Despite occasional glitches, a $1.4-billion plant to solidify liquid sodium-bearing radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory has processed 21,000 gallons during its first two-and-a-half months of regular operations, the Department of Energy said June 23.
Since starting radiological operations April 11, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) has had “intermittent pauses to perform various pre-planned operational activities and adjust process parameters as additional operational experience is gained” in converting liquid, sodium-bearing, high-level radioactive waste into a more stable granular form, DOE said in a press release.
The agency and its Jacobs-led contractor team Idaho Environmental Coalition, “fully anticipated the need to make further adjustments to the plant” in the early going, DOE said in the release.
The unit was coming off one such hiccup Thursday June 22 when it was operating with only 50% radwaste and 50% simulant, DOE’s Idaho cleanup manager Connie Flohr, told Exchange Monitor Thursday on the sidelines of the Energy Facility Contractors Group annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
Flohr, who was returning from an international trip, said she was not yet fully briefed on the particulars.
IWTU operators continue to treat waste while they “adjust and monitor numerous process control parameters” with waste blends that have ranged from 50-to-100% sodium-bearing waste recently, a DOE spokesperson said in a followup email on Tuesday.
As of June 23, IWTU has solidified more than 21,000 gallons of waste left over from nuclear fuel reprocessing, DOE said in the Friday release. Crews have filled 77 stainless steel canisters and placed the canisters into four concrete storage vaults which are safely stored onsite.
Within a decade, DOE expects to solidify all 900,000 gallons of the liquid sodium-bearing waste.
