Radwaste Solutions is a specialty magazine dedicated to the decommissioning, environmental remediation, and waste management segments of the nuclear community.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is issuing for public comment draft guidance on the use of decommissioning trust funds for the disposal of major radioactive components from nuclear power plants that are still in operation.
Holtec International has said its patented HI-LIFT crane technology, being installed at the Indian Point-3 nuclear power plant, will speed the defueling of the spent nuclear fuel pool and avoid millions in excess decommissioning costs.
The question “What about the waste?” is typically thrown out by the antinuclear crowd as an attempt to bog down the discussion of nuclear development. However, with renewed interest in nuclear power—and new advanced reactors in particular—what to do about used nuclear fuel is coming to the fore as a question that needs resolving.
American Nuclear Society Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer Craig Piercy responded to the Department of Energy’s awarding the Society about $2 million to lead a team of universities in developing a replicable model for community engagement on nuclear storage, saying the work will help the DOE determine what consensus decision-making looks like in the siting process for facilities storing commercial spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), and the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation (AOPFN) have signed a long-term relationship agreement that aims to foster mutual respect, collaboration, and economic opportunities between Canada’s indigenous communities and the nuclear industry.
Under terms of the agreement, a working group featuring representation from all three parties will be formed to facilitate ongoing engagements and collaboration among the organizations. This is in addition to the creation of what will be known as the AOPFN Neya Wabun (guardian program), which will establish a regular presence of Pikwakanagan guardians at CNL operations and AECL sites within the territory.
A team of designers from Central Plateau Cleanup Company (CPCCo), a contractor of the DOE-EM Richland Operations Office, is using 3D laser scanning technology to gather data to help workers prepare some of the facilities at the Hanford Site for demolition.
United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), the Department of Energy’s lead environmental cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, has formed a new partnership with Tennessee Tech University focused on building a pipeline of highly skilled workers for cleanup work at the site. Working with UCOR, the university’s College of Engineering is to launch a new nuclear engineering degree program beginning in fall 2024.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has awarded a $2 million grant to the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce for its work in considering the possible future uses of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Kentucky. The project will consist of site mapping, community studies, data analysis, and development of recommended strategies.
A pair of recent reports by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine highlight some of the challenges the Department of Energy faces in treating the millions of gallons of legacy radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
An excavator with a hydraulic hammer is used to dismantle the chemical process cell, as part of the deconstruction of the main plant process building at DOE-EM’s West Valley Demonstration Project. (Photo: DOE)
Work crews are currently dismantling the chemical process cell at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York, with work expected to be completed over several months, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management noted late last month. Demolition of the cell, part of West Valley’s main plant processing building, includes the removal of racks used decades ago to store high-level radioactive waste canisters.
According to DOE-EM, a 2023 priority is to dispose of 9,000 tons of demolition waste from the processing building, one of the site’s last remaining major facilities. The demolition is expected to take about 30 months to complete.
The work: Earlier this year, work crews used a heavy-duty excavator with a hydraulic hammer to take out the outermost 3 feet of the cell’s 5-foot-thick reinforced-concrete walls. This lower-risk work allowed workers with CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley, DOE-EM's contractor for the project, to perform other deconstruction activities in parallel, which helped to accelerate the project’s schedule and lower cost, according to DOE-EM.
Claflin University students recently toured the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina to learn about the facilities and occupations there.
After initial runs using a mix of radiological waste and nonradioactive simulant, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory site has progressed to treating sodium-bearing waste entirely, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) announced on May 22.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has released its Strategic Vision 2023–2033, a blueprint of the office’s anticipated cleanup achievements over the next decade. DOE-EM said the strategic vision is focused on the priorities of addressing radioactive liquid tank waste, demolishing contaminated buildings, remediating contaminated soil and groundwater, and safely managing and disposing of waste.
“The Strategic Vision 2023–2033 is intended to help us gaze further out to a place we want to be in the future,” DOE-EM senior advisor William “Ike” White said. “It sets EM on a course that will span a decade and inspire us all to achieve EM’s vital nuclear cleanup mission.”
The United States and Canada will cooperate on spent nuclear fuel management under a statement of intent (SOI) signed between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, the nonprofit responsible for the management of Canada’s commercial spent fuel.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has launched the EM Career Acquisition Program (ECAP) to build a pipeline of trained, experienced acquisition professionals to oversee the procurement and management of cleanup contracts.
The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) facility is one of hundreds of old, contaminated buildings at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee that are slated to be taken down.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy announced May 9 that it intends to transfer ownership of the 1,600-acre GEH Vallecitos Nuclear Center to NorthStar Group Services for nuclear decontamination, decommissioning, and environmental site restoration.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a license to Holtec International to construct and operate a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico. Holtec is proposing building the facility, called the HI-STORE CISF, between the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs in Lea County on land provided by the Eddy Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA).
Work crews at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently replaced a motor on a crane in the 70-year-old H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility. H Canyon is the only production-scale, radiologically shielded chemical separations plant in operation in the United States.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is issuing a request for information (RFI) aimed at understanding the current state-of-art radiological survey methods used to comply with decommissioning and license termination requirements. According to the commission, the information will help its staff better understand trends in radiological survey instrumentation and data analysis, including those used to survey both surface and subsurface residual radioactivity.