The electrical utility building that eventually will feed power to crucial liquid waste treatment systems at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site near Richland, Wash., has been tied to its permanent electrical power source in what contractor Bechtel National said in a Thursday press release is “an important step toward operations.”
Though announced Thursday, Building 87, the primary electrical switchgear building at the Waste Treatment Plant Bechtel is building under a roughly $11 billion contract, was taken off temporary construction site power on Sept. 17, according to the company’s press release.
Building 87 eventually will feed power to the Waste Treatment Plant’s four major nuclear facilities, and more than 20 infrastructure systems and facilities that, for the moment, will continue to operate on temporary power. Non-nuclear support Waste Treatment Plant facilities include a steam plant, a diesel storage building, other switchgear buildings, and a chiller-compressor building. Also relying on electrical power are basic utilities such as water, sewer, electrical, and fire protection systems.
The Waste Treatment Plant eventually will turn all 56 million gallons of Hanford’s primarily liquid Cold War waste into more easily storable solid glass. Processing of less-dangerous, less-dense low-activity waste is slated to begin in 2022 once Bechtel and Washington River Protection Solutions, DOE’s other big liquid waste contractor at Hanford, complete modifications to the Waste Treatment Plant and Hanford tank farms. Treatment of sludgier, more radioactive high-level waste must begin by 2036, a federal judge ruled in March.