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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
G. W. Shuy, D. Dobrott
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 252-257
Alternate Fuels | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22877
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A conceptual tandem-mirror reactor (TMR) configuration consists of a solenoidal central-cell with its ends plugged by a combination of electrostatic and magnetic fields. The magnetic fields in the end plug also provide MHD stability. The electrostatic plugs for ions and electrons are created by combining hot electron plasmas and neutral beams for fueling and pumping. A large negative potential may be formed in the end plug to contain central cell electrons, but the central cell floating potential ϕf is driven negative as charge neutrality is maintained. Cat-d TMR plasma performance is assessed with respect to standard (positive), neutral and negative central cell potential operating modes. It is determined that the plasma. Q for a 2000 MW fusion power reactor is peaked for central cell potential ϕf near zero. This is because on one hand, the ion-loss cone is bigger for positive ϕf and the ion plug electrons must overcome larger ϕf + ϕc and hence more ECH is required to build the ion plug, and, on the other hand, the electron loss-cone is bigger for negative ϕf and synchrotron losses are severe. A zero-dimensional plasma physics model for the density and power balance of a Cat-d TMR has been developed from an existing code that models a d-t TMR operating with a positive central cell potential. The new Cat-d code models all potential operating modes and has been benchmarked.