EDF subsidiary wins Italian waste reduction contract

EDF subsidiary Cyclife will treat some 1800 tonnes of metal waste produced during the decommissioning of three Italian nuclear power plants under a contract signed with Societa Gestione Impianti Nucleari SpA. The five-year contract is worth about €28 million ($35 million).

EDF subsidiary Cyclife will treat some 1800 tonnes of metal waste produced during the decommissioning of three Italian nuclear power plants under a contract signed with Societa Gestione Impianti Nucleari SpA (Sogin). The five-year contract is worth about €28 million ($35 million). 

The Trino plant, which was shut down in 1990 (Image: Sogin)

The contract - awarded following an eight-month tender process - covers the treatment and size-reduction of metal waste from the Trino, Garigliano and Latina plants.

The work will involve the sorting and encapsulation of waste at the plant sites, the transport of this waste and its treatment by means of fusion technology at Cyclife's plant in Nyköping, Sweden.

EDF said the treatment of the waste by Cyclife "would significantly reduce the volume of the waste which, as far as Sogin is concerned, would reduce disposal costs for residual waste in Italy".

Work to be carried out by Cyclife over the remainder of this year will focus on design engineering, scheduling and validation of the waste encapsulation process. The initial phase of on-site work and transportation to Sweden will begin in 2019.

Italy operated a total of four nuclear power plants starting in the early 1960s but decided to phase out nuclear power in a referendum that followed the 1986 Chernobyl accident. It closed its last two operating plants, Caorso and Trino, in 1990. Plans for waste management include the development of a national repository for the disposal of low- and intermediate-level waste and interim storage of high-level waste. State-owned Sogin was established in 1999 to take responsibility for decommissioning Italy's former nuclear power sites and locating a national waste store.

EDF created Cyclife Holding in July 2016 following the acquisition of the waste treatment activities Sweden's Studsvik. Cyclife's activities are delivered through several subsidiaries: Cyclife Sweden AB, with facilities for metal recycling, incineration and pyrolysis at its site in Nyköping; Cyclife UK Ltd, with a metal recycling facility near Workington; and Socodei, which operates the Centraco radioactive waste treatment and packaging facility at Codolet, France.

"The nuclear dismantling and nuclear waste treatment market is bound to grow in the years to come," said Sylvain Granger, EDF director of decommissioning and waste management. "Thanks to its subsidiary Cyclife, EDF aspires to become a leader in this market, by offering high value-added services that capitalise on the group's ten years of experience in decommissioning and its waste management platform with specialised facilities in France, the United Kingdom and Sweden."

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News