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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
David T. Hobbs, David G. Karraker
Nuclear Technology | Volume 114 | Number 3 | June 1996 | Pages 318-324
Technical Paper | Enrichment and Reprocessing System | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35236
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The high-activity waste from Savannah River Site fuel reprocessing is stored as a two-layered mixture in mild steel tanks. The solid layer contains the hydrolyzable cations, including most of the actinides; the supernatant liquid is a strong base-salt solution that includes I37Cs. To gain storage capacity, the supernate is evaporated to solids, then redissolved for waste processing. The solubility of uranium and plutonium in the supernate is low, but evaporation raises the possibility of an accumulation in the evaporator. This study of uranium and plutonium solubility by statistical design experiments and under simulated evaporator conditions found that uranium solubility decreases to 5 to 10 ppm as the supernate is evaporated; plutonium solubility increases from 1 to ∼10 ppm. The possibility of uranium accumulation in an evaporator exists, but the possibility of plutonium accumulation appears to be small.
