The first melter at the Department of Energy’s waste-solidification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state has reached its operating temperature of 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, the agency and contractor Bechtel National said this week.
The milestone for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) completed the heat up process that started June 24, DOE said in a memo distributed Monday to Hanford Site employees.
“While we still have a lot of work ahead to complete WTP commissioning, deliver projects and begin operations … we look forward to working with each of you as we safely advance our important work on behalf of our Hanford team, community and nation’s taxpayers,” according to the message from DOE’s site’s manager, Brian Vance.
“This was a highly complex, challenging step to achieve, and we’re proud of the entire team that worked to make this happen,” Bechtel spokesperson Staci West said in a statement emailed by DOE to Exchange Monitor. “We will maintain the same rigor and focus on safety and quality as we take the next steps in our commissioning process toward the use of nonradioactive materials to simulate waste.”
Feeding nonradioactive simulant into the first of two 300-ton melters should provide crews with operational experience and lessons for heating up the second melter, DOE has said. Melters are crucial to the Low-Activity Direct-Feed Waste Facility, which DOE hopes will start solidifying Hanford’s less-radioactive low-level radioactive waste into glass in 2025.
DOE and Hanford resumed heating up the first melter this summer after the first attempt was suspended in October 2022 due to various problems.
Hanford has about 55 million gallons of radioactive liquid waste stored in underground tanks. The material is the byproduct of decades of plutonium production during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War.
