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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.
Haihua Zhao, Per F. Peterson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 180 | Number 3 | December 2012 | Pages 422-436
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the Initial Release of MCNP6 / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A15353
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Generation IV high-temperature-reactor (HTR) systems use closed gas Brayton cycles to realize high thermal efficiency in the range of from 40% to 50% or more. The waste heat is removed through coolers by water at a substantially greater average temperature than in conventional condensing Rankine steam cycles. This paper introduces an innovative advanced multieffect distillation (AMED) design that can enable the production of substantial quantities of low-cost desalinated water using waste heat from closed gas Brayton cycles. A reference AMED design configuration, optimization models, and simplified economics analysis are presented. By using an AMED distillation system, one can fully utilize the waste heat from closed gas Brayton cycles to desalinate brackish water and seawater without affecting the cycle thermal efficiency. Analysis shows that cogeneration of electricity and desalinated water can increase net revenues for several Brayton cycles while generating large quantities of potable water. AMED combined with closed gas Brayton cycles could significantly improve the sustainability and economics of Generation IV HTRs.