Vitrification & Grout

The construction of two new Saltstone Disposal Units at the Savannah River site has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget, the Department of Energy and liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation announced yesterday. The units are vaults used to permanently dispose of low level salt waste, which is mixed with cement to form […]

The construction of two new Saltstone Disposal Units at the Savannah River site has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget, the Department of Energy and liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation announced yesterday. The units are vaults used to permanently dispose of low level salt waste, which is mixed with cement to form […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 Kurion has entered into an agreement with the United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory to provide bulk vitrification waste treatment at the NNL’s Central Laboratory at the Sellafield site, according to a joint release issued by the NNL and Kurion this week. The joint project will use Kurion’s GeoMelt waste […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 4/25/2014 Kurion’s robotic remote systems division will ship an inspection system to Japan next week that will help in the inspection of Reactor 2 at the Fukushima-Daiichi cleanup site to identify any leaks within the primary containment vessel. The system will be delivered to the IHI Corporation, a Japanese company […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 3/7/2014 PHOENIX, Ariz.—Kurion President John Raymont suggested this week that his company may soon have an increased role in the response to the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Kurion has been involved in efforts to treat contaminated water at the site since 2011, and appears set to further expand its […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 Kurion has entered into an agreement with the United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory to provide bulk vitrification waste treatment at the NNL’s Central Laboratory at the Sellafield site, according to a joint release issued by the NNL and Kurion this week. The joint project will use Kurion’s GeoMelt waste […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 Kurion has entered into an agreement with the United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory to provide bulk vitrification waste treatment at the NNL’s Central Laboratory at the Sellafield site, according to a joint release issued by the NNL and Kurion this week. The joint project will use Kurion’s GeoMelt waste […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 1/10/2014 Kurion has entered into an agreement with the United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory to provide bulk vitrification waste treatment at the NNL’s Central Laboratory at the Sellafield site, according to a joint release issued by the NNL and Kurion this week. The joint project will use Kurion’s GeoMelt waste […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/25/2014 URS has come under criticism for a lack of cooperation in an investigation now underway into the termination of a nuclear safety manager at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, WC Monitor has learned. The Department of Energy Inspector General’s Office expressed concern over URS’ lack of cooperation in a letter […]

DOE, Washington State Looking to Start WTP LAW Facility Ahead of Other Portions of Plant Mike Nartker WC Monitor 4/11/2014 An interim pretreatment system to allow the Department of Energy to move forward with a proposal to begin operation of the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant’s Low Activity Waste Facility ahead of other portions of the […]

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) called on Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Washington State Governor Jay Inslee (D) late last week to develop a final plan for completing the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant and moving forward with tank waste cleanup at the site. In a letter to both officials, Hastings said he was concerned over […]

Kurion has entered into an agreement with the United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory to provide vitrification waste treatment at the NNL’s Central Laboratory at the Sellafield site, according to a release issued by the NNL yesterday. The joint project will use Kurion’s GeoMelt waste treatment technology as the basis for an In-Container Vitrification plant. “The […]

The U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is launching next month a four-year research effort on waste treatment with Sellafield Limited, the National Nuclear Laboratory, numerous U.K. universities and other partners, the NDA announced yesterday. The program is expected to cost £8 million to £9 million ($13.2 million to $14.8 million) and will be partially funded by […]

The construction of two new Saltstone Disposal Units at the Savannah River site has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget, the Department of Energy and liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation announced yesterday. The units are vaults used to permanently dispose of low level salt waste, which is mixed with cement to form […]

The Department of Energy late yesterday issued what it calls a new “framework” for addressing Hanford’s tank waste that envisions a phased approach to operation of the site’s Waste Treatment Plant, but largely stays within concepts that have been the works for several years.  The first phase would entail completing and initiating operation of the […]

The Department of Energy has warned Washington state and Oregon that an additional set of Hanford Waste Treatment Plant milestones contained in a 2010 Consent Decree may now be at “serious risk” of being missed, a DOE official said late yesterday. The new at-risk milestones include a Dec. 31, 2017, commitment to complete “methods validations” […]

Savannah River Site liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation Friday began grouting two more high level waste tanks at the site, following the successful closure of two other Savannah River tanks last year. SRR started filling tanks 5 and 6 with a cement-like grout last week, and aims to completely fill and operationally close the […]

Cracks in one of the Savannah River Site’s saltstone disposal vaults led to radioactive release into the environment during heavy rains earlier this year, according to documents released yesterday. The saltstone vaults hold low level tank waste in a cement-like grout, but a cracked roof in Vault 4 led to radioactive contamination entering a sedimentation […]

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the new ranking member for the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee, had strong words for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant yesterday, describing the project and its history of cost increases as an “open-ended bleeding wound” for the Department of Energy. Kaptur’s comments, which came during a subcommittee hearing in which […]

Perma-Fix Enviromental Services announced yesterday a new partnership with Kurion Inc. to employ that company’s GeoMelt In-Container Vitrification (ICV) system at Perma-Fix’s facility in Richland, Wash., near the Department of Energy’s Hanford site. Perma-Fix hopes to use the technology to treat both federal and commercial waste, with an eye to eventually treating some low activity […]

The Department of Energy is gearing up to expand a review now underway of technical issues at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, WC Monitor has learned. At an all-hands meeting at Hanford yesterday, Office of River Protection Manager Scott Samuelson outlined DOE’s plans to add additional technical teams to the review, which is being performed […]

A former chariman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is calling on the Department of Energy to move forward “expeditiously” with developing and implementing a path forward for completing the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant. In a letter sent yesterday to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former NRC Chairman Nils Diaz decried what he described as “a […]

Washington State Gov. Chris Gregoire is confident that Energy Secretary Chu working with the state will be able to resolve issues at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant before she leaves office in January, she said in a visit to the Hanford area Tuesday. She expects the plant to be on a path forward with no […]

Savannah River Remediation, the liquid waste contractor for the Savannah River Site, has completed bulk grouting activities at Savannah River’s Tanks 18 and 19, moving them closer to operational closure. Grouting work began at the two tanks, which have been largely emptied of radioactive waste, in early April and since then, more than 3 million […]

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu raised the possibility of becoming directly involved with a look at Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant technology during a visit to Hanford late last week. He is likely to assemble the sort of panel of brilliant and creative thinkers he’s brought together after the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear disaster and the Gulf […]

Lingering technical issues have forced the Department of Energy to decouple, at least for now, two of the main facilities that make up the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant from the rest of project’s baseline, leaving DOE’s largest and most expensive construction project without a comprehensive cost and schedule estimate and no timeline for getting one. In […]

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) yesterday offered harsh criticism for the Department of Energy’s new plans for the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant that, in effect, decouple two of the plant’s main facilities from the rest of the project. Earlier this week, DOE announced that it is putting off the development of a comprehensive cost-and-schedule estimate for […]

The Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held the first in a series of meetings yesterday to attempt to resolve issues raised in a recent NRC report regarding the disposal of low-level waste in saltstone at the Savannah River Site. Last week, the NRC released a Technical Evaluation Report questioning if DOE’s modeling […]

Waste treatment company Kurion announced yesterday it has purchased the GeoMelt vitrification business portion of Impact Services, the embattled company that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week. Kurion also acquired GeoSafe rights related to the technology in an acquisition that closed May 16, just two days before IMPACT Services closed its doors, and one […]

The Department of Energy’s progress in improving the safety culture and overcoming technical issues at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant is set to take center stage this week, as the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board hits the road on Thursday for an all-day WTP hearing in Washington State near the Hanford site and key DOE […]