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Experimental Operations and Facilities

Facility Decommissioning Training Course

The course for those looking to understand the full breadth and depth of decommissioning processes.

Registration now open for our November training course in Oak Ridge and our December training course in Las Vegas!

Argonne National Laboratory’s Facility Decommissioning Training Course (TC) teaches participants the basic steps in the decommissioning process and shares lessons learned from past decommissioning experiences. Participants will gain insight into the decision-making, planning, and implementation associated with the decommissioning of various types of nuclear facilities. The course also demonstrates the need for early and complete project planning to achieve safe and cost-effective decommissioning of research reactors and other small nuclear installations.

Next scheduled sessions:

Class sizes are limited. A registration fee of $1,795 USD is required. (Please note: Beginning with the Las Vegas session December 2-5, 2024 and all following sessions, the first ten registrants per session will receive an early-bird registration fee of $1,795 USD. After those first 10 are registered, the fee will increase to $1,895 USD per registrant for all remaining registrants.)

It is Argonne policy that payment needs to be received before the training course starts.

Visit our course calendar page for a list of all courses.

All participants after successful completion of the training course will receive a training certificate from Argonne.

Cancellation Policy: There is a $100 USD cancellation fee per training course. No substitution due to security policy and no refunds after two weeks of the start of the training course. Refunds of credit card payments will be issued to the original credit card. Training courses are subject to cancellation for any reason, including security or lack of sufficient attendees. However, if a training course is cancelled by us, the registration fee will be transferred to a future training course or refunded in full upon request. To cancel a registration, please email ddtraining@​ne.​anl.​gov.

FOREIGN STUDENT ADVISORYThe course language is English. Translation services are not provided. International attendees will not be able to attend the training course until an ANL-593 form is completed & approved; you will receive an email with a link to our visitor registration page to complete.


Request a Virtual Facility Decommissioning TC session

If you’d like us to host a virtual session of our Facility D&D training course please submit a request.

Over 3,000 staff members from various organizations in over 70 countries have participated in the Facility Decommissioning Course, learning from a diverse set of lecturers how to plan for and perform their decommissioning and environmental restoration projects. Those who can benefit from the course include those working in:

  • Research reactor and other nuclear facility operations
  • Decommissioning projects
  • Waste management
  • Environmental safety and health (health physicists, safety, industrial hygiene)
  • Licensee management
  • State regulatory agencies
  • Decommissioning technology developers and providers
  • Federal agencies, including the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense
  • Radioisotope and radiopharmaceutical research and production facilities
  • Consulting and engineering firms
  • Radioactive material use

To properly care for and manage radiological and nuclear facilities, it is important for operators to plan for eventual shutdown and decommissioning — throughout the lifecycle of the facility. As the facility is designed, commissioned, operated, modified and progresses through to the end of its lifecycle, some decommissioning progress should always be underway.

Construction of new nuclear facilities is contingent upon dealing with existing facilities in a cost-effective and optimized manner. The Facility Decommissioning Course enables decommissioning at facilities in operation and those in design.

Decommissioning Certificate Program

Are you looking for something to complement your previous work experience or your current position? Maybe you are ready to assume more responsibility on a future project? Then get the training to set you up to achieve just that - consider going with the Decommissioning Certificate Program.

"I was able to get a lot of knowledge about D&D in this ANL training. I am impressed by your course management, expertise, and the preparation, experience and knowledge-based explanations of the various instructors involved." 

Course Attendee, 2021

Isn’t Decommissioning something that happens after we (the operators staff) are all gone?

NO! Decommissioning is not something that operators can just leave for someone else to do…

Many operators and the staff at operating facilities might look at decommissioning as  something that happens at the end of a facilities lifecycle” and after they are gone. Well, yes it does, in its full implementation. But – in actuality – proper care and management of radiological facilities and nuclear facilities - and yes even for an industrial facility using radioactive material - would have the operator (or some authority responsible for it if not the operator) to be planning for the facilities eventual shutdown and decommissioning all throughout the lifecycle of the facility.

So as the facility is designed, commissioned, operated, modified and progresses through to the end of its life cycle some progress is always underway in its decommissioning. In this way, a draft plan and preps have been made ready and its just a matter of finalizing a conceptual plan, performing any final fine tuning of it and then getting the required approvals and implementing it.

No new nuclear facilities can be expected to be capable of being constructed if the existing ones are not dealt with in a cost-effective and optimized manner.

The Argonne Facility Decommissioning” training course will also serve to facilitate decommissioning at operating facilities and at facilities in design so that they are READY for the eventual decommissioning of their facilities whenever that occurs in the end.

DOE Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) Tour

Tours held in Las Vegas, NV have the option for a NNSS Tour. To learn more check out our NNSS page.