Project to 'glassify' Hanford waste begins (Seattle P-I)

[icymist]

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Project to 'glassify' Hanford waste begins
Pilot program will tackle a chunk of nuclear reservation's leftovers

By SHANNON DININNY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RICHLAND -- Of three Hanford Nuclear Reservation cleanup projects deemed urgent because of the risk they posed to the public and the environment, only one remains: treating and disposing of millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste stored in underground tanks.

Last year, workers dealt with two of the projects -- stabilizing 4.4 tons of plutonium and removing spent nuclear fuel from two leak-prone pools of water just a few hundred yards from the Columbia River.

And construction is under way on a nearly $6 billion plant that will use a process called vitrification to turn some of the tank waste into glass logs for permanent disposal in a nuclear waste repository.

But the plant was never designed to treat all of the waste in time for the 2028 deadline imposed in the Tri-Party Agreement, a cleanup pact signed by the state, the U.S. Department of Energy -- which manages the Hanford site -- and the Environmental Protection Agency. State and federal officials now hope a pilot project aimed at treating the remaining waste in a similar fashion will be successful.

The technology, called bulk vitrification, will be tested at a new facility at the Hanford site under a research and development permit approved by the state Department of Ecology. If bulk vitrification proves viable, a full-scale production facility will be built to treat as much as 42 percent of Hanford's tank waste.

More:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/211472_hanford10.html

[Gyre]

1. I always thought that made sense.

That or dropping it into a subduction-zone (which apparently is too costly).

[On the Road]

2. Glass is a Lot More Stable Than Powder

If the waste exists, it seems like the best way to get rid of it.