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 ?

[sfcat]

THE most important problem with nuclear power ? COST.

This article is about nuclear waste from weapons productions left over from the 60s. This has nothing to do with nuclear power. No civilian operation wants anything to do with the processes involved with Hanford. They used acid to separate Plutonium from Uranium. The acid mixed with the Uranium is the waste. Civilian nuclear power has never done anything like this, doesn't want to and almost certainly never will.

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 ?

[DarkOx]

The problem is not even the cost; its how the deal is structured. Everyone loves to look at coal/gas/oil etc and argue the total costs including the externalized ones like increased respiratory disease add up to more than nuclear and maybe even add up to more than costs associated with neuclear disasters like Japan.

The problem is that when something like Fukushima happens the costs are incurred up front are enormous large areas of property are lost immediately. Massive amounts of money have to be poured into cleanup and containment; even as compared to an ash or oil spill.

The costs of the other energy choices however even if greater are borne out over time. Society remains productive during that time and pays them in what are effectively installments. We can live with it. The same way individuals can live with mortgage payment of $800 a month but would be bankrupt if you required them fork over $200K this afternoon.

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 ?

[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.

Re:nuclear power ?

[bobbied]

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

This is not relevant now.

WE (the USA) now produce more natural gas than we use. We have enough proven resources which are economically recoverable to last us decades and support a brisk export business besides. We also produce nearly as much oil as we use. We are therefore not importing oil. You can thank fracking..

Besides, the world at large benefited from our cost stabilization efforts too, so would you recommend we just ignore oil prices and just let the middle east run amok?

Bureaucracy is Evil

[RadioD00d]

This argument has been going on for years. On one hand, the DOE keeps changing the rules for vitrification, and processing, and keeps the shell game going at Hanford. On the other hand, they've shut down the Savannah River reclamation project, and mothballed Yucca Mountain. So, we keep kicking the can down the road, and in the meantime, the storage containers that currently exist at Hanford are getting older and more subject to decay and leakage. It's going to take another crisis for them to make a definitive plan - but I don't know why I expect anything less....

SOLUTION IS OBVIOUS

[Anonymous Coward]

Deposit the nuke waste into spent coal shafts. Since coal is clean, and the coal shafts have residual coal, which is the best for cleaning, the nuke waste is made inert in a few years give or take. Excellent. Excellent. Excellsior.

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.

Re: Hanford

[spth]

The problems caused by using nuclear energy go away by themselves, within just a few millennia.

The problems caused by burning fossil fuels also go away by themselves. It just takes 100000 times longer.