Radioactive waste management is critical to the use of nuclear power, the use of radioisotopes in research, medicine and industry, and to the clean-up of materials in nuclear weapon programmes. Radioactive waste management and contaminated site clean-up reviews radioactive waste management processes, technologies, and international experiences. Part one introduces the background and principles of radioactive waste management. Chapters explore the fundamentals of radioactive waste including sources, characterisation, and processing strategies. Further chapters focus on international safety standards, the remediation of radioactively contaminated sites, and irradiated nuclear fuel management. Chapters in part two highlight the current international situation in a variety of countries including Russia, Poland, Germany, France, England, Scotland, USA, Canada, and China. The experience in Japan, with a specific chapter on the situation and future plans at Fukushima, is also covered. Finally, part three explores the clean-up of sites contaminated by weapons programmes.
Key Features: explores the fundamentals of radioactive waste including sources, characterisation, and processing strategies; reviews international safety standards, risk assessment of radioactive wastes and remediation of contaminated sites and irradiated nuclear fuel management; highlights the current international situation across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America specifically including a chapter on the experience in Fukushima, Japan.
Contents: Part 1 Background and principles of radioactive waste (RAW) management: Fundamentals of radioactive waste (RAW): Science, sources, classification and management strategies; Radioactive waste (RAW) categories, characterisation and processing route selection; International safety standards for radioactive waste (RAW) management and remediation of contaminated sites; Technical solutions for the management of radioactive waste (RAW): Overview and methods of selection; Irradiated nuclear fuel management: Resource versus waste; Radioactive waste (RAW) conditioning, immobilisation and encapsulation processes and technologies: Overview and advances; Assessing and modelling the performance of nuclear waste and associated packages for long term management; Remediation of radioactively contaminated sites and management of the resulting waste; Safety and risk assessment of radioactive wastes and contaminated sites. Part 2 Current international situation: Experience of radioactive waste (RAW) management and contaminated site clean-up; Russia; Ukraine; Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Poland; Nordic countries; Germany; France; England and Wales; Scotland; United States; Canada; South Africa; Republic of Korea; China; Japan; Fukushima: The current situation and future plans. Part 3 Clean-up of sites contaminated by weapons programmes: Management of radioactive waste (RAW) from nuclear weapons programmes; Modeling and strategy approaches for assessing radionuclide contamination from underground testing of nuclear weapons in Nevada, USA; Remote monitoring of former underground nuclear explosion sites predominantly in the former USSR.
Professor William Lee FREng is Deputy Chair of the Government advisory Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), and Director of the Centre for Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London, UK. Dr Michael I. Ojovan is an Associate Reader in Materials Science and Waste Immobilisation at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Sheffield, UK. Dr Carol Jantzen is a Consulting Scientist at Savannah River National Laboratory, USA.
