Safety Culture Lessons Learned in Decommissioning VTT’s FiR 1 Research Reactor

Kaupo Viitanen; Merja Airola; Markus Airila; Petri Kotiluoto

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-88369-9_8

Safety Culture Lessons Learned in Decommissioning VTT’s FiR 1 Research Reactor

Kaupo Viitanen^*
, Merja Airola
, Markus Airila
, Petri Kotiluoto

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter or book article › Scientific

Abstract

This chapter presents safety culture lessons learned from the decommissioning of the FiR 1 research reactor in Finland, the first nuclear facility to be decommissioned in the country. The authors reflect on their experience as leaders and safety culture experts in the decommissioning project and discuss the following four topics: the organizational and cultural aspects of the decommissioning strategy, the organizational identity, the changes in working practices and mindset, and the interfaces with external parties. The chapter provides practical recommendations and lessons learned for each topic.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Decommissioning Aging Installations and Declining Technologies
Subtitle of host publication	Burden or Inspiration?
Publisher	Springer
Chapter	8
Pages	83–93
ISBN (Electronic)	978-3-031-88369-9
ISBN (Print)	978-3-031-88368-2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88369-9_8
Publication status	Published - 2025
MoE publication type	B2 Part of a book or another research book

Publication series

Series	SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology
ISSN	2191-530X

Funding

Instead, the FiR 1 decommissioning was seen as an opportunity of learning for VTT and its partners (e.g. Finnish nuclear power companies, which will have to prepare for decommissioning their older plants within the next decades). This parallels the original purpose of the research reactor as the forerunner in the Finnish nuclear industry. To make this possible, a development project “dECOmm”, funded by the Finnish innovation and R&D funding body Business Finland, was initiated. Within this project, VTT launched a decommissioning business ecosystem to develop new services for the international decommissioning market together with other Finnish companies where the FiR 1 decommissioning has served as a test bed for new decommissioning technologies. These included comprehensive computational characterization of radionuclide inventories, which resulted in several scientific publications and a doctoral thesis, and which was also instrumental for the planning of several technical aspects in the decommissioning project. Other topics in which VTT has been actively disseminating lessons learned are spent fuel transfer arrangements, licensing, radiation surveys, waste management, intercomparison exercises for difficult to measure radionuclides, and new sampling techniques.

Keywords

Decommissioning
Nuclear industry
Research reactor
Safety culture

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10.1007/978-3-031-88369-9_8Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "This chapter presents safety culture lessons learned from the decommissioning of the FiR 1 research reactor in Finland, the first nuclear facility to be decommissioned in the country. The authors reflect on their experience as leaders and safety culture experts in the decommissioning project and discuss the following four topics: the organizational and cultural aspects of the decommissioning strategy, the organizational identity, the changes in working practices and mindset, and the interfaces with external parties. The chapter provides practical recommendations and lessons learned for each topic.",

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Safety Culture Lessons Learned in Decommissioning VTT’s FiR 1 Research Reactor. / Viitanen, Kaupo ; Airola, Merja ; Airila, Markus et al.
Decommissioning Aging Installations and Declining Technologies: Burden or Inspiration?. Springer, 2025. p. 83–93 (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter or book article › Scientific

TY - CHAP

T1 - Safety Culture Lessons Learned in Decommissioning VTT’s FiR 1 Research Reactor

AU - Viitanen, Kaupo

AU - Airola, Merja

AU - Airila, Markus

AU - Kotiluoto, Petri

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - This chapter presents safety culture lessons learned from the decommissioning of the FiR 1 research reactor in Finland, the first nuclear facility to be decommissioned in the country. The authors reflect on their experience as leaders and safety culture experts in the decommissioning project and discuss the following four topics: the organizational and cultural aspects of the decommissioning strategy, the organizational identity, the changes in working practices and mindset, and the interfaces with external parties. The chapter provides practical recommendations and lessons learned for each topic.

AB - This chapter presents safety culture lessons learned from the decommissioning of the FiR 1 research reactor in Finland, the first nuclear facility to be decommissioned in the country. The authors reflect on their experience as leaders and safety culture experts in the decommissioning project and discuss the following four topics: the organizational and cultural aspects of the decommissioning strategy, the organizational identity, the changes in working practices and mindset, and the interfaces with external parties. The chapter provides practical recommendations and lessons learned for each topic.

KW - Decommissioning

KW - Nuclear industry

KW - Research reactor

KW - Safety culture

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PB - Springer

ER -

Safety Culture Lessons Learned in Decommissioning VTT’s FiR 1 Research Reactor

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