David Holton

Dr David Holton has over 30 years’ experience of the full range of challenges relating to the safe disposal of radioactive waste and is a specialist in multi-disciplinary project integration. He previously led and developed the largest team in the UK specialising in geological disposal for over 20 years. Over that time he has developed a combination of detailed technical experience in a very wide range of areas and has a proven track-record of successfully managing multi-million pound projects, providing technical leadership and delivering excellence.

David has worked for many organisations including RWM, LLWR, Sellafield Limited, UKAEA, and various decommissioning activities in the UK.  Internationally he has worked for many agencies including: SKB (Sweden), Posiva (Finland), IAEA (various countries), KAERI (South Korea), IRID (Japan), TEPCO (Japan), and Andra (France). David has successfully project managed and provided technical leadership for several of RWM’s integration projects in the UK, involving the multi-disciplinary integration of engineering, safety, all aspects of the engineered barrier system, and the geosphere. He has worked on major site investigation projects concerned with siting new facilities (radioactive waste disposal – e.g. Nirex, LLWR and Magnox); the iterative development of site understanding, as part of existing facilities, and in support of the Environmental Safety Case (e.g. LLWR).

David has published in excess of 100 reports and papers on an extensive range of technical areas. These range from the development of disposal concepts for low and high-heat-generating waste to the development of geological Site Descriptive Models as a basis of the development of Safety Cases for geological disposal. David has worked on detailed THM modelling work to describe the behaviour of clays to application of multi-attribute utility analysis as part of structured optioneering workshops to select technology or engineering solutions. He has worked on the development of thermal dimensioning tools to understand the size of the footprint of HHGW for a Geological Disposal Facility. David has been involved in various detailed studies of the design and analysis of full-scale tests of high-heat-generating Waste (HHGW), including the Prototype Repository (SKB), HotBENT (Nagra) and FISST (Posiva). He is an expert in post-closure safety and RD&D relating to geological disposal.

Some of David’s recent projects include:

1. Lead Technical Integrator for the RWM Backfill Integrated Project – this is a multi-disciplinary project concerned with the selection of suitable backfill materials for low-heat-generating waste (LHGW) by considering various safety related requirements drawn from, geotechnical considerations, various aspects of safety, emplacement implementation and sustainable design.
2. Project Manager and Technical Integration Lead for the RWM Concepts Development Integrated Project This project considered the implication of a range of disposal concepts and issues for potentially challenging wastes, using the principles of safety integrated design.
3. Project Manager and Lead Technical Integrator for the RWM High-heat-generating Waste Integrated Project Team. David managed the delivery to time and budget of all the technical activities. This included the development of tools to understand the engineering footprint for HHGW. This significantly improved how such assessments were preformed and enabled key engineering decisions on separation of HHGW to manage the maximum temperature of key components of a GDF.
4. Other recent projects include: Lead Technical integrator for Considerations of Voidage in the GDF and Related Implications, Preliminary Concept development for Plutonium wastes, Technical Director for contributions to SKB’s Engineered Barrier Task Force for a period of 10 years, and Technical Expert supporting an Engineering Feasibility Studies: Disposal Concept for HHGW.