RW Monitor
11/20/2015
IN THE INDUSTRY
The United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and contractor Kurion on Tuesday said they have finished a major phase of testing for commissioning the company’s GeoMelt In-Container Vitrification radioactive waste conversion system at the Sellafield site.
The technology, which would convert the waste into a condensed glass form for permanent storage, successfully processed a nonradioactive simulant. The plant must now be dismantled and shipped to the NNL Central Laboratory at Sellafield, where it will be reassembled and tested using a radioactive material. It is scheduled to be operational in 2016.
The United Kingdom holds more than 300,000 metric tons of intermediate- and low-level waste that could be treated with the GeoMelt system, Kurion said. The technology could be applied to contaminated soil, inorganic ion exchange media, and contaminated asbestos that can be found at a number of sites being decommissioned, the release says.
“The cold-commissioning of the GeoMelt system is an important milestone as part of our core mission to evaluate options to improve the lifecycle cost for managing and dispositioning waste streams in the UK nuclear complex, including problematic waste streams that currently lack a path to disposal,” Nick Hanigan, NNL director of waste management and decommissioning, said in the release. “Furthermore, this collaboration with Kurion brings together world-class scientists and engineers to accelerate the treatment of hazardous and radioactive waste.”
The GeoMelt system since the 1990s has converted waste into more than 26,000 metric tons of glass in the U.K., U.S., Japan, and Australia, Kurion said. The company and National Nuclear Laboratory plan next year to boost the system’s annual processing capability to more than 200 metric tons.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday said it is accepting public comments as part of the information-gathering process for an environmental impact statement for Northwest Medical Isotopes planned radioisotope production plant in Missouri.
Comments are being accepted through Jan. 4 at the federal rulemaking website under Docket ID NRC-2013-0235. They can also be sent by mail to Cindy Bladey, Office of Administration, Mail Stop: OLWFN-12-H08, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001.
The NRC has also scheduled a public meeting on the environmental review from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Dec. 8 at the Holiday Inn Columbia-East, 915 Port Way, Columbia, MO 65201. The session will address the environmental review process, the planned scope of the study, and the schedule, along with the opportunity for government agencies and other stakeholders to comment on environmental topics or the study. The first hour of the session will be an open house.
The environmental impact statement is being prepared as part of the NRC’s consideration of Northwest Medical’s application for a construction permit for the facility.
A truck that overturned Wednesday evening and caused a several-hour shutdown of southbound Interstate 81 in western Maryland was hauling protective clothes used for radioactive cleanup from the Three Mile Island nuclear complex in Pennsylvania and was headed to the EnergySolutions Bear Creek waste-processing plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
State police said the truck was transporting materials for disposal in Tennessee, but EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said the shipment was on its way to Bear Creek for processing. The materials will then be transported to the company’s landfill at Clive, Utah, for disposal, Walker said.
"The material being transported (in two sealed containers) was headed for Bear Creek to be processed,” Walker said in a Thursday email response to questions. “The shipment has been loaded onto another trailer and is back on the road headed for Bear Creek to be processed.”
Maryland State Police said the cause of the collision was “distracted driving.” The truck operator, Daniel Bates, 57, from Tennessee, faces charges.
“The cargo was considered safe by hazardous material crews and no threat to the public or property,” Maryland state police said in a news release.
The EnergySolutions facility in Oak Ridge houses a number of treatment operations for low-level radioactive waste, including compaction and incineration.
