Nuclear Solutions to Offer Waste Processing & Recycling Solutons Internationally : Veolia Creates Radioactive Waste Handling & Recycling Division

French environmental services firm, Veolia, has created an integrated entity dedicated to nuclear facility clean-up and treatment of lowand intermediate-level radioactive waste.

The company explained that one year after its acquisition of Kurion Inc. in 2016, it is pursuing its ambition in the nuclear clean-up field and has just unified its activities in the nuclear cleanup field under a single new entity called NUCLEAR SOLUTIONS.

The Nuclear Solutions entity, which unites the operations of Veolia’s Kurion, Alaron, and Asteralis businesses, represents an integrated offering that includes a range of technologies, expertise and services dealing with nuclear facility restoration, decommissioning and the treatment of low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste.

Veolia said that Nuclear Solutions’ expertise is comprised of initial investigation and characterisation, the use of advanced robotics, the separation and stabilization of nuclear waste, all provided through a global management and operations capability.

The company added that it has kept its development pace in the nuclear clean-up business since 2013, when it launched Asteralis, its subsidiary specialized in characterising waste and maintenance and operation of nuclear facilities.

Contaiminated Metal Recycling

In France, the company was formally contracted for five years last December by electricity giant EDF and dedicated subsidiary SOCODEI to support them in improving the performance of the contaminated metal waste recycling unit from its CENTRACO site (nuclear center for the treatment and conditioning of lowlevel radioactive waste) in southern France.

The metallic waste is sorted, packaged and properly sized, before being decontaminated by smelting on site. According to Veolia the waste can find a second life in the form of metal drums that can receive other radioactive waste.

At the end of 2016, EDF had also selected Veolia’s Chasse-sur-Rhône nuclear laboratory, in France, as part of a multi-year contract for the chemical and radiological analysis of its sites and soils.

The entity is led by William Gallo, CEO, and is part of Veolia’s Global Enterprises organisation, the $5B technological- and solutions-oriented arm of Veolia. Veolia’s Nuclear Solutions has operations in the US, France, the UK, Japan and Canada.

It was also ssaid to be the only international operator to be workingat Fukushima on behalf of Tepco, the Japanese nuclear utility.

In France, the entity has a collaborative agreement and works with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

“Veolia’s Nuclear Solutions entity provides unique value to its customers, with a broad array of capabilities and offerings across the nuclear and environmental sectors, effective technologies for hazardous waste and pollution treatment, experience in complex operations, and risk mitigation and management,” commented William Galo, CEO of Veolia Nuclear Solutions.

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