Waste Management

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has processed more than 10 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste in its Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has announced.

The Department of Energy has started over on the quest for a place to store used fuel. Its new goal, it says, is to foster a national conversation (although this might better be described as many local conversations) about a national problem that can only be solved at the local level with a “consent-based” approach. And while the department is touting the various milestones it has already reached on the way to an interim repository, the program is structured in a way that means its success will not be measurable for years.

Veolia UK announced that it has developed a new method for salvaging copper from electrical cables from decommissioned nuclear facilities. The process, which handles and disposes of the contaminated plastic coating that protects the core from radiation, reduces the time and cost of treating the waste while preserving the copper for recycling, the waste management company said.

Holtec International announced that it has completed the campaign to transfer Diablo Canyon’s spent nuclear to dry storage ahead of its planned schedule, paving the way for the continued operation of the central California nuclear power plant.

Katrina McMurrian

As the nation confronts increasing demand for clean, baseload energy, nuclear power today receives substantial bipartisan support, but nuclear waste remains a trusty arrow in the quiver of opponents. The U.S. should work to make nuclear waste a nonissue not only to support opportunities for nuclear power expansion but primarily to meet long--standing obligations. Federal government inaction to remove and dispose of commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) continues to negatively impact host communities in 36 states; electric customers in more than 40 states who paid billions of dollars into the Nuclear Waste Fund; and all U.S. taxpayers, who pay about $2 million per day for the government’s partial breach.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said that contractors have completed the treatment of 2,000 gallons of radioactive and chemical waste as part of the Hanford Site’s Test Bed Initiative project, which aims to demonstrate the feasibility of alternative options for retrieving and treating low-activity tank waste at the site in Washington state.

The municipality of South Bruce, located near the Bruce nuclear power plant in southwestern Ontario, voted narrowly in favor of being a willing host to a potential deep geologic repository for Canada’s spent nuclear fuel. The official declaration of results from the municipality showed that 51 percent of South Bruce residents voted in favor of the referendum, with 1,604 voting "yes" and 1,526 voting "no." Voter participation was 69 percent, surpassing the 50 percent voter turnout required to make the vote binding by law.

Tokyo Electric Power Company announced yesterday that is has recommenced a trial exercise to retrieve nuclear fuel debris from Unit 2 of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. TEPCO is attempting to retrieve a small amount of fuel debris from Unit 2’s pressure vessel for analysis before beginning a large-scale removal of the debris.

Sweden’s Land and Environmental Court has granted the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, or SKB) an environmental permit to build and operate a geologic repository for the country’s spent nuclear fuel near the Forsmark nuclear power plant, about 86 miles north of Stockholm. The permit also includes the building of a spent fuel encapsulation plant at the central interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at Oskarshamn, about 200 miles south of Stockholm.

Deep Isolation announced that it hosted its third technical workshop for the UPWARDS project, a Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) initiative aimed at developing a universal canister system (UCS) for the disposal of radioactive waste streams from advanced reactors. The workshop, held at R-V Industries in Honey Brook, Pa., focused on the large-scale manufacturing and commercialization of the UCS.

BWX Technologies announced that the Department of Energy has approved Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure (H2C) to begin work under a contract valued at up to $45 billion to clean up tank waste at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. H2C is a limited liability company made up of BWXT Technical Services Group, Amentum Environment and Energy, and Fluor Federal Services.

Employees at the H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently began the dissolution of nuclear material from a Japanese research reactor, leading to its safe disposal.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is asking for presentation proposals for a virtual workshop on the storage and transportation of TRISO and metal spent nuclear fuels for advanced reactor designs now under development.

Washington, D.C. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS), a nonprofit representing over 10,000 professionals in the fields of nuclear science and technology, issued the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari to Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas:

The Government Accountability Office has recommended that the Department of Energy put a hold on construction of its High-Level Waste Facility at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. The GAO said design and construction of the facility, part of Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, should be paused until several actions are taken, including considering other alternatives for managing the site’s high-level radioactive liquid waste.

President Biden has announced the appointment of six new members to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent federal agency that evaluates the technical and scientific validity of the Department of Energy’s activities related to managing and disposing of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.

Workers with the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its contractor UCOR have finished installing the first of three large sludge-settling tanks for the Mercury Treatment Facility at the site’s Y-12 National Security Complex. The tanks, each of which will be 38 feet tall and 15 feet wide with a capacity of 36,000 gallons, provide a visible sign of ongoing progress on the facility where much of the construction has so far been below ground.

Regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office next year, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management needs to take a close look at itself and “launch a comprehensive review of all aspects of the EM program,” according to a new report from the Energy Communities Alliance, which represents communities adjacent to or near DOE nuclear cleanup sites.

The 18-page ECA transition paper, Ensuring Long-Term Success: Recommendations for the Next Administration on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Mission, calls on the next administration to “take a fundamental look” at DOE-EM’s entire cleanup effort, including both sites that are active and those where work has been completed. How DOE-EM integrates with other DOE programs, including the National Nuclear Security Administration and the offices of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Legacy Management, should also be examined, according to the paper.

As the Department of Energy embarks on its consent-based process for siting a geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, a new report from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA highlights relevant lessons from the federal government’s now defunct Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator.

Established under Title IV of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the office, an independent agency within the executive branch, was primarily active from 1990 to 1995. Its role was to engage with state and tribal governments to find an acceptable and suitable host site for a repository.

The full report, Lessons from the Nuclear Waste Negotiator Era of the 1990s for Today’s Consent-Based Siting Efforts, is now available online. Its executive summary is available here.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced yesterday that waste processing operations have resumed at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory Site. The resumption of operations follows the completion of two maintenance campaigns at the radioactive liquid waste treatment facility.