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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.
Teuntje Tijssen, Barry Butler
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 3 | May 2024 | Pages 563-570
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2180243
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The tritium inventory of future fusion power plants needs to be monitored in the fuel cycle for several reasons: to comply with limits imposed by environment and safety regulators, to adhere to practices required by nuclear regulators, and for process control purposes. Fulfilling all these requirements leads to a comprehensive list of locations in the fuel cycle where tritium monitoring needs to take place, each characterized by different measurement conditions and required accuracies. Meanwhile, existing tritium detection technologies all come with specific applicabilities such as accuracy, material phase, and ability to detect tritium in a continuous manner. These do not necessarily correspond to the required measurement conditions. As an example, one tritium detection technology will be matched up with the previously defined measurement conditions, which allows for the identification of gaps in the existing detection capabilities of this technology. This work leads to several recommendations, i.e., developments to expand the applicability of tritium detection technologies, experimental proposals to test detection techniques at more extreme conditions, and expansion of the regulatory framework regarding tritium handling and breeding. These developments are critical for a functioning tritium management and control system, and this paper outlines the first step in that process.