ARLINGTON, VA –The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) solidified 40,000 gallons of low-level radioactive tank waste into glass form and filled 26 canisters during the facility’s first quarter of operation at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.
This is one of the chief takeaways from an Exchange Monitor conversation with Brian Hartman Thursday Jan. 28 at the conclusion of the Monitor’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit. Hartman is Bechtel National’s project manager at WTP.
Hartman stressed Bechtel is taking a go-slow approach with this “first-of-its-kind” project for fear that putting the “pedal to the metal” too early can “break things.”
There are 56 million gallons of tank waste at Hanford in Richland, Wash. The liquid waste resulted from decades of nuclear defense plutonium production. Most of this waste is low-level. Hanford’s WTP is not scheduled to start solidifying the high-level waste until 2033.
After going offline prior to Christmas for a maintenance and upkeep outage, the multi-billion-dollar vitrification plant resumed operations in mid-January, Hartman said. It will continue to operate until another planned outage in late February.
The plant underwent “hot commissioning” and turned out its first container and started solidifying waste in early October.
“Like any first-of-its-kind technology there are always challenges,” Hartman said. For example, water used during hot commissioning had to be tested offsite by a certified lab. Also, “we had a challenge the other night with a valve that was sticking,” Hartman said.
While the plant, which employs around 1,500 people, has been running for a few months now, it takes a while to work out the kinks, Hartman said.
Probably 10 or more of the containers of solidified waste have already been moved by special truck to Hanford’s onsite Integrated Disposal Facility.
“The containers … are right under the pour spouts of the melters,” Hartman said. Crews pour the hot molten glass in stages “little by little” into the containers. It amounts to about 250 to 300 gallons per hour. “You don’t want to get into overfilling any containers.”
The molten glass is still about 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit when poured into the containers. Crews let the filled containers sit for about a week to cool off before they are shipped via special trucks to the disposal facility.
“Our next major outage will probably be sometime in mid-February,” Hartman said. Staff will gradually get into a normal cadence and “work our way into a production schedule,” he added.
Both 300-ton melters at the plant’s Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste Facility are in service. “Right now we are not operating both at the same time,” Hartman said. That simultaneous operation will require approval of the Washington state Department of Ecology, which Bechtel eventually expects to receive.
Bechtel’s construction contract to build the WTP started in December 2000 and is currently valued at more than $18 billion.
Bechtel will eventually turn over operation of the vitrification plant to the DOE’s tank waste contract, BWX-Technologies-led Hanford Tank Operations and Closure (H2C). The date for transition from builder to plant operator will be determined by DOE but it is generally agreed Bechtel will continue to run the plant through the end of 2026.