Checking thru the INEEL website for items of interest:
Waste Treatment and Disposition
The national lab sites have a serious cleanup problem hence represent a serious security issue.
Ready made material for a terrorists dirty bomb !
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The DOE weapons complex has a significant inventory of legacy wastes that was generated during the Cold War. Treatment and disposition of many of these waste streams--transuranic waste, mixed waste, and high-level waste--present a wide variety of technical and regulatory challenges.
The INEEL's Waste Treatment and Disposition Initiative is an aggressive, cooperative R&D and waste operations effort focused on technology development, demonstration, and deployment both at the INEEL and throughout the DOE Complex.
A primary driver for this Initiative is the Settlement Agreement between the State of Idaho and DOE. The Agreement mandates that all high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel at the INEEL must be treated and ready for shipment to a final disposition repository by December 31, 2035. The agreement also requires that all transuranic waste be shipped off the INEEL for disposal by 2018.
Although the Settlement Agreement provides specific milestones for managing INEEL spent nuclear fuel, spent fuel remains a DOE complexwide challenge. DOE has the responsibility to develop a system for safe, final disposition of all spent nuclear fuel under its purview. Accomplishing these goals will require a comprehensive decision-making process that effectively involves stakeholders.
Because of the diverse waste streams present at the INEEL, the laboratory has developed strong capabilities in managing a variety of waste types and continues to expand that capability through the ongoing integration of INEEL R&D into waste treatment and disposition operations.
Through these efforts, the INEEL has become a leader in developing management strategies for its mixed waste inventory as required under the Federal Facilities Compliance Act and the associated Site Treatment Plan. The unique expertise in analyzing Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations, interpreting the requirements, and developing effective compliance plans continues to benefit the INEEL, as well as other DOE sites, in establishing waste management strategies. INEEL expertise has been evidenced through successful management of the DOE Transuranic and Mixed Waste Focus Area national program for the past 5 years.
To accomplish the milestones defined by the Settlement Agreement, the INEEL is showing leadership in understanding of the scientific underpinnings associated with buried waste remediation and contaminant fate and transport as defined in the Subsurface Science Initiative. Another example involves the INEEL High-Level Waste Program, which is completing technology development roadmaps that will establish the detailed strategy for developing, demonstrating, and deploying the characterization, material handling, pretreatment, immobilization, and packaging capabilities necessary to meet the applicable Settlement Agreement milestones. A crucial element of this strategy is the INTEC Technology Development Facility, which will provide the capability to perform pilot-scale technology development and demonstration using both surrogate and actual radioactive waste samples. This facility can be leveraged to provide test beds for evaluating multiple technologies with applications throughout the DOE complex. The facility can also be used to assist other, non-EM, DOE customers in addressing and resolving their waste treatment technology development and demonstration needs.
The INEEL was one of the first sites in the DOE complex to ship transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. To support this effort, the INEEL has developed unique capabilities in performing nondestructive assay of transuranic waste containers, and repackaging and processing of transuranic wastes. These efforts will enable compliance with the Settlement Agreement while increasing worker safety and reducing transuranic waste management costs. These technologies and capabilities have beneficial application to multiple sites in the DOE complex. In addition, many of the remote-handled characterization capabilities have application to managing spent nuclear fuel.
This will be accomplished through program integration and directed R&D.
Key areas of R&D may include:
| Contact: | Mike Connolly 208-526-0238 mjc@inel.gov |