Waste Management 2025 Continued

First thing Tuesday had two interesting sessions overlapping which split my time unfortunately. One was an informative panel session on Sellafield where they discussed progress and successes at the site. Chaired by Roger Cowton, there were presentations by Clive Nixon (NDA), Gary Cook (ONR) and Glenn McCracken (SL). In between, I managed to catch a couple of talks on robotics; Young Soo Park (ANL) presented on their dual arm platform - they have a demo of this in the exhibit hall that you can try out - and Jean Talandier (ANDRA) on AI robotics for waste monitoring in repositories.

In the afternoon I headed to session 103 - "The Application of Innovative D&D Technologies. James Hill from Eadon Consulting presented on their long reach modular robotic deployment system (view the technology here in the Idea Catalog) and Deon Bulman (Sellafield) presented on numerous robotic deployments at their site.

As the afternoon sessions finished there were further networking opportunities in the exhibit hall followed by evening events sponsored by exhibitors in and around the local hotels and bars. It is amazing to keep bumping into people you know - you would expect to have seen everyone already over two full days, but that's not the case!

Wednesday started with an early breakfast - all presenters and panel chairs have to attend this first thing before sessions start to make sure everyone is familiar with the processes so it all runs smoothly. It is also an opportunity to meet with fellow speakers and panellists.

First up was our panel session on ISD - "Opportunities for Safe, Cost-effective, Accelerated and Sustainable Risk Reduction using In-Situ Decommissioning/Disposal (ISD)". Chaired by Dr. Laurie Judd , Juliet Long (NDA) started off with discussing the ISD Narrative that set the scene:

• Explained the background and nature of the trilateral collaboration between the US, Canada and the UK.
• Provided a high-level overview of ISD and its application to legacy facilities.
• Described the process of establishing and approving an ISD project within each country’s regulatory framework.
• Discussed where ISD may have benefits for legacy facility D&D over more traditional methods such as demolition and disposal.
• Introduced the concept of “The ISD Spectrum”.
• Discussed Stakeholder and Regulator perspectives.

This was followed by country specific presentations describing their work and challenges: Ellanor Joyce (NRS,UK), Alastair MacDonald (AECL, Canada) and Khari Bell (Savannah River, US). There were some great questions from the audience and clear positive interest from those present with plenty of follow-on requests for further information and dialogue.

Straight after, I moved rooms for session 151: "Worldwide Perspectives of Radioactive Waste Management - Challenges and Solutions". I was on first and gave a presentation on "The Optimization of Aging Infrastructure Spending for DOE-EM" where I explained how EM was using concepts such as the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) to reduce "risk to mission". A key factor was the reuse of existing tools and processes to minimise the burden from data calls and save time and money during implementation.

I was followed by John Corderoy (NWS) who presented on the bilateral work between the NDA in the UK and ANDRA in France on waste management disposal. Gareth Taylor (NDA) then presented on how the NDA were transforming their project delivery by leveraging synergies, using experience from others and implementing insightful technologies (including AI) for enhanced performance measurement of projects. The final presentation was from Chris Parker (Deep Isolation) who described results of a study on the opportunities and barriers for the back end (storage/disposal) of advanced reactors.

Thursday morning (today) has the panel "Collaboration Across Borders to Deliver Cleanup and Decommissioning Challenges". Laurie Judd is presenting our paper on "The Strategic Benefits of Knowledge Sharing Between Countries" that highlights the benefits of in-person workshops. There have been numerous workshops between US, Canada and UK on a range of topics such as ISD, near surface disposal, aging infrastructure and stakeholder engagement. Outcomes realized were:

• Communities of practice?
• Strong relationships across international borders and across different perspectives
• Better understanding and acceptance/acknowledgement
• More effective stakeholder engagement
• Body of knowledge
• Experience shows that this workshop approach is viewed very positively by all attendees

The conference is wrapping up today although there are still many presentations still to go.

As ever, it is a fantastic event and well organized by WM Symposia, Inc . Here's to next year - March 8-12, 2026! Save travels.