DOE OFFICIAL: USING WIPP FOR TANK WASTE WOULD AVOID COSTS

Disposing of some tank waste from Hanford and Savannah River at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could save costs, but the Department of Energy would have to first shift to a risk-informed basis for its waste disposal decisions, a DOE official said late last week. More than half of the budget for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management is spent on tank waste, but some tank waste that meets the WIPP acceptance criteria cannot currently be sent there because it is considered high-level waste as a result of how it was created. WIPP is currently limited to only able to accept defense-related transuranic waste. “Opening up WIPP would give us opportunities to have some cost avoidance within the EM system. Right now we have 2,300 canisters that have been produced down at Savannah River that when you put them through the criteria they meet the current WIPP [Waste Acceptance Criteria], but they can’t go there because they are high-level waste,”  Jay Rhoderick, EM Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tank Waste and Nuclear Material, said at the RadWaste Summit in Las Vegas.

Currently the Savannah River Site is planning to construct a new storage building for the glass canisters being produced there. “It would be nice if we didn’t have to build that facility and could ship those canisters to WIPP and avoid those costs,” Rhoderick said. Waste from some of the tanks at Hanford would also meet the WIPP criteria, and thereby would not have to be vitrified at the Waste Treatment Plant under construction, as currently planned. “The tanks that we are talking about at Hanford, if we don’t have to run those through [the Waste Treatment Plant], that shaves a year off WTP operating. … Part of the conversation has to be what costs can you avoid and still be protected," Rhoderick said.