Hanford’s 324 Building, circa 2015. (Photo: DOE)
Working with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy has revised its planned approach to remediating contaminated soil underneath the Chemical Materials Engineering Laboratory (commonly known as the 324 Building) at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The soil, which has been designated the 300-296 waste site, became contaminated as the result of a spill of highly radioactive material in the mid-1980s.
Solomon Bairai of Navarro-ATL prepares a Twister Stir Bar sample for analysis at the Hanford Site's 222-S Laboratory. (Photo: DOE)
A new method has received Washington state’s approval for use at the 222-S Laboratory at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, improving how experts analyze tank waste and providing more precise data to support safe and efficient cleanup.
Argonne physicist Michael Kelly loads a superconducting cavity into a large furnace. (Photo: ANL)
Argonne National Laboratory said it has secured just over $10 million from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) for two research projects investigating the transmutation of spent nuclear fuel into less radioactive substances.
The NWMO has launched a two-year engagement process as it begins plans for a second deep geological repository to manage radioactive waste in Canada. (Photo: NWMO)
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which is mandated by law to develop an approach for the long-term care of Canada’s spent nuclear fuel, has begun collecting feedback from Canadians and Indigenous people to help refine its process for selecting a second deep geologic repository site.
The USS Enterprise is to be dismantled in Mobile, Ala.
The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded NorthStar Group Services subsidiary NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services a firm-fixed-price contract worth $536,749,731 for the dismantling, recycling, and disposal of the historic USS Enterprise (now also known as the ex-Enterprise), the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The work will be performed in Mobile, Ala., and is expected to be completed by November 2029.
Fuel debris sample taken from Fukushima-2. (Photo: TEPCO)
Tokyo Electric Power Company has released the results of its initial analysis of a sample of nuclear fuel debris from Unit 2 of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The sample, which measured around 5mm by 4mm and totaled 0.187 grams, was taken from the floor of the reactor pedestal during a second trial removal of fuel debris conducted in April.
Cleanup crews successfully removed the defueled reactor vessel from the Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse naval nuclear propulsion prototype reactor plant. (Photo: DOE)
A milestone was reached by Idaho Cleanup Project crews in the deactivation and demolition of the defueled Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse (S1W) naval nuclear propulsion prototype reactor plant, which had once served as a training ground for about 14,000 U.S. Navy submariners and plant operators.
Workers offload nitrogen into the LAW Facility at Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. The nitrogen, mixed with other materials, will simulate tank waste as the facility prepares for waste operations later this year. (Photo: DOE)
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that it has introduced waste simulant chemicals to the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) as part of the cold commissioning testing of the plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility.
Specialized cylinders stand in a cylinder yard at the Paducah Site. (Photo: DOE)
A milestone has been reached at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site when work crews successfully fabricated valves from old equipment and installed them on 137 specialized cylinders. This action will enable future work crews to transform depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) stored inside the cylinders into depleted uranium oxide, a stable chemical form suitable for reuse, storage or disposal.
An aerial perspective of the 32-acre parcel OREM recently transferred at the ETTP. (Photo: DOE)
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management recently completed the transfer of a 32-acre parcel at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) for private sector use. The transfer brings the total amount of property transferred from federal ownership for economic reuse to 1,832 acres at the ETTP, which was once home to the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Simulator instructor Marc Widener at the controls of a new crane simulator for the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said it will use a new simulator to help train operators on the safe and efficient movement of a remotely operated crane at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The DWPF, where Savannah River’s liquid high-level radioactive waste is vitrified and placed into storage containers, uses an unmanned bridge crane system to install and replace equipment in the high-humidity, high-radiation, and harsh chemical environment of the facility’s processing cells.
Deep Isolation’s Universal Canister System. (Photo: Deep Isolation)
Nuclear waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation announced it has successfully completed Project PUCK, a government-funded initiative to demonstrate the feasibility and potential commercial readiness of its Universal Canister System (UCS) to manage TRISO spent nuclear fuel.
NWMO vice president and chief engineer Chris Boyle addresses vendors at the NWMO’s Discovery and Demonstration Center. (Photo: NWMO)
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization has selected five companies it is to work with to design and plan the organization’s proposed deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel. As the owner of the project, the NWMO will be working with WSP Canada, Peter Kiewit Sons (Kiewit), Hatch Ltd., Thyssen Mining Construction of Canada, and Kinectrics.
NAC International’s Volunteer package. (Image: NAC)
NAC International has announced that it has received certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its new high-capacity Volunteer packaging system for transporting nonfissile or fissile-exempt radioactive materials.
Hanford workers move a 330-gallon double-wall transport container of treated tank waste. (Photo: DOE)
As part of its Test Bed Initiative (TBI) demonstration project, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management completed two shipments of treated, low-activity tank waste from the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. The approximately 2,000 gallons of TBI waste will be solidified in grout and permanently disposed of at Waste Control Specialists’ (WCS) federal disposal facility in Andrews County, Texas, and at EnergySolutions’ disposal facility in Clive, Utah.
A 1960s Electrolux vacuum cleaner was discovered in Sellafield’s Pile Fuel Cladding Silo. (Photo: Sellafield Ltd.)
A 1960s Electrolux vacuum cleaner was among the more unusual items workers removed from one of the world’s oldest nuclear waste stores at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site.
INL’s Hot Fuel Examination Facility. (Photo: INL)
An agreement signed by the state of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Energy will open the way for a single cask of high-burnup spent nuclear fuel to be shipped from Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear power plant in Virgina to Idaho National Laboratory for research purposes.
