From what has been seen, NPP’s decommissioning appears to be a mature technology. However, while it is certainly true that we have today available all or most technologies needed to dismantle a NPP and return the site to essentially the initial, undisturbed condition, large margins exist for the process optimization in terms of efficiency, waste generation, occupational doses and especially costs. Specific areas that can be mentioned are:

— decontamination technologies : chemical, electrical, mechanical, ultrasonic…

— dismantling technologies;

— improvement of waste volume minimisation ;

— non-metallic material recycling ;

— control and measurement techniques ;

— remote operations.

In this field the role of the universities may be limited, since the matter is more related to an industrial development in many cases at competitive levels among suppliers, but it is anyway important, in the advanced and high technology fields (advanced chemical decontamination, waste treatment such as vitrification, robotization, waste stream characterization), as well as in computer codes for dose or environmental impact calculations.