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Cavendish Nuclear Crosses The Pond To Talk Waste Management And Collaborative Working

The annual Waste Management Symposia (WMS) is taking place this week in Phoenix, USA and Cavendish Nuclear is proud to be represented by two of its employees who have travelled the ‘pond’ to spread the word about our collaborative waste management achievements.

The WMS is an international conference aiming to enhance the efficiency of the global radioactive waste industry by providing an open forum for sharing safe, environmentally sound and cost effective solutions for the retrieval, treatment and disposition of radioactive wastes and the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.

Cavendish Nuclear has been selected to present the story of our success on Sellafield’s Pile Fuel Cladding Silo (PFCS) programme – one of the most significant radiological challenges in Western Europe.

PFCS is a legacy silo on the Sellafield site. The project aim is to provide the earliest possible start of retrieval operations in order to mitigate the risk associated with an ageing facility. In order to achieve this vision Cavendish Nuclear as part of a joint venture and in close collaboration with our customer Sellafield Ltd is responsible for supplying fit for purpose equipment to allow access into the silo, waste removal and containerisation.

The importance of collaborative working is one of the key messages in the presentation being given by Dr Seb Proctor, Senior Engineering Manager who said:
“I’m immensely proud of this project and what has been achieved collaboratively. We have gone from a position where we had no workable solution for getting the waste out to being ready for active retrievals in just three years. There has been some exemplary learning around critical hazard reduction projects and I am looking forward to sharing these experiences with the delegates at the WM Symposia conference”.

Joe Hicks, a graduate Mechanical Engineer for Cavendish Nuclear, spent a four month placement on the PFCS Programme looking at options for handling the waste containers and selecting a solution for the Waste Container Handling Area (WCHA) that gave a robust, durable solution that minimised the cost and delivery schedule.

Upon travelling to WMS in Phoenix, Joe said,
“I am honoured to be have been selected to share my experiences from a graduate perspective with an international forum about the work of the PFCS Programme. My placement was a fantastic learning curve, providing me with invaluable hands on experience and insight into a real complex project, which required innovative solutions that would deliver safer, faster, and at lower cost. I am excited to demonstrate the journey we have all been on and what has been achieved in a relatively short period of time. It has been very inspiring and I hope it will encourage other graduates to seek out opportunities in the UK nuclear sector’.