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United States Government Power

Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Makes Progress, But Questions Loom (ieee.org) 121

Posted by BeauHD from the only-time-will-tell dept.
The Hanford Vit Plant in Washington state, a $17 billion federal facility for treating and immobilizing radioactive waste, is now on track to begin "glassifying" low-activity nuclear waste as soon as 2022, reports IEEE Spectrum. This is "a year ahead of a court-mandated deadline." From the report: Still, an air of uncertainty surrounds the project. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has proposed reclassifying some of the nation's radioactive waste as less dangerous, and it's unclear how that could affect the Hanford facility's long-term prospects. Hanford houses about 212 million liters of high-level waste, the leftovers of the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

However, higher-level waste has a longer timeline. Separate pretreatment and vitrification facilities aren't slated for commissioning until 2033. All parts of the Vit Plant are legally required to begin fully operating by 2036, under a consent decree between Washington, Oregon, and the federal government. The DOE hasn't said whether, or how, its proposal to reclassify nuclear waste would affect existing plans at Hanford if adopted. The agency is not making any decisions on the classification or disposal of any particular waste stream at this time, a DOE official said by email. [...] Though current law defines high-level radioactive waste as the sludge that results from processing highly radioactive nuclear fuel, the DOE is considering slapping a new, potentially less expensive label on it if it can meet the radioactive concentration limits for Class C low-level radioactive waste. Reclassifying nuclear waste would allow the federal government to sidestep decades of cleanup work, saving it billions of dollars. The relabeling might even enable the DOE to bypass costly vitrification and instead contain tank waste by covering it with concrete-like grout, as the agency does at other decommissioned nuclear sites. Officials and citizens in Washington and Oregon oppose this method for Hanford, "citing the risk of long-term soil and groundwater contamination and the challenges of moving and storing voluminous grout blocks," reports IEEE Spectrum. "Earlier federal studies found that grout 'actually performed the worst of all the supplemental treatment options considered.' (A 2017 report to Congress, however, suggested both vitrification and grout could effectively treat Hanford's low-activity waste.)"
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Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Makes Progress, But Questions Loom More

Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Makes Progress, But Questions Loom

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  • nuclear power ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dehachel12 ( 4766411 )
    THE most important problem with nuclear power ? COST.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Not only the cost of constructing nuclear power plants, which is absurdly high, but the cost of dealing with the radioactive waste materials.

      In theory, nuclear power is the perfect method of generating large amounts of electricity with no air pollution or carbon emission. In actual practice, not so much. Between the nuclear power companies and the government who is supposed to regulated them, the corruption and incompetence is staggering, and far outweighs the benefits of nuclear power. Another example o

      • Hanford "cleanup": 5 decades of poor management. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @10:01AM (#58045348) Homepage
        Quotes from the parent comment:

        "... the cost of constructing nuclear power plants, ... is absurdly high..."

        Also extremely high: "the cost of dealing with the radioactive waste materials."

        "the corruption and incompetence is staggering, and far outweighs the benefits of nuclear power."

        The Hanford Site [wikipedia.org] was established in 1943. "... decades of manufacturing left behind 53 million US gallons (200,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste..."

        Perhaps every 2 years for more than 5 decades, there have been new claims about cleaning the Hanford site. This Slashdot story is a good example of demonstrating the confusion and inadequate management. One of the problems in the past is that most government officials didn't have technical knowledge, but tried to make decisions anyway.

        Humans have made a mess that humans don't know how to fix. Nuclear fission plants have never made sense, partly because of the immense problems dealing with radioactive waste.

        • Also extremely high: "the cost of dealing with the radioactive waste materials."

          "the corruption and incompetence is staggering, and far outweighs the benefits of nuclear power." ...
          The Hanford Site [wikipedia.org] was established in 1943. "... decades of manufacturing left behind 53 million US gallons (200,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste..." ...
          Humans have made a mess that humans don't know how to fix. Nuclear fission plants have never made sense, partly because of the immense problems dealing with radioactive waste.

          The article you link makes it very clear that Hanford is a waste site for nuclear weapons production, not nuclear power plant fuel. You're dragging nuclear electrical power production into a historical problem from the early days of nuclear weapon production.
          Are you deliberately conflating the two? Can you not make your point with actual commercial nuclear power fuel production and waste storage?

          • Quoting that article: "Besides the cleanup project, Hanford also hosts a commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station..."

            The problems at Chernobyl and Fukushima and Hanford have shown that humans cannot manage large nuclear plants of any kind. I knew one of the managers at Hanford, so I had facts from inside the organization.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Cyberax ( 705495 )

              Quoting that article: "Besides the cleanup project, Hanford also hosts a commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station..."

              And this power plant is problem-free. All the issues are with the remnants of weapon production.

              The problems at Chernobyl and Fukushima and Hanford have shown that humans cannot manage large nuclear plants of any kind. I knew one of the managers at Hanford, so I had facts from inside the organization.

              You mean, two most serious disasters that resulted in creation of two natural preserves that are teeming with wildlife?

          • Remember that nuclear weapons production was primarily done via nuclear power production. You need reactors to make plutonium. Reactors generate heat. May as well use that heat to spin a turbine while you are at it.

            Commercial reactor waste is not the whole problem at Hanford, but it's part of the problem. We still don't have a good solution for the commercial fuel bundles - right now the answer is "put them in a steel-lined concrete cask and let them sit on a concrete pad until we come up with something

        • partly because of the immense problems dealing with radioactive waste.

          If breeder reactors were not illegal (fear of proliferation), then burning all of that "waste" down would increase the amount of energy we can derive from nuclear AND make it so once everything is said and done, the only "waste" left will be indistinguishable from background radiation that we are exposed to every day by the huge nuclear plant in the sky.

    • Re:nuclear power ? (Score:5, Informative)

      by sfcat ( 872532 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @08:17AM (#58044970)

      THE most important problem with nuclear power ? COST.

      This article is about nuclear waste from weapons productions left over from the 60s. This has nothing to do with nuclear power. No civilian operation wants anything to do with the processes involved with Hanford. They used acid to separate Plutonium from Uranium. The acid mixed with the Uranium is the waste. Civilian nuclear power has never done anything like this, doesn't want to and almost certainly never will.

      • Not exactly. Reprocessing to extract Plutonium and unburnt fissile Uranium is absolutely a civilian thing, and still uses nasty nitric acid, although much of the waste at Hanford is from earlier processing that was a lot less efficient. France and Japan have done a lot of civilian reprocessing in recent times.

        Most (in excess of ninety percent!) of the U-235 fuel in modern commercial light water reactors is not burnt, due to the accumulation of "neutron poison" reaction products that kill the reactions. A b

    • How do you define cost? Yes, it's monetarily expensive but, when good protective measures are taken, the environmental cost is an order of magnitude less for generating energy.

      • Re: nuclear power ? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @08:53AM (#58045058) Journal

        The problem is not even the cost; its how the deal is structured. Everyone loves to look at coal/gas/oil etc and argue the total costs including the externalized ones like increased respiratory disease add up to more than nuclear and maybe even add up to more than costs associated with neuclear disasters like Japan.

        The problem is that when something like Fukushima happens the costs are incurred up front are enormous large areas of property are lost immediately. Massive amounts of money have to be poured into cleanup and containment; even as compared to an ash or oil spill.

        The costs of the other energy choices however even if greater are borne out over time. Society remains productive during that time and pays them in what are effectively installments. We can live with it. The same way individuals can live with mortgage payment of $800 a month but would be bankrupt if you required them fork over $200K this afternoon.

        • We already do this to collect the closing costs of a nuclear plant. For every dollar a customer pays for electricity generated with nuclear power, a few cents go into building up a fund to pay for the cleanup of any accidents. Japan's nuclear plants have produced roughly 200 TWh per year [wikimedia.org] for the last 30 years, or 6000 TWh. The Fukushima cleanup cost is currently estimated at $180 billion [bbc.com]. So its cost relative to the amount of power generated is ($180 billion) / (6000 TWh) = $30 million / TWh = $30 / MWh

      • Re: nuclear power ? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by c6gunner ( 950153 )

        Eh. Even the monetary cost is overblown and largely due to NIMBYs. Do the math on what it would cost to provide conventional fuel for an aircraft carrier for 60 years, vs what it costs to make them nuclear. Include decommissioning costs for good measure. You'll still get a very favourable result.

    • Re:nuclear power ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @08:44AM (#58045030)

      What is the cost of power if you fold in all the externalities of each type? As an example, coal kills 10,000 people a year. The EPA uses a value of $7.4 million (2006) per person in their statistical analyses. What's the cost of carbon dioxide that should be assessed? Should there be some credit to nuclear for having a capacity factor north of 90%? The dollar amount is not the whole story. I don't know enough about solar or wind externalities to say anything about them, but you'll need a bunch of storage to smooth out power delivery. What does that cost at grid scale?

    • This is what happens when the nuclear site is the US Federal Government and exempts itself from any and all regulations that apply to private nuclear plants. This is the result of unchecked Federal power and authority.

    • Re:nuclear power ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @09:16AM (#58045154)

      The thing is we need responsible adults in charge of nuclear power. But because of the political visibility of it we have elected politicians putting their hand in it.
      So instead of these power sources being controlled and managed by experts and people with in depth knowledge of the risks and advantages, with careful planning and solid execution. There is someone at the top who won a popularity contest, often because they are either the best spoken, or relates well with the common man. Not because they are a smart humble public servant, who is looking out for the well fair of their constituents over their next election cycle.

      In Americas two party system both parties are bad for nuclear power.
      The Republicans, want to spend less money, forcing Nuclear power company to cut corners. Which normally goes into safety first, then will then go into reliability. They will stand up and support Nuclear power, but try to cut out expenses that are needed for a long term success, and regulations to make sure things are being safe.
      The Democrats, generally want to stop nuclear power. So they will not go out of their ways to make such companies succeed. They will be more apt to shutdown a power plant then spend millions of dollars for needed upgrades, even if shutting it down will cost twice as much.

      Then we have the political parties swapping back and forth regaining and loosing power. Which is forcing an industry that really needs a long term consistent plan, spanning multiple generations, to be hit with rapidly changing methods and rules. It is like bending a wire back and forth, after a while it will snap.

    • Re: nuclear power ? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Hanford waste is not from commercial nuclear power, it is mostly cold war program waste, and was not properly stored to begin with.

    • Re:nuclear power ? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @09:53AM (#58045310) Homepage Journal

      Please show your calculation factoring in the cost of wars for oil.

      • Please show your calculation factoring in the cost of wars for oil.

        This is not relevant now.

        WE (the USA) now produce more natural gas than we use. We have enough proven resources which are economically recoverable to last us decades and support a brisk export business besides. We also produce nearly as much oil as we use. We are therefore not importing oil. You can thank fracking..

        Besides, the world at large benefited from our cost stabilization efforts too, so would you recommend we just ignore oil prices and just let the middle east run amok?

        • We are therefore not importing oil.

          o.0

          Oh? US Goverment statistics say we're importing 10.14 million barrels a day. [eia.gov]

          You can thank fracking.

          Yes, we can thank fracking. For untold damage to the environment. For ever increasing damage to the world's climate. For putting billions of dollars more in the hands of the 1%.

          Thank you fracking!

          • On net, we are a fossil fuel exporter now, are we not? Yes, we still use the old supply lines, but this is quickly changing with domestic supplies being favored due to lower transportation costs. Certainly we are importing less, on net, than just a few short years ago, lowering the strategic importance of protecting the oil supply lines.

            Apart from fracking making more oil and natural gas available for recovery, thus reducing the cost and increasing fossil fuel use, what environmental damage are you thinki

            • On net, we are a fossil fuel exporter now, are we not?

              No, we are not - as you could have easily found out yourself by clicking on the link I provided.

              Yes, we still use the old supply lines, but this is quickly changing with domestic supplies being favored due to lower transportation costs.

              Wrong again! Domestic supplies are favored where they are equivalent to or better than foreign supplies and are cheaper. Not all petroleum is the same. Again, you could easily find that out for yourself with a l

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        Please show how that isn't the dumbass nuke fanboy fallacy of pretending that opposing a very expensive and risky way to heat water means supporting fossil fuels.

    • THE most important problem with nuclear power ? COST.

      More precisely, the problem is unknown waste disposal costs.

      When we first started to build these things, the waste disposal costs where *supposed* to be pretty fixed. And in reality they would have been, until Jimmy Carter decided that fuel reprocessing was a no-no and we made it illegal. At that point, the physical amount of high level waste went literally though the roof. From that point on, the environmental concerns (many which where over blown) made it impossible to store, move or permanently dispos

      • When we first started to build these things, the waste disposal costs where *supposed* to be pretty fixed. And in reality they would have been, until Jimmy Carter decided that fuel reprocessing was a no-no and we made it illegal.

        You do realize that the particularly hard-to-manage waste at Hanford came from reprocessing fuel to make weapons?

        • When we first started to build these things, the waste disposal costs where *supposed* to be pretty fixed. And in reality they would have been, until Jimmy Carter decided that fuel reprocessing was a no-no and we made it illegal.

          You do realize that the particularly hard-to-manage waste at Hanford came from reprocessing fuel to make weapons?

          Actually I do. However, I was responding to the original post's subject of the costs of nuclear power. Reprocessing was initially planned for this, likely because of the fact that nuclear weapons grade materials would result.

          You understand that restarting reprocessing fuel has been discussed a number of times, both at Hanford AND Savannah River. And both of these sites store significant amounts of radioactive waste we need to dispose of.

  • Bureaucracy is Evil (Score:4, Informative)

    by RadioD00d ( 714469 ) on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @08:15AM (#58044962)
    This argument has been going on for years. On one hand, the DOE keeps changing the rules for vitrification, and processing, and keeps the shell game going at Hanford. On the other hand, they've shut down the Savannah River reclamation project, and mothballed Yucca Mountain. So, we keep kicking the can down the road, and in the meantime, the storage containers that currently exist at Hanford are getting older and more subject to decay and leakage. It's going to take another crisis for them to make a definitive plan - but I don't know why I expect anything less....

  • SOLUTION IS OBVIOUS (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @09:37AM (#58045256)

    Deposit the nuke waste into spent coal shafts. Since coal is clean, and the coal shafts have residual coal, which is the best for cleaning, the nuke waste is made inert in a few years give or take. Excellent. Excellent. Excellsior.

  • I was working for the state out there 20 years ago and they said they were making progress.

  • 'This is "a year ahead of a court-mandated deadline"'

    Wow, there's a statement that instills confidence.

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