Recommendation 10

The NDA told us about some notable achievements in relation to the decommissioning of the Magnox sites to date: for example, all 26 Magnox reactors have now been defueled, and all the fuel taken to Sellafield for safekeeping, thereby reducing by over 95% the radioactivity on the Magnox sites;18 and in Chapelcross in south-west Scotland, the NDA had overseen the largest asbestos clean-up in Europe, with thousands of tonnes of asbestos cleaned up across turbine halls, heat exchangers, and the whole industrial complex.19 It also told us about new technologies being developed by the UK nuclear industry such as an innovative robot which was developed by a company in the north-west of England. By using the robot to carry out dangerous work to remove hazardous material, exposure for humans had been reduced, which makes it both safer and more efficient because robots can spend almost unlimited time exposed to radiation. The NDA is aiming to fund similar projects in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics to help make decommissioning work safer, and noted that there has already been interest in the adoption of some of this UK-based technology internationally, including at Fukushima.20 15 Q 74 16 Qq 39–43 17 Qq 71, 49 18 Q6 19 Q7 20 Qq 18, 19 12 The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s management of the Magnox contract