How is a nuclear power plant decommissioned?
Decommissioning involves removing the spent fuel (the fuel that has been in the reactor vessel), dismantling any systems or components containing activation products (such as the reactor vessel and primary loop), and cleaning up or dismantling contaminated materials from the facility. All activated materials generally have to be removed from the site and shipped to a waste processing, storage, or disposal facility. Contaminated materials may either be cleaned of contamination on site; the contaminated sections may be cut off and removed (leaving most of the component intact in the facility); or they may be removed and shipped to a waste processing, storage, or disposal facility. The licensee decides how to decontaminate material; the decision is usually based on the amount of contamination, the ease with which it can be removed, and the cost to remove the contamination versus the cost to ship the entire structure or component to a waste disposal site.
