08 May The near future in Danish Decommissioning

New recruitment, milestones and structure are some of the tools to ensure the necessary momentum in Danish Decommissioning

n 50 years at the latest, the Danish Decommissioning Authority's work on the Risø Peninsula will be completed and the final repository for Danish radioactive waste will be operational.

But even though 2073 may seem far in the future, every day it helps to define the work that goes on at Danish Decommissioning, and especially the planning that precedes the many tasks that must be solved before Danish Decommissioning Denmark's work at Risø is completed.

Achieving this goal requires resources and, most importantly, skilled people.

Without these resources, we will never reach the goal, and therefore it is also essential that we at Danish Decommissioning always have the right employees on the projects to achieve the goals.

Further momentum with new structure
In 2021, Danish Decommissioning underwent a major structural change, expanding the management team to increase involvement, cross-organizational cooperation and create a more efficient organisation, which in turn should lead to more effective delivery of tasks.

In 2023, we have made a minor adjustment to the organisation again and split the Operations group into two groups, Operations & Waste Treatment and Performing Decommissioning, each with its own manager. At the same time, the groups have become more specialized.

Kenn-Ulrik Sørensen, Head of Operations and Waste Treatment, explains the new structure.

"The new structure has several purposes, but first and foremost it is to help ensure the necessary progress towards the overall goal of being completed by 2073 at the latest. At the same time, it is an expression of the fact that we as organisation are constantly changing, just as our tasks do, and therefore it is natural to look at how we can protect ourselves against vulnerability and at the same time function organizationally in a way that reflects our tasks."

More resources for the task solution
As a natural part of Danish Decommissioning's increased focus on the progress of the projects, there is a need to hire more employees.

Therefore, you have also been able to see more job postings than before, with Danish Decommissioning as the sender, as there has simply been a need to think forward also in terms of employee recruitment.

"We need more resources to be able to carry out the tasks. At the same time, we have had vacant positions for a period of time due to various considerations, and we are now in the process of filling them."

The mandate is also due to the fact that there will be a period when even more things need to be done, and that simply requires more hands.

In addition, Kenn-Ulrik Sørensen mentions a working condition at Danish Decommissioning that is not seen in many other craft businesses.

"We have the condition that many tasks require 2 people, so when 1 person drops out, it can affect a whole project. This makes us vulnerable and therefore we need to have more resources to draw on."

A complex future
Working in an area that no one has ever dealt with before in the history of Denmark presents complex challenges that need to be solved along the way - we have to write the manuals ourselves.

One, of many, conclusions that we have come to, applicable to all decommissioning projects at Risø, is that the complexity increases the more advanced a project becomes.

Take, for example, the decommissioning of DR3, where the concrete is progressively harder and harder to cut the closer we get to the lower part, simply because more and more steel balls are cast into the concrete.

Or the Hot Cell project where the cells have progressively higher and higher radiation levels.

This in turn means that, over time, the projects simply require more resources, and therefore it is important to be constantly at the forefront of this development, including new recruitment.

Welcome to the Danish Decommissioning
If you ask Kenn-Ulrik Sørensen, the future of Danish Decommissioning looks exciting, not least in view of the new people that the organisation is looking forward to welcoming.

Professionally, we have a wide range of employees, and when we recruit, we look for people who can solve a need here and now. It's all about skills, and about wanting to take responsibility and make a difference. At the same time, new employees provide a natural opportunity to see things in a new way, and combined with the skilled and experienced people we already have in this area, there is certainly fertile ground for an exciting future.

A future that will lead to Denmark's first final repository for radioactive waste by 2073 at the latest, but which already today places demands on Danish Decommissioning's daily work, where we find unique solutions to complex problems.