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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
Toshihiko Yamanishi, Hideki Kakiuchi, Hiroshi Tauchi, Tokuhiro Yamamoto, Ichiro Yamamoto
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 4 | May 2020 | Pages 430-438
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1716454
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of discussions on tritiated water of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FD-NPS) was carried out. A large amount of contaminated water has been generated in FD-NPS. Radioisotopes in the contaminated water have been removed except tritium, and thus, tritiated water has been left and stored. As of March 2019, 1 126 500 m3 of tritiated water has been stored in tanks. The average tritium concentration in the tritiated water is 1000 Bq/cm3.
Various options for handling the tritiated water, such as discharge into the sea, geosphere injection, underground burial, and vapor or hydrogen release with and without pretreatment, were discussed on the basis that there is no scientific impact on people. Through the discussions, 11 options for handling tritiated water were summarized. At the same time, some experimental tests of tritium separation (with small-scale and/or full-scale component test stands) were also carried out. As a result, it was concluded that the tested separation technologies could not yet be applied to the case of FD-NPS. No selection from the 11 options has yet been recommended, and further discussions for the tritiated water have continued with public hearings.
