Perma-Fix Environmental Services said Friday it is is partnering with Waste Control Specialists in its program to enter the market for treatment of high-level radioactive waste.
The Atlanta-based nuclear services specialist, which already provides treatment of low-level and mixed waste, this year plans to complete a demonstration test involving processing up to 5 gallons of high-level waste from the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. If successful, its technology would be tested on 2,000 gallons of waste in 2017, after which Perma-Fix would seek a contract for treatment of a large amount of the chemical and radioactive waste now stored at Hanford. Ultimately, high-level waste treatment could be a more than $1 billion opportunity, Perma-Fix said.
“And when finished we’ll actually dispose of it,” CEO Lou Centofanti said Friday during the company’s quarterly earnings call. “And you already heard it earlier, our partner is WCS. So that somewhat explains where it’s going.”
Waste Control Specialists operates a large site in Andrews County, Texas, for storage of various forms of radioactive waste, including material from federal sites.
While he did not discuss details of Perma-Fix’s treatment system, Centofanti described it as a “whole new approach” that would provide significant cost savings.
Centofanti spoke cautiously about the planned acquisition of Valhi-owned Waste Control Specialists by EnergySolutions. The Department of Justice last week sued to prevent the $367 million buyout, asserting it would reduce competition and harm consumers in the low-level radioactive waste disposal industry.
“Well we had — we were very interested in the merger of the two, and have I guess you might say mixed-feelings. WCS is a partner on several projects with us,” Centofanti said. “The merger itself, we’re just watching it and seeing what happens. I hate to tell you we’re negative or positive where there is some pluses and there is some minuses for us.”
EnergySolutions has said it would honor Perma-Fix’s current contracts with WCS, according to the CEO. Regarding the lawsuit, Centofanti said “we’ll see how it all ends up.”
