Areva plans to add newly developed technology to its Richland plant to remove valuable enriched uranium from waste produced there and from waste shipped from other nuclear producers to the plant.
The new technology to recover enriched uranium is a "green process" that relies on a form of carbon dioxide, Areva said.
This week, Areva and the University of Idaho signed an agreement to work together to use a jointly developed process to remove enriched uranium from ash left from reducing the volume of contaminated debris by incineration. The incinerated debris includes items such as gloves and rags from the production of fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors.
Areva plans to add $2.5 million of equipment to its Richland plant this year. Work will be done in-house and the equipment can be operated with its current staff.
The plant has about 35 tons of ash in Richland that otherwise would need to be disposed of as low-level radioactive waste. Incineration already has reduced the waste volume by a factor of 25 to 1, according to Areva.
Areva calculates that the ash on site now contains more than 2 tons of enriched uranium worth about
$5 million in today's market. The recovered uranium can be used at the Richland plant and the ash that remains will have had its radioactive content removed, said Chuck Perkins, the Areva Richland site manager.
The ash at the plant should be processed fairly quickly, Perkins said, and by 2009 the plant will be ready to receive ash from other producers of nuclear fuel, either in the United States or internationally.
"By recovering such a valuable energy resource that otherwise could have been lost to disposal, and by using an environmentally sensitive process to do it, it's a win-win result for our planet and for Areva," said Joe Zwetolitz, an Areva NP vice president, in a statement.
The process relies on a liquidlike form of carbon dioxide called "supercritical" and other common chemicals to extract and purify the enriched uranium. Carbon dioxide reaches its supercritical state at a pressure of 1,000 pounds per square inch and a temperature of about 88 degrees. It is chemically inert and relatively inexpensive compared to other solvents, according to Areva.
The carbon dioxide will be recycled in a closed-loop system to minimize any discharges to the environment. Any risk would be more related to routine industrial operations than to radiation, Perkins said.
The recovery process was developed after four years of work by Areva engineer Syd Koegler, a University of Idaho alumnus, and Chien Wai, a University of Idaho chemistry professor. They have applied for a joint patent.
Before the new process is added to Areva's Richland plant, Areva will require an amendment to its license issued through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Already, Areva is recycling the hydrofluoric acid that is a byproduct of the material it manufactures into fuel. It sells it for use in the glass industry in the Mid-Columbia.
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