Fluor Idaho officials say they plan to start testing again next week at the Idaho National Laboratory site’s Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, circulating simulated waste through the facility’s system for the first time in about nine months.
The simulant run, to last 10 days, is intended to determine whether a newly designed auger grinder component works better than the old version that had trouble processing the fake radioactive waste without seizing up. Two more test runs — lasting 20 days and 50 days — will be conducted in coming months to see if modifications made to the facility’s main waste processing vessel, the Denitration Mineralization Reformer (DMR), were effective, Fluor Idaho President Fred Hughes said.
The 53,000-square-foot facility was designed to treat 900,000 gallons of radioactive sodium-bearing waste. It has been largely complete since 2012 but has never functioned correctly in testing. Officials continue to look to solve several recurring glitches and fix equipment, primarily centered around the DMR and the auger grinder, which churns up solidified waste as it comes out the bottom of the treatment process.
When it took over the Idaho Cleanup Project contract in June, Fluor laid out a four-phase process for getting the facility up and running after years of delays, missed deadlines, and state fines for the Energy Department and its previous contractor, CH2M-WG Idaho. Fluor also has brought in numerous industry and national laboratory experts for assistance.
A first stage of testing and tweaks at the facility finished in October. The second stage includes the upcoming simulant runs, as well as testing of a small-scale DMR at Hazen Research near Denver. A third stage includes a 90-day simulant run and 30-day outage to ensure the repairs were effective, and the fourth stage includes treatment of the real radioactive waste.
DOE and contractor officials have declined to provide a timeline for how long each phase will take, with Hughes saying last month the “schedule is built on success.” The agency to date has spent more than $785 million on the project, $200 million over the original budget.
With the DMR, Fluor officials say they are focused on finding the proper temperature and particle size for effective waste treatment. They are examining whether a slightly hotter temperature — around 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, up from 1,150 — may help the process run more smoothly. And they are studying how to prevent sand-like particles used to solidify the waste from clumping together, which has previously caused a bark-like substance inside the DMR and hindered treatment during prior tests.
Other repairs including testing out the new auger grinder, and — after the first simulant run — cutting a hole in the side of the DMR. The hole will allow a worker to reach inside and replace a faulty piece of equipment called a ring header. The last full simulant run at the facility was in May, just before Fluor took over the cleanup contract.
