Decommissioning Plan and Cost Estimation of TRICOII Research Reactor

Abstract

Decommissioning is the final stage of the reactor lifetime. A preliminary decommissioning plan has been presented for TRIGA- II Research Reactor in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). One of radiation protection requirements and environmental safety during the preliminary decommissioning plan is the database of the spent nuclear fuel activities and inventory of TRICO II operational history, that were calculated using MCNPX code to support the decision makers. The total activity for all spent fuel is 19.32 E+02 Ci, and the average value for each spent fuel element is about 27.603 Ci. The fissile nuclides produced in the depleted fuel were Pu-239, Pu-241 and U-233 with a total weight of about 4.0 gram. The cost estimate of the decommissioning of TRICO-II reactor was calculated using IAEA software CERREX code. The input inventories of the decommissioning activities were estimated, its output cost was about six million US dollars, which is in the range of cost estimation for similar TRIGA reactors. Moreover, the total amount of the radioactive waste generated from the decommissioning activities has been estimated to be about 806.5 tons of low-level radioactive waste, which can be managed with the waste disposal unit.