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Related: About this forumHanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous
Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous
Safety issues make plans to clean up a mess left over from the construction of the U.S. nuclear arsenal uncertain
By Valerie Brown
<snip>
...The pulse jet mixers suck waste into their vertical tubes and then eject it forcefully back into the tanks. Unfortunately, they have not yet been shown to provide sufficient mixing at the scale necessary for the Vit Plant. They do, however, apply enough force to the slurry for the solids to grind away at the stainless steel of tanks and pipes, weakening them enough to risk leakage. Besides this erosion, theres also potential for chemical corrosion. The Defense Nuclear Safety Board, which advises the White House, has called these problems a show-stopper.
The way [the plant] is currently designed poses unacceptable risks. DoE now admits that, says Tom Carpenter, executive director of the watchdog group Hanford Challenge. In December the Government Accountability Office issued a highly critical analysis of the Vit Plants unresolved safety issues
Disagreements over the safety risks have also prompted outspoken protests from several senior Hanford officials. Chief project engineer Gary Brunson resigned in January. Busche and former deputy chief process engineer Walter Tamosaitis filed whistleblower complaints alleging that their concerns about safety were suppressed by Bechtel. (Bechtel declined to be interviewed for this story, citing nondisclosure agreements signed with Chus expert panel.)
But Langdon Holton, DoEs senior technical authority for the Vit Plant and a member of Chus expert panel, believes the projects problems are technical snags, rather than the insoluble consequence of incompetence or hubris. He also thinks that although the current risks are real, they are unlikely and would be of low magnitude if they did occur. For example, he says, Youd have to have a vessel unmixed for half a year for enough hydrogen to accumulate for a significant explosion. Do I have concern we wont be able to resolve the issues? No, but it will take some time, he adds. (Chus panel does not expect to issue a formal report, according to Holton.)
Time may be limited. The 177 tanks, built between 1943 and 1986 and most intended for only about a 20-year life span, are decaying...
Safety issues make plans to clean up a mess left over from the construction of the U.S. nuclear arsenal uncertain
By Valerie Brown
<snip>
...The pulse jet mixers suck waste into their vertical tubes and then eject it forcefully back into the tanks. Unfortunately, they have not yet been shown to provide sufficient mixing at the scale necessary for the Vit Plant. They do, however, apply enough force to the slurry for the solids to grind away at the stainless steel of tanks and pipes, weakening them enough to risk leakage. Besides this erosion, theres also potential for chemical corrosion. The Defense Nuclear Safety Board, which advises the White House, has called these problems a show-stopper.
The way [the plant] is currently designed poses unacceptable risks. DoE now admits that, says Tom Carpenter, executive director of the watchdog group Hanford Challenge. In December the Government Accountability Office issued a highly critical analysis of the Vit Plants unresolved safety issues
Disagreements over the safety risks have also prompted outspoken protests from several senior Hanford officials. Chief project engineer Gary Brunson resigned in January. Busche and former deputy chief process engineer Walter Tamosaitis filed whistleblower complaints alleging that their concerns about safety were suppressed by Bechtel. (Bechtel declined to be interviewed for this story, citing nondisclosure agreements signed with Chus expert panel.)
But Langdon Holton, DoEs senior technical authority for the Vit Plant and a member of Chus expert panel, believes the projects problems are technical snags, rather than the insoluble consequence of incompetence or hubris. He also thinks that although the current risks are real, they are unlikely and would be of low magnitude if they did occur. For example, he says, Youd have to have a vessel unmixed for half a year for enough hydrogen to accumulate for a significant explosion. Do I have concern we wont be able to resolve the issues? No, but it will take some time, he adds. (Chus panel does not expect to issue a formal report, according to Holton.)
Time may be limited. The 177 tanks, built between 1943 and 1986 and most intended for only about a 20-year life span, are decaying...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hanford-nuclear-cleanup-problems&print=true
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Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous (Original Post)
kristopher
May 2013
OP
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)1. And the denial continues....
kristopher
(29,798 posts)2. It reminds me of a drunk ...
...staggering to and fro, bouncing off the walls of broken promises and hoped-for solutions that never seem to materialize.
"...177 tanks, built between 1943 and 1986 and most intended for only about a 20-year life span..."
It isn't as if anyone could have predicted problems beforehand, right?