IAEA-Assisted Treatment of Liquid Radioactive Waste at the Saakadze Site in Georgia

Abstract

50 m3 of legacy liquid radioactive waste at the Saakadze site in Georgia was treated using a modular type facility with apparatuses encased in three metallic 200 L drums using as purification method the sorption/ion exchange technology. The main contaminant of water in the underground tank was the long-lived radionuclide 226Ra. The casing of processing equipment enabled an effective conditioning of all secondary waste at the end of treatment campaign which resulted in the fully purified water stored on site for further reuse or discharge, and three 200 L metallic drums with cemented radioactive waste which are currently safely stored.

Challenges in Planning of Integrated Nuclear Waste Management

“…The most important lesson learned from the past 60 years of the peaceful use of nuclear energy is to consider and account for nuclear waste management (NWM) even before the waste is generated and then integrate its management at the country level to provide trust to stakeholders which usually perceive nuclear waste as a problematic issue [5][6][7]. Indeed, adequate and highly effective NWM technologies are already developed and used both at international and national levels within most of the countries which use to a certain extent nuclear energy [8][9][10][11][12][13]. Sustainability of nuclear energy is however impossible without assuring the general public that the nuclear waste is a manageable issue and is not a real burden to future generations which would otherwise contradict the fundamental safety principles of nuclear energy [14].…”