doubt on the physical, chemical, and radiological state of a waste pile.
On top of that, the working environment is not safe. The national, EU and international authorities are urging the nuclear sites and engineering companies to put any possible safeguards in place to avoid a leak of radioactivity (according to the ALARA compelling principle).
Finding a new strategy to sort and segregate nuclear Waste in a safe and accurate manner is of primary importance. The full automation of nuclear waste sorting would be the solution. However, full automation of these heterogeneous and unstable Wastes remains “a dream”.
This pain point is the starting point of the RED LINE project, carried out by SILÉANE. The company will scale up its autonomous waste sorting robotic system, currently applied to civil waste-producing industries, to help clean up more than half of a century of nuclear wastes and reduce the number of wastes still to be generated by this industry.
