Waste Management 2025 - First Day Insights

On Monday, the 51st conference opened. The theme this year is "Empowering A Sustainable Future – Advanced Technologies, AI, and Workforce Development Across The Nuclear Landscape" and the featured country is Canada.

That said, the main talking point was about President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency sweeping changes to drastically reduce the federal workforce! It has had a big impact so far and this is somewhat reflected in attendance figures that are down from the last two years. However, there are still over 2,500 people here so it is still busier than many other years.

On a country by country basis only Canada (the featured country) had more attendees than last year but most countries (other than the United States) were fairly similar to earlier years.

Monday's Plenary Session speakers included Laurie Swami representing NWMO (and Canada, the featured country), Olena Mykolaichuk (IAEA), Mark Whitney from Amentum and Roger Jarell representing DOE.

The show floor opened soon after and it was the first chance to wander around and visit some booths. Haption , ( John Dilworth ), Createc , Eadon Consulting Ltd , ( James Hill ) are shown below.

The technical sessions started at 10am and, as usual, there are too many to go to and they run concurrently - so you have to pick and choose the ones of most interest to you. This blog will therefore represent my own personal interests, so I hope it gives a flavour of the breadth and depth of the conference. My particular interests this years are:

• Aging Infrastructure. I will be presenting on Wednesday morning on "The Optimization of Aging Infrastructure Spending for DOE-EM". Room 227C, 10am.
• ISD. I will be cochairing a panel session on ISD, also on Wednesday called "Opportunities for Safe, Cost-effective, Accelerated and Sustainable Risk Reduction using In-Situ Decommissioning/Disposal (ISD)". Room 229A, 8am.
• Knowledge Management. On Thursday Laurie will be presenting a paper I co-wrote "The Strategic Benefits of Knowledge Sharing Between Countries (25701)". Room 229A 8am.
• Advanced Technologies and AI. No presentations or panels for me on this topic but I will be gathering insights, and the latest innovations and practical experience in the nuclear sector to add to our Innovation Platform; the Idea Catalog. We have recently add some tremendous new features such as Ideas Boards to save technologies of interest, additional problem definition tools and enhanced drawing/flipchart capability; log on and register if you want to see what's new.

The first technical session of the day for me was "Canada: AECL’s Perspectives On Moving Forward On Waste Management And Seizing Nuclear Opportunity". This session focused on perspectives of AECL senior leaders and they explained their challenges, successes, and how radioactive waste management at is sites is a key enabler of the next wave of nuclear investment in Canada. They also highlighted recent developments and looked at the long-term future of federal nuclear science and waste remediation in Canada. There were presentations from Fred Dermarkar Alastair MacDonald Jason Cameron and Maude-émilie Pagé followed by questions from the floor moderated by Rob Whittleston and Craig Michaluk . It was a great insight into the wonderful work going on in Canada right now.

After lunch there was a great panel on WIPP; "Update on the US Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)". I moderated last year's Deep Dive and had a fantastic visit - see here for my post. This session focused on the US DOE Carlsbad Field Office and Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and the National TRU Program. Great progress was made at WIPP in 2024, as WIPP celebrated 25 years of safe operations. Highlights included completing the construction and commissioning of the state-of-the-art ventilation system, increasing transuranic waste shipments supporting DOE’s cleanup mission, focusing on WIPP’s regulatory status, and ongoing critical infrastructure projects to ensure WIPP's continued safety. Mark Bollinger opened the session followed by Tammy Hobbes , Brandon Jones, Michael Gerles and Ryan Flynn with Mindy Toothman moderating.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with presentations on robotic technology in a session called: "Industrial and Specialty Robot Use at Nuclear and Industrial Facilities and Cleanup Sites". The presentations all addressed somewhat similar needs so it was interesting to see how different organisations responded to the challenges.

Nicholas Wright from Sandia National Laboratories gave a talk on "Robotic Tools for Nondestructive Assay of Containers". He talked about the development of robotic tools to automate nondestructive assay operations, specifically radiation surveys of waste containers at Oak Ridge. The current manual process exposes workers to risks and requires an onerous report generation and verification process and Nicholas described the development process and results to date including requirement generation, concept ideation and down selection, and initial development and testing of chosen concepts.

Nick Spivey from SRNL presented on "Automated Inspection of Criticality Control Overpacks for Surplus Plutonium Disposition: Qualification Update" which uses a robotic process to handle and automatically inspect incoming Criticality Control Overpacks (CCOs) based on quality and security standards. This process was enhanced this year to incorporate newer technologies via upgraded sensor and safety features, computer vision processes, and machine learning algorithms. In parallel with this development, the system underwent functional testing to assess operations, as well as process several CCOs in succession with minimal human intervention per customer requirements.

Anthony Banford from UKNNL presented "Automating Retrieval, Packaging and Export of Special Nuclear Material (SNM) Packages for Safer SNM Store Operations". He talked about developing an automated end-to-end mobile robotic solution for safer retrieval and export of SNM packages from within an existing store facility at Sellafield. The solution eliminates operator exposure to hazards within the store as an alternative to manual processes and would represent a first-of-a-kind robotic deployment on a nuclear operational facility.

The last presentation I saw was from Callum Clifford (AtkinsRéalis): "First Deployment of the AtkinsRéalis Remote Glovebox Operations System at Sellafield". He talked about the goal that Sellafield have been on to keep operators safe by removing?hands from gloveboxes. They have been working on the Risk reduction Of gloveBox Operations (RrOBO) project since 2021 and, as a result, the AtkinsRéalis Remote Glovebox Operations (ARGO) system, has been?deployed and operated in a contaminated glovebox for the first time.

The day ended with some more wandering around the exhibition hall and visiting the featured country networking reception (sponsored by AECL) where they had maple syrup, table hockey and Craig dressed up in full ice hockey gear. It was packed and great to meet so many friends and colleagues.

Argonne National Laboratory ( Lawrence E. (Larry) Boing ), NuVision Engineering ( Erich Keszler ), AtkinsRéalis ( Paul Townson PE FIChemE , Joanne Berry ).

A great first day - thanks WM Symposia, Inc - here's to the next few days. I'll write another update later in the week once I've finished my sessions (ISD and Aging Infrastructure) on Wednesday.