Unitech Services Group

Historically, the practice of surveying materials for radiation exposure has typically involved a labour-intensive hand frisking process using tools such as the Geiger-Mueller (GM) pancake detector. But direct frisking includes human factors that pose significant risks, including inconsistent scan speeds, long instrument response time and difficulty monitoring 100 percent of each item’s surface area. “Most plants still use hand frisking,” notes Anderson, “but over the next five years, the automation we’ve put in place will come in and be, in a much bigger way, helping utilities reduce costs through better, faster, and cheaper monitoring. That’s where the business is going.” UniTech holds the patents to its own chemical decontamination processes, as well as the carbon nylon fibers that are used in the making of their launderable clothing. “We designed our primary coverall, the ProTech Anti-C coverall, from the fiber level about 25 years ago,” says Anderson. “It’s a unique fiber that’s anti-static to prevent particle adhesion to the garment. The other part is that we developed custom decontamination formulas that allow us to wash and reuse each garment. This saves companies not only the direct cost of the item itself, but also the indirect cost linked to radioactive waste management and disposal.” Carbon dioxide (CO2) is known as a greenhouse gas—a gas that exchanges thermal radiation with its surroundings to create the “greenhouse effect” that creates global warming and climate change. Although research has shown that nuclear power’s carbon footprint is many times lower than that of coal or gas, the nuclear energy industry’s green credentials are sometimes challenged on the basis of the need to sequester radioactive by-products for thousands of years before the radiation decays. “We conducted our own CO2 study,” Anderson reports. “We contracted with an internationally recognized firm regarding CO2 emissions and found that when you compare, from cradle to grave, the manufacturing process of the reusable coveralls and their laundering over a hundred cycles to the CO2 that’s generated from manufacturing 100 single-use coveralls, the launderable ones come in at 1/18th of the CO2. That’s a significant carbon reduction we’ve been UNI TECH SERV I CES GROUP