The final major test run of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory concluded last week and, after a decade of trying, the agency is hoping to start radiological operations this fall.
The confirmatory run of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) ended July 27 after DOE and its contractor, Idaho Environmental Coalition, processed 137,000 gallons of simulant over 65 days, Kim Custer, a senior hazardous waste permit writer with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, said in a Tuesday email.
The recent test run began May 23 after DOE tried, unsuccessfully since late December, to sustain a confirmatory run. Interruptions stemmed from various challenges including nitrogen supply issues, an automatic shutdown triggered by human error and component problems with the fluidized bed steam-reforming facility.
IWTU is designed to take about 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing radioactive waste and convert it to a granular form more suitable for long-term storage and disposal. The sodium-bearing waste is leftover from years of spent fuel reprocessing at the Idaho National Laboratory.
In a Tuesday statement, DOE and its Jacobs-led contractor Idaho Environmental Coalition said they hope to start actual radioactive operations this fall. The plant operators and engineers recently finished a contractor readiness assessment and will undertake a federal facility readiness assessment by mid-month, according to the release.
A scheduled outage will start following the cooldown of the IWTU, DOE said in the press release. “I couldn’t be prouder of the men and women supporting the IWTU’s confirmatory run,” said Bill Kirby, senior director of liquid waste and fuels for the contractor.
Back in 2012, a CH2M-led contractor finished major construction of the IWTU but it never worked as intended.
A subsequent Idaho Cleanup Project contractor, Fluor Idaho, spent years re-engineering and modifying the facility, including some shorter tests with simulant, before turning the project over to the new Jacobs-led contractor in January. As of early 2019, total project construction and re-engineered costs had reached about $1 billion, the Government Accountability Office said in a September 2019 report.
