More than 20 years after the construction of the large-scale vitrification plant at the Hanford Nuclear Site, we filmed one of the final steps to begin treatment of waste immediately this summer.
Vektel’s national workers began manipulating plants using chemicals that simulate radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes treated there.
The plant first transforms some of the least radioactive waste accumulated in underground tanks into a stable glass shape for 81 years.
“Starting nitrate feed is the next important step to launching environmental testing for low-active waste facilities and operations to protect human health and the environment.
Ammonia and nitrous oxide-producing chemicals are added to plant melters, along with glass-forming materials that are heated to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. After cooling, the molten mixture is poured into stainless steel containers for disposal in Hanford’s lined landfill.
Turning waste mimetics into a stable glass form tests the glass manufacturing system and its components. It demonstrates that the exhaust system is designed to filter off-gus emitted through the stack.
The factory must then pass the State Department’s Ecological Bureau Environmental Performance Demonstration and then the Federal Operations Readiness Review.
If work goes as planned, Bechtel National will begin making glass incorporating radioactive waste in late July and have completely 4 feet x 7.5 feet of vitrified waste in August.
It is 23 years after the ground broke to build a Hanford waste treatment plant, commonly known as a vitrification plant.
Radioactive waste is left from chemically treated uranium fuel irradiated into the Hanford reactor, producing almost two-thirds of plutonium from World War II to the Cold War.
The work left 56 million gallons of a mixture of radioactive and dangerous chemical waste stored in underground tanks. Some of them tended to leak easily until they were treated for waste.
The low-activity waste facility has two 300 tonnes of melters to heat the waste mixture, making it the world’s largest waste glass melter by more than three times the other, including those used in the Savanna River in France, the UK, Department of Energy, and the Savanna River in South Carolina.
Once the first radioactive waste is vitrified in a vitrification plant in a step called Hot Commissioning, Bechtel National will continue to dispose of the radioactive waste for 6-18 months until work transitions to Hanford Tank Waste Contractors.
The operation and closure of the waste in the Hanford Tank, or H2C, called in Hanford, was awarded a contract to manage the waste in radioactive tanks.
H2C – Joint Ventures of BWX Technology, Amentum and Fluor – completed a four-month transition period with outgoing contractors in February to manage Hanford Waste Storage Tank Farm and take over operations of the fire equipment plant for low-active waste disposal.
The DOE will select the appropriate time to begin the migration of the vitrification plant operations from Bechtel National based on the tank projects and geese activities that H2C is working on H2C.
High-level waste facilities are still under construction at vitrification plants to treat most radioactive waste in Hanford’s underground storage tanks. A federal court consent ruling requires that treatment begin in 2033.
Addressed VIT plant safety issues
One of the last hurdles that DOE had to clear to begin plant manipulation with simulated waste was the need to inspect and repair the ammonia system for the low-active waste disposal portion of the plant.
The plant has two tanks, each about 24 feet in diameter and 7 feet in diameter, each with a capacity of 6,000 gallons of ammonia.
When a vitrification plant treats waste, nitrogen oxides are released into the exhaust system of the low-activating waste facility.
Ammonia causes chemical reactions that significantly reduce the levels of nitrogen oxides, meeting air permit levels.
There were two incidents in which workers were told to be covered indoors after Ammonia was added to the system and leaks were detected.
The first take cover orders for some Central Hanford came in December, while the second take cover incident took place in the spring, focusing on workers only on 65-acre vitrification plant sites.
The deteriorated gasket was replaced and the valve was rebuilt with an ammonia system.
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