Another defeat for cleaning up low-level nuclear waste at Hanford

On June 23, a federal judge approved, with WA State Department of Ecology’s agreement, a request to push the deadline back 20 months for beginning nuclear waste treatment, at the $17 billion vitrification plant at the Hanford Site because of pandemic-related delays. Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste is DOE’s plan to start treating low-activity radioactive waste first at the Vit Plant and then start treating high-level radioactive waste sometime in the 2030s.

This is the fifth delay granted by the court for the project that should have begun operating in 2007. In one sense this delay is good since we now know that turning low-activity waste into glass by vitrifying is scientifically and technically the wrong thing to do. The chemistry of this waste makes it much better suited to grouting than vitrifying, a treatment used by everyone else in the U.S. and the world.

Since this waste is not very radioactive, it’s crazy to treat it like it’s really hot. Because vitrifying it is five times the cost of grouting, and would add decades of time to the project. And could even put some workers in harm’s way. You only vitrify higher-level waste. And there is still plenty of that at Hanford. Unfortunately, we seem to be bound by a 30-year-old playbook that needs some updating. No one running the show now was involved in those old decisions – decisions made before we knew what we know now, so they can be forgiven for keeping with the plan.

But the Department of Energy has conducted a small-scale test by grouting, called the Test Bed Initiative, which was wildly successful. The waste was treated and packaged by PermaFix Northwest, and shipped to the WCS Federal Waste Facility in west Texas that is licensed and permitted to take this type of waste. WCS’ license does not require low-level waste to be placed in a glass matrix.

Further, the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system has already separated and staged over 275,000 gallons of mixed low-level waste from a Hanford tank. TSCR is treating more than 7,000 gallons of waste daily. By the end of this year, the one-million-gallon staging tank will be full of TSCR treated waste that is ready for immobilization, perfect for grouting. However, as it stands now TSCR will be shut down for at least 32 months waiting for the Vit plant.

So DOE and Ecology should move forward in a parallel way, vitrifying the higher-level waste and grouting the lower-level waste, a win-win for both cost and schedule, not to mention science.

The deadline extensions don’t alter starting to treat high level radioactive waste by 2033 or having the plant fully operating in 2036.

The sad part is that, if grouted as demonstrated by the TBI, most of this waste would be completely disposed of by 2036. But the really sad part is that DOE thinks grout treatment makes more sense than vit for this low-level waste but aren’t allowed to talk about it, even though experts at the National Academies of Sciences, the Government Accountability Office and DOE’s National Laboratories all agree grouting is best.

Worse, we all know vitrification of all this waste, especially the lower-level waste, will never be sufficiently funded to ever be completed. There exists a fantasy that Congress will double Hanford’s budget to the necessary amount, but that will never happen. In 2017, we needed $4.0 billion for Hanford, but we got $2.4. In 2019, we needed $3.5 billion, but we got $2.5. In 2021, we needed $3.3 billion, but we got $2.7. In 2022, we needed $4.2 billion, but we’ll probably get $2.7. In 2023, we’ll need $5.0 billion, but we’ll be lucky to get $2.7. These deficits add up, so by 2032 we’ll need an extra $30 billion just to catch up.

With a combination of grouting and vitrification, we can do it on schedule with the funding we will get. We could start next week with no real uncertainties. We really don’t want to see most of this waste still sitting here in 50 years.

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