The Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) is quickly approaching the halfway mark in its lifetime of producing canisters filled with radioactive glass, according to SRS liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation. Last week, the DWPF poured its 4,000th canister two months before the facility celebrates its 20th anniversary. Highly radioactive liquid waste from the SRS waste storage tanks is sent to the facility where it undergoes a vitrification process that converts the waste into a glassy form suitable for interim storage on-site until a long-term repository opens.
Through its 40-year lifetime, the DWPF is expected to produce about 7,800 canisters. The canisters are 10 feet tall and 2 feet wide. The vitrified waste inside the canisters will eventually total more than 30 million gallons of material that has been or currently is stored in more than 40 tanks at SRS. The waste has about 253 million curies of radioactivity. To date, the DWPF is responsible for 15 million gallons of vitrified waste, which has immobilized 58 million curies. "Turning waste into glass continues to provide significant risk reduction for South Carolina," Jim Folk, DOE-Savannah River assistant manager for waste disposition, said in a press release.
There are two types of liquid waste in the SRS storage tanks: a sludge form and a salt form. The generated at SRS as byproducts from the processing of nuclear materials for national defense, research, and medical programs, according to the site’s website. The DWPF is designed to treat the both forms, but does receive help with the salt form through the use of the Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit and the Actinide Removal Process. The facilities serve as a pilot program that has far exceeded expectations while the site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is being constructed. The facility has been plagued with cost overruns and delays including a September 2014 announcement that construction will cost $2.3 billion – a significant increase from the original $1.32 billion estimate.
