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Hanford begins removing waste from 24th single-shell tank
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said crews at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., have started retrieving radioactive waste from Tank A-106, a 1-million-gallon underground storage tank built in the 1950s.
Tank A-106 will be the 24th single-shell tank that crews have cleaned out at Hanford, which is home to 177 underground waste storage tanks: 149 single-shell tanks and 28 double-shell tanks. Ranging from 55,000 gallons to more than 1 million gallons in capacity, the tanks hold around 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste resulting from plutonium production at the site.
Kenneth Petersen is an executive consultant to the nuclear power industry, providing strategy, management, and technical consulting related to nuclear fuel and special nuclear material. Prior to his retirement in November 2021, Petersen was Exelon Generation Company’s (EGC’s) vice president for nuclear fuels. In this role, he provided governance and oversight for all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle for Exelon’s fleet of 21 operational reactors and three retired reactors. He led Exelon’s fuel purchasing, nuclear core design and related safety analyses, and spent fuel management.
Petersen has nearly three decades of experience purchasing nuclear fuel, and during his 12 years as ECG’s vice president for nuclear fuels, he oversaw the company’s $1 billion annual budget for nuclear fuel procurement and managed a nuclear fuel contract portfolio valued at over $5 billion. His fuel supply responsibilities included the development of risk management metrics and strategic decisions related to fuel, inventory levels, and pricing mechanisms. In addition, he developed nuclear core design and safety analysis skills. He played a key role in the technical aspects of utilizing fuel in the reactors and was a major industry advocate for accident tolerant fuel designs, including coated fuel rods, high burnup, and high enrichment.
Petersen’s long history with spent fuel and special nuclear material includes his involvement with executing the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Standard Contract and, subsequently, EGC’s litigation and eventual settlement with the DOE. He also had governance and oversight over the installation of EGC-constructed independent spent fuel storage facilities. Petersen earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin and began his career Commonwealth Edison upon graduation in 1988.
Read Nuclear News from June 2023 for more on Ken Petersen.
