Waste Management


De Facto disposal: The dumbest waste solution

March 15, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste SolutionsMatthew Wald
The site of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant, which was decommissioned in 2005. As with its sister plants Yankee Rowe and Connecticut Yankee, all that remains of the site is the plant ISFSI. Without a national waste management solution, spent fuel will continue to sit at sites such as these. (Photo: Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company)

After decades of false starts, U-turns, and stasis, the United States has arrived at a de facto solution for its high-level nuclear waste: Leave it in storage where it was produced, no matter how many tens of billions of dollars it costs, what impediments it raises for nuclear expansion, or what burdens it creates for the reuse of old reactor sites.

Dumb as it sounds, this is keeping all the major players happy. And it avoids alternative pathways, each of which has problems.

U.K. LLW project completed ahead of schedule

March 14, 2024, 3:03PMRadwaste Solutions
Waste drums at the Winfrith site's treated radwaste storage facility. (Photo: NWS)

More than 1,000 drums of low-level radioactive waste in the United Kingdom have been safely disposed of earlier than expected. The project was completed through the collaborative work of Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS), and Nuclear Transport Solutions (NTS).

Taking a Train to Texas

March 11, 2024, 12:03PMRadwaste Solutions
The first major shipment of depleted uranium oxide for disposal departs the DOE’s Paducah Site in Kentucky in early 2023 for disposal at the WCS facility in Texas.

Last year in late August, 120 storage cylinders of depleted uranium oxide (DUOx) safely arrived by rail in West Texas, having been shipped from the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. It was the first such shipment of the stable crystalline powder from the Portsmouth Site and was another milestone in the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) efforts to ship DUOx for off-site disposal.

The Watchful Guardian: Argonne’s ARG-US Remote Monitoring Technologies

March 11, 2024, 12:02PMRadwaste SolutionsKevin A. Brown and Yung Liu
The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Il

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are developing and deploying ARG-US (from the Greek Argus, meaning “Watchful Guardian”) remote monitoring systems technologies to enhance the safety, security, and safeguards (3S) of packages of nuclear and other radioactive material during storage, transportation, and disposal.

Glass Strategy: Hanford’s Enhanced Waste Glass Program

March 11, 2024, 12:02PMRadwaste SolutionsAlbert A. Kruger

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.

iLAMP: Neutron Absorber Material Monitoring for Spent Fuel Pools

March 11, 2024, 12:01PMRadwaste SolutionsHatice Akkurt

The spent fuel pool at TVA’s Watts Bar nuclear power plant near Spring City, Tenn. (Photo: TVA)

Neutron absorber materials are used by nuclear power plants to maintain criticality safety margins in their spent nuclear fuel pools. These materials are typically in the form of fixed panels of a neutron-absorbing composite material that is placed within the fuel pools. (A comprehensive review of such materials used in wet storage pools and dry storage has been provided by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) [1]).

With increasing plant life, there is a need to maintain or establish a monitoring program for neutron absorber materials—if one is not already in place—as part of aging management plans for reactor spent fuel pools.

Such monitoring programs are necessary to verify that the neutron absorbers continue to provide the criticality safety margins relied upon in the criticality analyses of a reactor’s spent fuel pool. To do this, the monitoring program must be capable of identifying any changes to the material and quantifying those changes. It should be noted that not all the changes (for example minor pitting and blistering of the absorber material) will result in statistically or operationally significant impact on the criticality safety margins.

For monitoring neutron absorber materials in spent fuel pools, until recently, two alternatives existed—coupon testing and in situ measurements. A third option, called industry-wide learning aging management program (i-LAMP), was proposed by EPRI and is currently in the final stages of the regulatory review. The following sections describe these monitoring approaches.

NWTRB recommends further analysis of SNF canisters

March 8, 2024, 12:04PMRadwaste Solutions

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), the independent federal agency tasked with reviewing the Department of Energy’s activities related to spent nuclear fuel management, issued a new report to Congress and the secretary of energy that examines the storage of spent fuel in dry storage casks at independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSI).

DOE again awards $45 billion Hanford tank contract to H2C

March 4, 2024, 7:00AMRadwaste Solutions
Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant. (Photo: Bechtel National)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management once again awarded a 10-year, $45 billion contract to Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure (H2C) of Lynchburg, Va., for the cleanup of tank waste at the Hanford Site.

Finland in Front: The World’s Likely First Spent Fuel Repository Moves Toward Licensing

March 1, 2024, 3:03PMRadwaste SolutionsEdited by Tim Gregoire. Photos courtesy of Tapani Karjanlahti/Posiva.
The site of the Onkalo deep geological repository near Eurajoki in southwestern Finland with the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in the background. In 2015, Posiva received a construction license from the Finnish government for the repository, which will be constructed to a depth of 1,300 to 1,500 feet.

The year 2024 is shaping up to be a historic one for Posiva, the waste management organization owned by Finland’s two nuclear power plant utilities, Fortum and Teollisuuden Voima. The company is looking to receive regulatory approval of its operating license for the Onkalo deep geological repository for high-level radioactive waste by the end of the year.

Orano, SHINE to cooperate on used fuel recycling plant

March 1, 2024, 7:01AMRadwaste Solutions
Orano CEO Nicolas Maes (left) and SHINE Technologies founder and CEO Greg Piefer shake hands after agreeing to cooperate on a pilot used fuel recycling facility. (Photo: Orano)

Orano and SHINE Technologies have agreed to cooperate in the development of a pilot plant capable of recycling used nuclear fuel from light water reactors on a commercial scale. In announcing the signing of a memorandum of understanding on Thursday, the companies said the selection of a site for the pilot U.S. facility is expected by the end of this year.

Study indicates pilot facility could significantly reduce waste volumes

February 27, 2024, 12:12PMRadwaste Solutions
Schematic of a deep horizontal borehole repository for nuclear waste. (Image: Deep Isolation)

Waste disposal start-up Deep Isolation and fusion tech company SHINE Technologies have announced the completion of a collaborative study assessing the costs of disposing of radioactive byproducts from a pilot spent nuclear fuel recycling facility.

Startup heaters installed in Hanford’s second waste melter

February 15, 2024, 12:04PMRadwaste Solutions
One of 18 startup heaters is installed in Hanford’s second melter, which will be used to vitrify liquid waste. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that crews at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, recently installed 18 temporary startup heaters in the second of two melters in the plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility.

Hanford’s initial tank waste campaign a success

February 7, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
A monitor in the control room of the Hanford Site’s TSCR system shows workers performing maintenance inside the TSCR facility. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s Office of River Protection and contractor Washington River Protection Solutions have completed the first waste processing campaign through the Tank-Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system at the Hanford Site.

WIPP reaches 10-year high in TRU waste shipments

February 5, 2024, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
A waste transport delivery truck heads for the WIPP site in New Mexico. In 2023, the repository saw its best shipment performance in 10 years. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced last week that, for calendar year 2023, the department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) had its best shipment performance in 10 years, having received 489 transuranic (TRU) waste shipments from generator sites throughout the country. For comparison, WIPP received only 272 shipments in 2022.

Nukem completes test setup for in-drum waste solidification plant

January 30, 2024, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Nukem’s waste solidification plant mock-up. (Photo: Nukem Technologies)

Nukem Technologies, a German-based radioactive waste management company, announced last week that it has successfully completed a mock-up for a state-of-the-art waste solidification plant. The plant will use the in-drum cementation process for encapsulating various types of radioactive waste into a solid, secure form suitable for long-term storage.

Mining of new waste disposal panel begins at WIPP

January 25, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
A continuous miner machine cuts into salt rock as mining begins on Panel 11, one of WIPP’s next waste disposal panels. (Photo: DOE)

For the first time in a decade, crews have started mining a new disposal panel at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, the nation’s deep geologic waste repository for defense-related transuranic waste.

Roy G. Post announces “50 for 50” scholarship awards

January 18, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions

The Roy G. Post Foundation has announced the awarding of more than 50 graduate and undergraduate scholarships for 2024 for outstanding students who have demonstrating excellent academic achievements and leadership qualities and who have made positive impacts in their communities.

Training facilities upgraded at Hanford's waste treatment plant

January 17, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Training instructor Chris Oliveros poses inside a new radiological control training classroom at Hanford’s WTP. (Photo: DOE)

The training team at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) recently added an extra level of realism to employee trainings by upgrading classrooms and adding new props, according to the Department of Energy.

Canada authorizes building of LLW disposal facility at Chalk River

January 16, 2024, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Concept art of the Chalk River near surface disposal facility for LLW. (Image: CNL)

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has decided to amend Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ operating license for the Chalk River Laboratories, allowing the construction of a near surface disposal facility (NSDF) for low-level radioactive waste on the nuclear research site in Deep River, Ontario.