Nuclear cloud: UK's reactor cleanup crew awards Softcat reseller deal for Microsoft licences, Azure services
- Reference: 1626349511
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/15/softcat_nuclear_decommissioning_authority/
- Source link:
The NDA, which is responsible for cleaning up the UK's earliest nuclear sites safely, securely and, er, cost-effectively, has signed the five-year agreement to support its "transformational changes relating to Microsoft products and cloud services particularly around account management, training/upskilling, optimisation and cost management," according to [1]a tender notice .
The annual budget for the NDA stretches to £3.2bn to clean up the UK's ageing nuclear reactor estate, £2.4bn of which is funded by the government.
[2]
The Softcat deal is under the umbrella of the Crown Commercial Services Technology Products and Associated Services Framework Agreement (also known as RM6068), Lot 3 Software and Associated Services. All the lots for that deal were [3]tendered by the government in 2019 , with a maximum price tag of £6.5bn, awarded in January 2020.
[4]Five consultancies with severe branding difficulties win spots on UK government's £580m 'transformation' services framework
[5]Serco bags £322m contract extension for Test and Trace, is still struggling to share data with local authorities
[6]Blue passports, French service provider: Atos bags £21m UK Passport Office deal
[7]UK.gov puts feelers into tech market over £650m mobile voice and data shopping list
In April, Softcat was also one of 30 vendors to be named on a framework to compete for public sector contracts worth up to a [8]potential £1.2bn for back-office software .
The NDA is in the middle of a tussle to demonstrate value for money. Its most recent estimate is that it will cost current and future generations of taxpayers £132bn to decommission the civil nuclear sites, with the work not being completed for another 120 years.
[9]
Among the challenges include the decommissioning of 10 former Magnox power stations, estimates for which are between £6.9bn and £8.7bn, around £1.3bn to £3.1bn more than its previous estimate, according to a [10]November 2020 Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee report .
The committee also said the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy recognised that its "oversight of the NDA has been weak in the past" and welcomed steps the government is taking to "provide stronger oversight and improved governance." ®
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[1] https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/a2fe75e8-51a3-4a4a-a06e-62dfc19e561a
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YPBbnLvBonBIRD39uBpGhQAAAJM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/13/65bn_technology_products_and_associated_services_framework/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/07/uk_gov_580m_framework/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/28/serco_bags_a_322m_contract/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/11/atos_21m_passport_office/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/20/uk_mobile_voice_data_pin/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/21/uk_government_awards_a_gaggle/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPBbnLvBonBIRD39uBpGhQAAAJM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/3703/documents/36067/default/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: good luck
There are no plans to decontaminate the graphite as such, but it will be disposed of safely.
The WAGR (prototype for the UK's AGR reactor fleet) was a graphite-cored reactor that was safely decommissioned about 10 years ago - [1]see here
[1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Decommissioning-campaign-complete-at-UK-reactor
You can predict costs for next 120 years?
Are you sure you can predict costs for the next 120 years, with unknown amount of changes coming up on the world, economy, region, country, etc?
Are we even capable of running a project which lasts for more then a century, needing 3 generations to finish up? Not to mention the inevitable delays, etc.
Re: You can predict costs for next 120 years?
There is a methodology for that called MUAYGA or make up as you go along.
Downtime
Hopefully none of these nuclear facilities will be so reliant on Azure, that when Azure has its one-day hickup sometime in the not-too-distant fture, that nothing untoward happens. Because, if there is something that we all have learnt, is that Microsoft likes companies being dependant on its services.
Simple way to make Magnox/AGR reactors and their spent fuel safe
Once the fuel rods have been removed, fill the whole of the reactor with concrete and surround the reactor with a further 20 feet of concrete then use bulldozers to create a small hill over the solid concrete lump. The bill per reactor should be well under £100 million using this approach.
As for the spent fuel rods, after 20 years in a cooling pond their heat production is low. They can be safely embedded in waterproof concrete in a deep mine (UK mainland) or a shallow excavation (100 ft deep) (uninhabited island off the coast of the UK). Either way if the fuel rods are encased in 20 feet of concrete or more then the chance of significant release of radioactive material is effectively zero.
This would leave a small artificial hill at the site of each reactor but this is a good exchange for reducing the total bill by over £100 billion.
(Using the Roman concrete formulation with volcanic ash and saltwater can produce a concrete that resists seawater for over 1000 years.)
Re: Simple way to make Magnox/AGR reactors and their spent fuel safe
Some of the products in spent fuel remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years (some of the plutonium isotopes, for example) and will require proper geological disposal (using current methods). You also have to put them out-of-reach of terrorists and the like.
The best way of dealing with the "waste" fuel is to recycle it and use it as fuel. The UK used to recycle its fuel, but stopped doing that a while back now. Putting recycled fuel into fast-breeder type reactors (the UK was one of the first into this technology, but gave in in the 70's - I think) is also another possibility as that "burns" a lot of what would otherwise end up as waste. If that's done, then about 96% of the waste is reused, with the remaining 4% only needing to be stored for about 1000 years before it is no more harmful than the uranium ore from which it was produced.
Cost-effective ?
For a government project ?
BWA HAA HA HA HAA HAAA HA HAAAAA !
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
good luck
"The NDA is in the middle of a tussle to demonstrate value for money. Its most recent estimate is that it will cost current and future generations of taxpayers £132bn to decommission the civil nuclear sites, with the work not being completed for another 120 years."
Good luck with that as I don't think anyone has yet managed to decontaminate totally a graphite based nuclear reactor, be it the RBMK soviet type (no, I don't consider the Tchernobyl one as being decontaminated !), the UK Magnox type, nor the french UNGG type.