Affordable Cleanup? Opportunities for Cost Reduction in the Decontamination and Decommissioning of the Nation's Uranium Enrichment Facilities (1996) / Chapter Skim
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4 ANALYSES OF THE D&D COST ESTIMATES FOR THE GDPs
4 ANALYSES OF THE D&D COST ESTIMATES FOR THE GDPs
Pages 79-102
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From page 79... ...
These four estimates, which are summarized in Table 4-l, are reviewed in this chapter to identify and compare the major cost elements in the D&D of the GDPs. (See Appendix ~ for further details on the cost estimates.)
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From page 80... ...
Because the MMES estimate is for the Oak Ridge GDP only, the committee extrapolated this estimate to arrive at a value for all three GDPs. This extrapolation was performed by calculating the ratio of the total cost for D&D of all GDPs to the cost for D&D of the Oak Ridge GDP, using the Ebasco cost estimate.
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From page 81... ...
Ebasco examined the Oak Ridge GDP in detail, using available drawings to develop inventories of equipment and building surface areas. The estimates of the direct labor and materials costs were prepared using unit cost factors, that is, calculating the costs for labor and equipment needed to perform a task once and multiplying that unit cost factor by the number of times that task would be performed during the D&D, to obtain the total cost for the activity.
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From page 82... ...
Comparison of the Ebasco and TEG Estimates for the Five Process Buildings at the Oak Ridge GDP Table 4-2 compares some of the principal parameters affecting the Ebasco and TEG estunates for the five gaseous diffusion process buildings at the Oak Ridge GDP. The two estimates differ significantly in estimated waste volume and waste management costs, differ about 4 percent in labor hours and about 5 percent in D&D (including the decontamination facilities)
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From page 83... ...
. TABLE 4-3 Comparison of Selected Unit Cost Factors for Equipment Removal Used in the Oak Ridge GDP Cost Estimates Activity Units Ebasco TEG TEG/Ebasco Process piping ($/linear foot)
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From page 84... ...
In the SAIC estimate, the direct cost of the support facilities was reduced from $2.436 billion in the Ebasco estimate to $359 million. This $2 billion decrease resulted from eliminating the high-assay decontamination facility, decreasing the capital cost of the low-assay decontamination facility from $646 million to $294 million, primarily by lowering the cost estimates for the facility's decontamination systems, and reducing its annual operating costs from $40 million to $14 million as a result of its reduced treatment capacities.
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From page 85... ...
~ 3.50 ~ 7.142 Program Integration (Pl) (direct)
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From page 86... ...
However, there are wide disparities in the relative magnitudes of the major cost elements, which are related to the differences in the unit cost factors used by each study and to differences between the studies in assumptions about the levels and locations of contamination within the facilities. The components of the equipment removal cost element show large differences between the two studies, as shown in Table 4-6.
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From page 87... ...
structures Construct and operate the 2.10 38.9 1.45 28.2 new facilitiesa Decontaminate the empty 0.26 4.8 0.83 16.! structuresb Indirect staffing 1.44 26.7 0.69 13.4 Waste management 0.35 6.5 0.63 12.2 Total base cost 5.40 5.15 a Includes high- and low-assay decontamination facilities and administration building.
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From page 88... ...
the 1LU estimated waste management costs were inflated by lack of volume reduction of equipment, by the long transport distance to the low-level radioactive waste disposal site, and by construction and operation of multiple waste processing facilities.
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From page 89... ...
enrichment plants (Clements, 1994a, 19931. Capenhurst Plant Description The Capenhurst GDP was a uranium enrichment facility operated by BNFL from 1956 to ~ 982.
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From page 90... ...
Capenhurst Project Description A great deal of effort went into researching and developing cost-effective methods for the Capenhurst D&D, including the following: . · selection of a cost-effective and safe means of disassembling the plant; suitable size-reduction techniques and compatible ventilation/filtration systems; decontamination processes to deal specifically with transuranic and fission products on steel, aluminum, copper, and other metals; engineering of safety into process equipment; ensuring compatibility of waste streams with regulatory constraints; and
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From page 91... ...
The decontamination and disassembly process consisted of the following activities: build small special shops within existing structures for removal of high-assay material; gaseous decontamination, prior to plant shutdown, to convert solid uranium deposits, primarily UO2F2, to volatile fluoride compounds for removal in the gaseous phase; · plant characterization to identify and quantify residual deposits of radioactive materials; removal of nonradioactive hazardous materials, such as asbestos and PCBs; removal and interim storage of plant equipment, and removal of cell structures; size-reduction of components and dry mechanical removal of uranium deposits; aqueous chemical decontamination;
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From page 92... ...
The derivations of all of the appropriate scaling factors are presented in the following paragraphs and are applied to the Capenhurst cost elements in Table 4-7 to develop a cost estimate of the cost of D&D at the Oak Ridge GDP. The estimated Oak Ridge GDP costs are then multiplied by the ratio of the D&D cost for all three GDPs to the Oak Ridge GDP cost, based on the Ebasco cost estimate, to estimate the cost of D&D for the total U.S.
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From page 93... ...
Radioactive waste treatment 3 5.58 2.97 x 1.356 x 1e 22.38 and disposal or x 20f 447.57 Overhead 8 14.88 1.50 22.33 Total 86 160.0 510.77e or 935.96f a Escalated to 1994 pounds Sterling converted to dollars using a currency conversion of $1.60 per pound Sterling. b The number of significant figures shown is for computational accuracy and does not imnlY precision to that many significant figures.
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From page 94... ...
The direct labor rates also influence many of the cost elements. From the 1991 Ebasco estimate, the fully burdened direct labor cost (including all the indirect costs and fees identified in Table 4-4)
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From page 95... ...
From the 1991 Ebasco estimate, the fractions of decontamination costs arising from process equipment and from building floor surfaces are about 0.764 and 0.236, respectively. The resulting scaling factor is (0.7641~2.200)
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From page 96... ...
GDP complex, the cost derived for the Oak Ridge GDP is multiplied by the ratio from the Ebasco cost estimates for Oak Ridge to that of the total GDP complex, namely 2.17, which yields estimated costs of about $~.~1 billion or $2.03 billion, respectively, for the recycle and no-recycle cases for the whole U.S. GDP complex.
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From page 97... ...
However, this agreement appears somewhat fortuitous considering the wide differences between the unit cost factors and the waste treatment and disposal assumptions. Both estimates ignored the potential cost and schedule reduction from productivity increases that characteristically result when performing repetitive activities.
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From page 98... ...
Adequacy of the D&D Fund Conclusion The planned cash flows into the D&D Fund of $480 million per year for 15 years, for a total of $7.2 billion, will not be sufficient to support the expenditures projected in the Ebasco, TEG, or SAIC cost estimates, even without taking into account the ongoing expenditures from the fund for various remediation activities throughout the GDP complex. It appears almost certain that the fund will be expended well before the GDPs can be completely decommissioned or that the D&D must be completed for far less than indicated by any of the previous cost estimates.
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From page 99... ...
Analyses of the D&D Cost Estimates for the GDPs .
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From page 100... ...
P 42 in the Proceedings of the Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Session of the American Nuclear Society Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Conference held June 7, 1987 in Dallas, Texas.
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From page 101... ...
199ib. Preliminary Cost Estimate for D&D of the Gaseous Diffusion Plants.
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From page 102... ...
Presentation given to the 15th Annual Meeting of the World Nuclear Fuel Market held October 16-19, 1988 in Seville, Spain.
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