Hanford Vitrification Plant Started
The Hanford vitrification plant heat-up process, kicked off over the weekend, 20 years after construction of the plant began.
The 300-ton melter will need a couple of weeks to reach critical temperature of 2100F, and will need to remain at that temperature 24/7.
This will allow test vitrification to being in 2 weeks. The 580-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland in Central Washington produced about two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for its nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War. As a result, we ended up with 56 million gallons of nuclear waste, in multiple, vulnerable, underwater tanks.
The waste is two parts: low-radioactivity and high-radioactivity. The former is what this plant will start processing. Simplified: you feed the waste low-radioactivity sludge, and you end up with glass plates, that can then be safely stored on the site, inside lined vaults.
High-radioactive sludge vitrification was supposed to begin at the same time, but Bechtel could not resolve the technical issues, and the process is now slated to get started in 2033. The initial budget was for something like $5B. $17B has been spent so far, but the tanks are a ticking bomb. Literally. Along the shoreline of the Columbia River.
The 300-ton melter will need a couple of weeks to reach critical temperature of 2100F, and will need to remain at that temperature 24/7.
This will allow test vitrification to being in 2 weeks. The 580-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland in Central Washington produced about two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for its nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War. As a result, we ended up with 56 million gallons of nuclear waste, in multiple, vulnerable, underwater tanks.
The waste is two parts: low-radioactivity and high-radioactivity. The former is what this plant will start processing. Simplified: you feed the waste low-radioactivity sludge, and you end up with glass plates, that can then be safely stored on the site, inside lined vaults.
High-radioactive sludge vitrification was supposed to begin at the same time, but Bechtel could not resolve the technical issues, and the process is now slated to get started in 2033. The initial budget was for something like $5B. $17B has been spent so far, but the tanks are a ticking bomb. Literally. Along the shoreline of the Columbia River.
