The Department of Energy announced last week that Melter 1 at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, has hit its operational temperature of 2,100ºF. The DOE began heating Melter 1 in October 2022, but was soon forced to pause when abnormalities in the heaters’ power supply were encountered.
Hanford teams prepare for first tank waste transfer
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said that crews at its Hanford Site in Washington state are preparing for the site’s first-ever transfer of radioactive waste...
DOE extends Centrus’s HALEU production contract by one year
Centrus Energy has secured a contract extension from the Department of Energy to continue—for one year—its ongoing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production at the American...
Contractor selected for Belgian LLW/ILW facility
Brussels-based construction group Besix announced that is has been chosen by the Belgian agency for radioactive waste management ONDRAF/NIRAS for construction of the country’s surface...
Take steps on SNF and HLW disposal
With a new administration and Congress, it is time once again to ponder what will happen—if anything—on U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management policy over the next few...
West Valley completes teardown of Main Plant Process Building
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and its cleanup contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) completed the on-time removal of the Main Plant Process Building...
DOE opens pilot program to authorize test reactors outside national labs
Details of the plan to test new reactor concepts under the Department of Energy’s authority but outside national laboratory boundaries—first outlined in one of the four executive orders on...
Hanford proposes “decoupled” approach to remediating former chem lab
Working with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy has revised its planned approach to remediating contaminated soil underneath the Chemical Materials Engineering...
Hanford advances WTP cold commissioning with introduction of waste simulants
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that it has introduced waste simulant chemicals to the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP)...
Novel waste analysis process approved for Hanford
A new method has received Washington state’s approval for use at the 222-S Laboratory at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, improving how experts analyze tank waste and providing...
Scientific mission to track radwaste barrels on Atlantic seabed
A scientific mission led by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) set sail this past weekend in the Northeast Atlantic to investigate the long-term impacts of radioactive...
