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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.
Jean-François Pignatel, Pierre Richard, Gerald Rimpault, Julian Murgatroyd, Richard Stainsby, Michael Schikorr, Evaldas Bubelis, Sophie Larmignat, Antony Woaye Hune, Danas Ridikas, Alan Takibayev
Nuclear Technology | Volume 180 | Number 2 | November 2012 | Pages 264-296
Technical Paper | Accelerators | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-97
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to reduce the volume and the radiotoxicity of the nuclear waste coming from the operation of existing pressurized water reactors, accelerator-driven systems (ADSs) have been envisioned.The Helium-cooled (He) European Facility for Industrial-scale Transmutation (He-EFIT) concept is the EUROpean Research Programme for the TRANSmutation of High Level Nuclear Waste in Accelerator Driven System (EUROTRANS) Integrated Project (IP) (EUROTRANS IP) backup option, whereas Pb-cooled EFIT is the reference one. The plant has a power of [approximately]400 MW(thermal). Like all ADS plants, it consists of three main components: the accelerator, the spallation target module, and the subcritical core.This paper describes the He-EFIT design at the end of the EUROTRANS IP as well as the studies performed to support this design: spallation performances, trasmutation capabilities, and plant safety analyses.No specific technology deadlock has been identified, and it might be possible to build such a plant given necessary research and development in support.