Nuclear Lifecycle

From next generation systems for a climate-resilient future to managing complex decommissioning, site closure, radioactive waste and remediation efforts, we're helping solve the world’s most complex nuclear challenges safely and effectively.

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As the world strives to deliver a more sustainable, equitable society and protect our natural environment, the shift to cleaner energy requires rapid and far-reaching changes across industries, governments and communities, while addressing the impact that legacy nuclear weapon development had on the environment, and assisting in returning land back to its natural state.

Nuclear offers a clean, reliable energy source, and its advancing technology is also powering a range of other uses from space exploration to desalination plants for potable water. We deliver safe, innovative solutions for high-risk, technically complex nuclear projects worldwide.

  • 60 +

    years of experience across the nuclear asset lifecycle

  • # 1

    in nuclear waste (Engineering News-Record)

  • 50 +

    years supporting the U.K.’s nuclear power fleet

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We support clients with strategic advice, program and project management, siting and environmental assessment, regulatory compliance, full lifecycle design and engineering. We also help with remote handling and robotics, testing and rigs, construction and commissioning, field services, maintenance and even visual engineering. By combining engineering and technical excellence with innovation, research and development, we’re helping clients solve the world’s most complex nuclear challenges safely and effectively. 

Find out how visual engineering is improving engineering design

Nuclear decommissioning & remediation

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Jacobs brings decades of experience to decommissioning and cleanup, drawn from our work at the world’s most challenging nuclear sites including Fukushima, Chornobyl and Oak Ridge.

Given the nature of nuclear facilities, these legacy assets can't simply be switched off, demolished and removed.  We tackle our client’s biggest challenges and help transform contaminated sites into safe places for the environment and communities to thrive.

We help asset owners manage the cultural and mindset shifts required to move from operations to decommissioning. We employ practical, technically and commercially innovative strategies to address the decontamination, dismantling, deactivation and demolition of high-hazard plants and sites.

Safety case management, environmental and radiological consultancy, and health physics support go hand in hand with our core engineering capabilities, ensuring an unrelenting safety ethos. We apply strategies to minimize waste volumes requiring final disposal and we implement innovative decommissioning and decontamination processes for U.K. clients including Sellafield Ltd, Magnox Ltd and Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd.

In continental Europe, we manage key hazard reduction projects at Chornobyl and in Slovakia we are taking part in the first ever dismantling of a Soviet-designed VVER-440 reactor.

As a Tier 1 service provider to the U.S. Department of Energy and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, we've delivered and are delivering safe and innovative solutions at complex nuclear cleanup and production sites, including the Idaho Cleanup Project, Rocky Flats Closure, Hanford Plateau Remediation and West Valley Decommissioning, just to name a few.

Nuclear research & development

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From conceptual design and optimization of new nuclear technologies like Generation IV and small modular reactors to tackling complex analytical challenges in and outside the laboratory, we’re making the impossible, possible.

Jacobs is a leader in reactor technology, conceptual design and engineering relating to new nuclear technologies including Generation IV, fusion and small modular reactors (SMRs). We have a decades-long involvement in ITER, the world’s largest nuclear fusion project, where our work ranges from designing prototypes for key components to complex remote handling systems essential for reactor operations.

Our work on advanced modular and compact reactors includes designing the reactor cores and containment, steam generators, control and instrumentation, refueling systems and materials and chemistry. We have also drawn up policies for waste management, environmental management, licensing and decommissioning.

Under our leadership, the U.K.’s government-funded Nuclear Virtual Engineering Capability program has found ways in which virtual engineering and high-performance computing can enhance the techniques used to design reactors and optimize their performance.

In an innovation competition led by the U.K. Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Innovate U.K., we’re leading a project to design a demonstrator system for cleaning and dismantling highly radioactive rooms or ‘cells’ at Sellafield. New navigation and materials handling solutions developed in space exploration, car production and medicine will be combined with new data and control systems and state-of-the-art robotics, creating a new system that reduces the risks of working at height, optimizes the performance of robots and uses autonomous mapping where human access is impossible.

We act as an innovation integrator, bringing together ingenious ideas from industry and academia to define a new approach to the nuclear decommissioning challenge.

Explore our small modular reactor solutions

Nuclear power

Construction work underway at Hinkley Point C

With increasing climate change challenges, the shift to clean energy growth and the need to cut emissions to “net zero,” it’s time to think differently about tomorrow. We're working with clients around the world on their nuclear new build programs – helping them provide a secure, low-carbon, large-scale energy supply for the future.

In the U.K., we’re supporting the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor, helping to develop a new type of smart, compact, modular nuclear power plant; we’re a major contributor to ITER, the world’s largest fusion power project based in Provence, France; and we’re delivering key facilities for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority’s fusion research program.

We helped design the first and second generation of the U.K.’s nuclear power plants and now we’re providing diverse capability for current new build programs including EDF’s Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C.

As owner’s engineer and technical adviser, we have been closely involved with Poland’s new nuclear program since its inception; and we have provided the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation with program management support since the start of the Barakah program in Abu Dhabi.

Drawing on our extensive engineering design and construction management capabilities, and our global licensing, environmental and site hazard evaluation knowledge, our work with commercial and governmental clients has helped advance their civil nuclear new build programs.

Operational support

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Nuclear power is one of the most regulated industries, demanding the highest standards in safety, security and environmental management.

We help our clients interpret regulations, investigate practical environmental options and implement benchmarking. Our bold thinkers challenge and innovate across diverse projects to improve operational performance and extend power plant life.

With our comprehensive knowledge of reactor technology, regulatory requirements and the management of aging plants, we bring a thoughtful and collaborative approach to support programs – finding new ways to deliver plant life extension and tackle emerging challenges.

When fleet critical issues arise for reactor operators, we have the capability to diagnose the problem accurately, conceptualize the solution, design and manufacture the necessary equipment, and then deploy a team to plan and implement major engineering change.

Research, analytics & technology

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Complex analytical challenges demand extensive capacity, capability and often a different way of tackling the issue. We operate a facility of more than 20 separate laboratories, with a multi-skilled team of technicians, graduate scientists and PhD-level specialists. Our teams provide extensive fingerprinting to enable customers to understand the radiological profile of waste streams and determine appropriate waste disposal routes.

We typically analyze more than10,000 samples every year for clients such as CERN, EDF Energy, Magnox Ltd, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, URENCO and Sellafield Ltd. Our work enables customers to ensure safety, meet regulatory requirements and reduce the cost of treating and disposing of waste.

We are the largest supplier of professional services to Nuclear Waste Services, which is responsible for the U.K.’s radioactive waste. We compile the U.K.’s radioactive waste inventory and carry out consultancy and testing work associated with the planned geological disposal facility.

We provide the Low Level Waste Repository in West Cumbria with hydrogeological and geological support, environmental safety case and waste characterization and assurance support.

external Explore our laboratory solutions

Our research and laboratory team by the numbers

  • 20 +

    separate laboratories in our operational facility

  • 10 K+

    samples analyzed per year from clients such as CERN, EDF Energy, and Sellafield Ltd.

  • 100 +

    technicians, graduate scientists and PhD -level specialists

Visual engineering solutions

We’re making design engineering safer, faster and more collaborative by using virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and the metaverse. Visual engineering tools can transform how we deliver engineering design through greater collaboration earlier in the design process.

Using VR enables clients to get hands on with the solution before design has been finalized and make further improvements. Using AR allows designs to be viewed in the place where they will implemented, which is particularly useful when creating solutions for complex sites.

Visual Engineering Solutions
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  • Radiation protection

    From X-ray systems to regulatory compliance support, we provide a full-range of radiation protection services.

  • Leak sealing service

    Initially developed to repair pressure vessel cooling water pipes at nuclear plants in the U.K., Jacobs’ leak sealing service has been successfully used worldwide in power stations, research facilities, nuclear fusion experiments, particle accelerators, heat exchangers, water treatment plants and other facilities.

  • Submersible technology

    Applying a mix of appropriate technologies to tackle a complex challenge, we’ve made radiation monitoring of storage ponds safer and more accurate by using specially adapted remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

  • Radiochemical analysis

    We operate one of the U.K.'s largest independent radiochemistry laboratory facilities, accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) (no.1011) for a diverse range of analyses and matrices.

Our technology & software solutions

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    SIAL technology

    SIAL® technology, developed by Jacobs, allows on-site, room temperature conditioning of various standard and problematic radioactive waste streams including resins, sludge, liquid or crystalline borates, oils, other organic liquids, concentrates and ashes.

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    ANSWERS software service

    Our ANSWERS® Software Service provides software and consultancy services for customers world-wide in the areas of reactor physics, radiation shielding, dosimetry, nuclear criticality, well logging and nuclear data.

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    ConnectFlow software

    Our ConnectFlow® software offers industry-leading capabilities in the representation of fractured rock hydrogeology and hydro-geochemistry.

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