The Department of Energy is making plans for the next phase of a demonstration project for commercial grouting and disposal of some of the low-activity radioactive waste held in underground storage tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
Phase 2 of the test bed initiative, grouting 2,000 gallons of waste, could be completed by the end of fiscal 2019, according to a recently released DOE fact sheet. Phase 1, completed in December 2017, involved 3 gallons of waste.
The 2,000 gallons of waste would be sent to Perma-Fix Northwest near Hanford in Richland for grouting, in which the material would be mixed with a concrete-like substance for disposal. The treated waste would be shipped to the Waste Control Specialists low-level waste disposal facility in Texas. Hanford does not have a landfill permitted by Washington state for disposal of grouted low-activity waste, but DOE said the treated material will meet acceptance criteria for the Texas site.
The DOE fact sheet lists several benefits for the test bed initiative, including significant cost advantages. As the Waste Treatment Plant being built at Hanford was never planned to be large enough to glassify the 90 percent of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of tank waste expected to be low activity, another treatment option is expected to be needed. The plant may not be able to treat 40 to 50 percent of Hanford’s low-activity waste, according to state estimates.
One option would be to expand the low-activity waste capacity of the Waste Treatment Plant, but commercial grouting could eliminate or sharply reduce capital costs. A May 2017 report from the Government Accountability Office estimated DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina was grouting low-activity waste for $153 a gallon, but vitrifying low-activity waste by adding to Hanford Waste Treatment Plant’s capabilities would cost $1,081 per gallon.
Commercial grouting would demonstrate progress on treating tank waste, as the Waste Treatment Plant will not begin treating waste before 2021. Commercial grouting also would help free up space in Hanford’s 27 double-shell tanks, which hold material from the site’s leak-prone single-shell vessels.
The Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator, would have to issue permits and approvals for the project. Now it has questions on cost, schedule, transportation, and other issues, laid out in a June 20 letter to DOE from Ecology Director Maia Bellon. “Current core work at the Hanford Site is already being deferred and delayed due to a lack of funds,” she wrote. “We are concerned about Energy pursuing a new initiative that would divert even more funding away from existing priorities.”
Among Ecology’s 22 questions are what tanks will be used to supply the waste for the next phase of the demonstration project, what role DOE will have in the controls used by Perma-Fix to ensure the treated waste meets waste-acceptance criteria, what contingencies DOE will have if Perma-Fix cannot complete treatment satisfactorily, how the treated waste will be transported to Texas, and the cost estimate for collection and pretreatment of the tank waste.
The Energy Department will need about $15 million for the second phase of the test bed initiative. The House of Representatives’ fiscal 2019 “minibus” appropriations bill covering the Energy Department directed money for project, but the Senate version zeroed out funding for the test bed initiative. The two versions of the bill have yet to be reconciled in conference committee.
The test bed initiative also calls for a third phase, which would treat 100,000 gallons of waste or more.
