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DNFSB spots possible bottleneck in Hanford’s waste vitrification
Workers change out spent 27,000-pound TSCR filter columns and place them on a nearby storage pad during a planned outage in 2023. (Photo: DOE)
While the Department of Energy recently celebrated the beginning of hot commissioning of the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which has begun immobilizing the site’s radioactive tank waste in glass through vitrification, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported a possible bottleneck in waste processing. According to the DNFSB, unless current systems run efficiently, the issue could result in the interruption of operations at the WTP’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, where waste vitrification takes place.
During operations, the LAW Facility will process an average of 5,300 gallons of tank waste per day, according to Bechtel, the contractor leading design, construction, and commissioning of the WTP. That waste is piped to the facility after being treated by Hanford’s Tanks Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system, which filters undissolved solid material and removes cesium from liquid waste.
According to a November 7 activity report by the DNFSB, the TSCR system may not be able to produce waste feed fast enough to keep up with the LAW Facility’s vitrification rate.
Oleg G. Povetko
Nuclear Technology | Volume 163 | Number 1 | July 2008 | Pages 31-37
Technical Paper | High-Level Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3967
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Radioactive waste-handling operations at a potential high-level radioactive waste (HLW) geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, would involve receiving, processing, aging, and emplacing HLW equivalent to 70 000 t of heavy metal. This paper presents results of an independent analysis of the external radiation dose fields for various designs at a potential repository underground facility, performed at the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses. In order to analyze dose fields, radiation source terms have been developed for commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assemblies. Full-scale three-dimensional models of waste packages and underground repository drifts were used in the Monte Carlo radiation transport simulations. Radiation dose rates along the drifts have been evaluated for multiple waste packages for SNF-emitted photons, neutrons, and 60Co photons. Analysis shows that SNF photons contribute >68%, 60Co photons contribute <30%, and neutrons contribute <2% to the total dose rates. The contribution of photons scattered off the drift walls is <10% of the total dose rates. The drift elbow significantly blocks direct radiation shine and reduces scattered dose rates at the junction of turnout and main access drifts where workers could be present.
