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GAO: Clarification of HLW definition could save DOE billions
A clearer definition of what constitutes high-level radioactive waste could save the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management “tens of billions of dollars” in waste management costs and accelerate its cleanup schedule by decades, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
DOE-EM’s efforts to manage waste resulting from legacy spent nuclear fuel reprocessing have been hindered for decades by the ambiguity of the statutory definition of HLW as laid out in the Atomic Energy Act and Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the report states. While admitting that the DOE has taken steps to overcome this ambiguity, the GAO says that the department has not fully evaluated all available opportunities to treat and dispose of waste more economically as either transuranic or low-level radioactive waste.
Hwan-Seo Park, In-Tae Kim, Hwan-Young Kim, Byung Gil Ahn, Eung Ho Kim, Han Soo Lee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 172 | Number 3 | December 2010 | Pages 287-294
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10937
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The molten salt waste from a pryochemical process to recover uranium and transuranic elements is one of the problematic radioactive wastes to be solidified into a durable waste form for its final disposal. This paper suggests a new method as a dechlorination approach to the immobilization of salt waste. The inorganic composite consists of SiO2, Al2O3, and P2O5 (SAP), which can generate a series of reactive sites for metal chlorides when in contact with molten salt. Under an oxidative condition, metal chlorides were successfully dechlorinated and converted into metal aluminosilicate, metal aluminophosphate, and metal orthophosphate, which are manageable at a high temperature. The optimum mixing ratio of SAP/salt in weight is about 2, and a borosilicate glass shows good compatibility with the reaction products containing phosphate compounds. By using a glass, a highly monolithic waste form was successfully fabricated at 1100°C, and more than 33 wt% of mixing ratio of glass as a chemical binder increased the chemical durability of the waste form. Use of SAP as an effective stabilizer can offer a chance to avoid Cl-induced problems and control the vaporization of volatile elements. This allows a high degree of freedom in the fabrication of monolithic waste form.