Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Makes Progress, But Questions Loom (ieee.org)

The Hanford Vit Plant in Washington state, a $17 billion federal facility for treating and immobilizing radioactive waste, is now on track to begin "glassifying" low-activity nuclear waste as soon as 2022, reports IEEE Spectrum. This is "a year ahead of a court-mandated deadline." From the report: Still, an air of uncertainty surrounds the project. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed reclassifying some of the nation's radioactive waste as less dangerous, and it's unclear how that could affect the Hanford facility's long-term prospects. Hanford houses about 212 million liters of high-level waste, the leftovers of the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

However, higher-level waste has a longer timeline. Separate pretreatment and vitrification facilities aren't slated for commissioning until 2033. All parts of the Vit Plant are legally required to begin fully operating by 2036, under a consent decree between Washington, Oregon, and the federal government. The DOE hasn't said whether, or how, its proposal to reclassify nuclear waste would affect existing plans at Hanford if adopted. The agency is not making any decisions on the classification or disposal of any particular waste stream at this time, a DOE official said by email. [...] Though current law defines high-level radioactive waste as the sludge that results from processing highly radioactive nuclear fuel, the DOE is considering slapping a new, potentially less expensive label on it if it can meet the radioactive concentration limits for Class C low-level radioactive waste. Reclassifying nuclear waste would allow the federal government to sidestep decades of cleanup work, saving it billions of dollars. The relabeling might even enable the DOE to bypass costly vitrification and instead contain tank waste by covering it with concrete-like grout, as the agency does at other decommissioned nuclear sites. Officials and citizens in Washington and Oregon oppose this method for Hanford, "citing the risk of long-term soil and groundwater contamination and the challenges of moving and storing voluminous grout blocks," reports IEEE Spectrum. "Earlier federal studies found that grout 'actually performed the worst of all the supplemental treatment options considered.' (A 2017 report to Congress, however, suggested both vitrification and grout could effectively treat Hanford's low-activity waste.)"

Comments

nuclear power ?

[dehachel12]

THE most important problem with nuclear power ? COST.

Re:nuclear power ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the cost of power if you fold in all the externalities of each type? As an example, coal kills 10,000 people a year. The EPA uses a value of $7.4 million (2006) per person in their statistical analyses. What's the cost of carbon dioxide that should be assessed? Should there be some credit to nuclear for having a capacity factor north of 90%? The dollar amount is not the whole story. I don't know enough about solar or wind externalities to say anything about them, but you'll need a bunch of storage to smooth out power delivery. What does that cost at grid scale?

Re:nuclear power ?

[jellomizer]

The thing is we need responsible adults in charge of nuclear power. But because of the political visibility of it we have elected politicians putting their hand in it.
So instead of these power sources being controlled and managed by experts and people with in depth knowledge of the risks and advantages, with careful planning and solid execution. There is someone at the top who won a popularity contest, often because they are either the best spoken, or relates well with the common man. Not because they are a smart humble public servant, who is looking out for the well fair of their constituents over their next election cycle.

In Americas two party system both parties are bad for nuclear power.
The Republicans, want to spend less money, forcing Nuclear power company to cut corners. Which normally goes into safety first, then will then go into reliability. They will stand up and support Nuclear power, but try to cut out expenses that are needed for a long term success, and regulations to make sure things are being safe.
The Democrats, generally want to stop nuclear power. So they will not go out of their ways to make such companies succeed. They will be more apt to shutdown a power plant then spend millions of dollars for needed upgrades, even if shutting it down will cost twice as much.

Then we have the political parties swapping back and forth regaining and loosing power. Which is forcing an industry that really needs a long term consistent plan, spanning multiple generations, to be hit with rapidly changing methods and rules. It is like bending a wire back and forth, after a while it will snap.

Re: nuclear power ?

[c6gunner]

Eh. Even the monetary cost is overblown and largely due to NIMBYs. Do the math on what it would cost to provide conventional fuel for an aircraft carrier for 60 years, vs what it costs to make them nuclear. Include decommissioning costs for good measure. You'll still get a very favourable result.

Re:nuclear power ?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Please show your calculation factoring in the cost of wars for oil.

Re:nuclear power ?

[PPH]

That power plant shares nothing more than the name Hanford with the waste site. Its spent fuel handling is separate from the weapons production byproducts.

Hanford "cleanup": 5 decades of poor management.

[Futurepower(R)]

Quotes from the parent comment:

"... the cost of constructing nuclear power plants, ... is absurdly high..."

Also extremely high: "the cost of dealing with the radioactive waste materials."

"the corruption and incompetence is staggering, and far outweighs the benefits of nuclear power."

The Hanford Site was established in 1943. "... decades of manufacturing left behind 53 million US gallons (200,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste..."

Perhaps every 2 years for more than 5 decades, there have been new claims about cleaning the Hanford site. This Slashdot story is a good example of demonstrating the confusion and inadequate management. One of the problems in the past is that most government officials didn't have technical knowledge, but tried to make decisions anyway.

Humans have made a mess that humans don't know how to fix. Nuclear fission plants have never made sense, partly because of the immense problems dealing with radioactive waste.