An advisory committee that monitors nuclear waste issues at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina wants the Department of Energy to consider reclassifying retired waste-treatment equipment and waste containers so they are eligible for permanent disposal off-site.
On Tuesday, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board’s (CAB) Waste Management Committee voted 10-1 to approve a recommendation that DOE “investigate the feasibility” of reclassifying retired melters from the SRS Defense Waste Processing Facility and some high-level waste canisters “as TRU waste or (low level waste) to expedite disposal, reduce costs, and to free-up storage space.”
If that happened, the Energy Department would save money and SRS would free up storage space, according to the Waste Management Committee.
By definition, TRU waste is material contaminated with radioactive elements with atomic numbers higher than uranium, generated during activities such as processing of spent reactor fuel or nuclear weapons production.
The Savannah River Site’s melters, which weigh anywhere from 65 to 75 tons, are refractory-lined vessels used at the Defense Waste Processing Facility to convert high-level radioactive waste into a glass form for safe storage. All told, SRS houses roughly 35 million gallons of liquid waste, a byproduct of Cold War nuclear weapons operations, in more than 40 aging underground tanks. The melters mix the waste with a material that removes contamination. When heated in the melter, these elements form a molten glass, which is then poured into stainless-steel canisters for safe storage.
The Energy Department has already replaced two melters since it began its liquid waste processing campaign. Melter 1 lasted about eight years, and Melter 2 lasted about 14 years until a heater stopped functioning on Feb. 1 of this year. Since then, liquid waste processing has been suspended at SRS while workers install Melter 3. Operations are expected to resume at the top of the year.
Currently, the old melters are stored at the DWPF Failed Equipment Storage Vault.
More than 4,100 filled waste canisters are stored in two Glass Waste Storage Buildings at DWPF while the federal government searches for a permanent disposal option.
Waste Management Committee Chairman Earl Sheppard said the panel doesn’t have a request for a specific amount of waste canisters it wants sent to WIPP. “It’s just about freeing up space at the site,” he said. “However many they could send to WIPP safely and securely would be ideal.”
The committee said disposing of the melters and waste canisters at WIPP could “result in an enormous reduction in High Level Waste (HLW) repository disposal costs, and a large increase in the certainty that the future disposition of these wastes could be achieved safely and protective of human health, worker safety and the environment.” The panel did not provide any figures to support that prediction.
The full CAB will consider the recommendation at its meeting in January. If the board approves it, the recommendation will elevate to DOE headquarters for consideration. The agency can fully or partially approve the recommendation, or reject it.
