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The Hanford Site (also known as the Hanford Reservation) occupies approximately 1,450 km2 (560 square miles) along the Columbia River in south-central Washington, north of the city of Richland. The site was established by the federal government in 1943 to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Currently, the mission of the site, under the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is management of wastes generated by the weapons program and remediation of the environment contaminated by that waste. As part of that mission, DOE and the State of Washington Department of Ecology prepared the Hanford Site Tank Waste Remediation System Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). The Hanford Tanks is a general review of the DEIS. Its findings and recommendations are the subject of this report. Selection of a disposition plan for these wastes is a decision of national importance, involving potential environmental and health risks, technical challenges, and costs of tens to hundreds of billions of dollars. The last comprehensive analysis of these issues was completed 10 years ago, and several major changes in plans have occurred since. Therefore, the current reevaluation is timely and prudent. This report endorses the decision to prepare this new environmental impact statement, and in particular the decision to evaluate a wide range of alternatives not restricted to those encouraged by current regulatory policies.
The Hanford Site, located in southeastern Washington State, is operated by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors. Starting in 1943, Hanford supported fabrication of reactor fuel elements, operation of production reactors, processing of irradiated fuel to separate and extract plutonium and uranium, and preparation of plutonium metal. Processes used to recover plutonium and uranium from irradiated fuel and to recover radionuclides from tank waste, plus miscellaneous sources resulted in the legacy of approximately 227,000 m3 (60 million gallons) of high-level radioactive waste, currently in storage. This waste is currently stored in 177 large underground storage tanks, 28 of which have two steel walls and are called double-shell tanks (DSTs) an 149 of which are called single-shell tanks (SSTs). Much of the high-heat-emitting nuclides (strontium-90 and cesium-137) has been extracted from the tank waste, converted to solid, and placed in capsules, most of which are stored onsite in water-filled basins. DOE established the Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) program in 1991. The TWRS program mission is to store, treat, immobilize and dispose, or prepare for disposal, the Hanford tank waste in an environmentally sound, safe, and cost-effective manner. Technology will need to be developed or improved to meet the TWRS program mission. The Integrated Technology Plan (ITP) is the high-level consensus plan that documents all TWRS technology activities for the life of the program.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site, located in southeastern Washington State, has the most diverse and largest amount of highly radioactive waste in the United States. High-level radioactive waste has been stored in large underground tanks since 1944. Approximately 230,000 m3 (61 Mgal) of caustic liquids, slurries, saltcakes, and sludges have 137Cs accumulated in 177 tanks. In addition, significant amounts of 9°Sr and were removed from the tank waste, converted to salts, doubly encapsulated in metal containers., and stored in water basins. A Tank Waste Remediation System Program was established by the U.S. Department of Energy in 1991 to safely manage and immobilize these wastes in anticipation of permanent disposal of the high-level waste fraction in a geologic repository. Since 1991, progress has been made resolving waste tank safety issues, upgrading Tank Farm facilities and operations, and developing a new strategy for retrieving, treating, and immobilizing the waste for disposal.
The U.S. Department of Energy Richland Operations Office (RL) is in the first stages of contracting with private companies for the treatment and immobilization of tank wastes. The components of tank waste retrieval, treatment, and immobilization have been conceived in two phases (Figure 1.0-1). To meet RL's anticipated contractual requirements, the Project Hanford Management Contractor (PHMC) companies will be required to provide waste feeds to the private companies consistent with waste envelopes that define the feeds in terms of quantity, and concentration of both chemicals and radionuclides. The planning that supports delivery of the feed must be well thought out in four basic areas: (1) Low-activity waste (LAW)/high-level waste (HLW) feed staging plans. How is waste moved within the existing tanks to deliver waste that corresponds to the defined feed envelopes to support the Private Contractor's processing schedule and processing rate? (2) Single-shell tank (SST) retrieval sequence. How are Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (Tri-Party Agreement) (Ecology et al. 1994) milestones for SST retrieval integrated into the Phase I processing to set the stage for Phase II processing to complete the mission? (3) Tank Waste Remediation System (TWRS) process flowsheet. How do materials flow from existing tank inventories through: (1) blending and pretreatment functions in the double-shell tanks (DSTs), (2) contractor processing facilities, and (3) stored waste forms (Figure 1.0-2); (4) Storage and disposal of the immobilized low-activity waste (ILAW) and immobilized high-level waste (IHLW) product. How is the ILAW and IHLW product received from the private companies, the ILAW disposed onsite, and the IHLW stored onsite until final disposal?