AREVA Federal Services, a subsidiary of AREVA, announced yesterday that it has received a $34 million contract for the engineering, construction and commissioning of a remote-handled low-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Idaho National Laboratory. The contract, awarded by INL manager Battelle Energy Alliance, would develop a replacement disposal facility for the remote-handled low level waste produced at INL, which historically was disposed of on site. According to AREVA, the facility will include administration and maintenance buildings, waste handling systems and environmental monitoring installations with 200 underground disposal vaults. “AREVA’s technology and more than 40 years of experience in nuclear waste management solutions have set us apart in addressing some of the most pressing issues facing the DOE,” said Tara Neider, president and CEO of AREVA Federal Services. “This is a tremendous opportunity for AREVA to demonstrate its experience in the development and deployment of safe, proven radioactive waste management solutions.”
As part of the ongoing cleanup at the site, INL plans on closing the existing disposal facility in 2017. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, in conjunction with the Office of Naval Reactors, received $36.5 million for Fiscal Year 2014 to move forward with construction on the new facility, and DOE has requested an additional $20 million for Fiscal Year 2015 to continue construction. In total, the facility is expected to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2020 at a price tag of $95 million, a total that would eventually save taxpayer dollars, according to INL spokesperson Nicole Stricker. “The advantages for RH-LLW disposal capacity on-site include reliability, public safety and taxpayer cost savings,” Stricker said. “Offsite disposal facilities that could accept the waste would drastically increase transport distance compared with onsite disposal. Offsite disposal would result in more shipments at a higher cost on public highways.”
