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Author: National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Radionuclide Separation Processes for High-Level Waste at the Savannah River Site
Publisher:
Published: 2001
Total Pages: 22
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2001-09-03
Total Pages: 96
ISBN-13: 0309075939
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is nearing a decision on how to process 30 million gallons of high-level radioactive waste salt solutions at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to remove strontium, actinides, and cesium for immobilization in glass and eventual shipment to a geologic repository. The department is sponsoring research and development (R&D) work on four alternative processes and plans to use the results to make a downselection decision in a June 2001 time frame. The DOE requested that the National Research Council help inform this decision by addressing the following charge: evaluate the adequacy of the criteria that will be used by the department to select from among the candidate processes under consideration; evaluate the progress and results of the research and development work that is being undertaken on these candidate processes; and assess whether the technical uncertainties have been sufficiently resolved to proceed with downsizing the list of candidate processes. Responses to the last two points are provided in this report. Research and Development on a Salt Processing Alternative for High-Level Waste at the Savannah River Site focuses exclusively on the technical issues related to the candidate processes for radionuclide removal from high-level waste salt solutions at SRS. The committee's interim report served as a response to the first point of this charge, and may be read in Appendix B. In that report, the committee found that DOE's proposed criteria are an acceptable basis for selecting among the candidate processes under consideration, but that the criteria should not be implemented in a way that relies on a single numerical "total score."
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2000-11-30
Total Pages: 154
ISBN-13: 0309071941
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Second World War introduced the world to nuclear weapons and their consequences. Behind the scene of these nuclear weapons and an aspect of their consequences is radioactive waste. Radioactive waste has varying degrees of harmfulness and poses a problem when it comes to storage and disposal. Radioactive waste is usually kept below ground in varying containers, which depend on how radioactive the waste it. High-level radioactive waste (HLW) can be stored in underground carbon-steel tanks. However, radioactive waste must also be further immobilized to ensure our safety. There are several sites in the United States where high-level radioactive waste (HLW) are stored; including the Savannah River Site (SRS), established in 1950 to produce plutonium and tritium isotopes for defense purposes. In order to further immobilize the radioactive waste at this site an in-tank precipitation (ITP) process is utilized. Through this method, the sludge portion of the tank wastes is being removed and immobilized in borosilicate glass for eventual disposal in a geological repository. As a result, a highly alkaline salt, present in both liquid and solid forms, is produced. The salt contains cesium, strontium, actinides such as plutonium and neptunium, and other radionuclides. But is this the best method? The National Research Council (NRC) has empanelled a committee, at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to provide an independent technical review of alternatives to the discontinued in-tank precipitation (ITP) process for treating the HLW stored in tanks at the SRS. Alternatives for High-Level Waste Salt Processing at the Savannah RIver Site summarizes the finding of the committee which sought to answer 4 questions including: "Was an appropriately comprehensive set of cesium partitioning alternatives identified and are there other alternatives that should be explored?" and "Are there significant barriers to the implementation of any of the preferred alternatives, taking into account their state of development and their ability to be integrated into the existing SRS HLW system?"
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2000-10-30
Total Pages: 154
ISBN-13: 030917158X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Second World War introduced the world to nuclear weapons and their consequences. Behind the scene of these nuclear weapons and an aspect of their consequences is radioactive waste. Radioactive waste has varying degrees of harmfulness and poses a problem when it comes to storage and disposal. Radioactive waste is usually kept below ground in varying containers, which depend on how radioactive the waste it. High-level radioactive waste (HLW) can be stored in underground carbon-steel tanks. However, radioactive waste must also be further immobilized to ensure our safety. There are several sites in the United States where high-level radioactive waste (HLW) are stored; including the Savannah River Site (SRS), established in 1950 to produce plutonium and tritium isotopes for defense purposes. In order to further immobilize the radioactive waste at this site an in-tank precipitation (ITP) process is utilized. Through this method, the sludge portion of the tank wastes is being removed and immobilized in borosilicate glass for eventual disposal in a geological repository. As a result, a highly alkaline salt, present in both liquid and solid forms, is produced. The salt contains cesium, strontium, actinides such as plutonium and neptunium, and other radionuclides. But is this the best method? The National Research Council (NRC) has empanelled a committee, at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to provide an independent technical review of alternatives to the discontinued in-tank precipitation (ITP) process for treating the HLW stored in tanks at the SRS. Alternatives for High-Level Waste Salt Processing at the Savannah RIver Site summarizes the finding of the committee which sought to answer 4 questions including: "Was an appropriately comprehensive set of cesium partitioning alternatives identified and are there other alternatives that should be explored?" and "Are there significant barriers to the implementation of any of the preferred alternatives, taking into account their state of development and their ability to be integrated into the existing SRS HLW system?"
Author: Committee on Cesium Processing Alternatives for High-Level Waste at the Savannah River Site
Publisher:
Published: 2000-10-30
Total Pages: 154
ISBN-13: 9780309382489
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Second World War introduced the world to nuclear weapons and their consequences. Behind the scene of these nuclear weapons and an aspect of their consequences is radioactive waste. Radioactive waste has varying degrees of harmfulness and poses a problem when it comes to storage and disposal. Radioactive waste is usually kept below ground in varying containers, which depend on how radioactive the waste it. High-level radioactive waste (HLW) can be stored in underground carbon-steel tanks. However, radioactive waste must also be further immobilized to ensure our safety. There are several sites in the United States where high-level radioactive waste (HLW) are stored; including the Savannah River Site (SRS), established in 1950 to produce plutonium and tritium isotopes for defense purposes. In order to further immobilize the radioactive waste at this site an in-tank precipitation (ITP) process is utilized. Through this method, the sludge portion of the tank wastes is being removed and immobilized in borosilicate glass for eventual disposal in a geological repository. As a result, a highly alkaline salt, present in both liquid and solid forms, is produced. The salt contains cesium, strontium, actinides such as plutonium and neptunium, and other radionuclides. But is this the best method? The National Research Council (NRC) has empanelled a committee, at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to provide an independent technical review of alternatives to the discontinued in-tank precipitation (ITP) process for treating the HLW stored in tanks at the SRS. Alternatives for High-Level Waste Salt Processing at the Savannah RIver Site summarizes the finding of the committee which sought to answer 4 questions including: "Was an appropriately comprehensive set of cesium partitioning alternatives identified and are there other alternatives that should be explored?" and "Are there significant barriers to the implementation of any of the preferred alternatives, taking into account their state of development and their ability to be integrated into the existing SRS HLW system?"
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 81
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This report presents the results of the Independent Project Evaluation (IPE) Team assessment of the Westinghouse Savannah River Company High-Level Waste Salt Disposition Systems Engineering (SE) Team's deliberations, evaluations, and selections. The Westinghouse Savannah River Company concluded in early 1998 that production goals and safety requirements for processing SRS HLW salt to remove Cs-137 could not be met in the existing In-Tank Precipitation Facility as currently configured for precipitation of cesium tetraphenylborate. The SE Team was chartered to evaluate and recommend an alternative(s) for processing the existing HLW salt to remove Cs-137. To replace the In-Tank Precipitation process, the Savannah River Site HLW Salt Disposition SE Team downselected (October 1998) 140 candidate separation technologies to two alternatives: Small-Tank Tetraphenylborate (TPB) Precipitation (primary alternative) and Crystalline Silicotitanate (CST) Nonelutable Ion Exchange (backup alternative). The IPE Team, commissioned by the Department of Energy, concurs that both alternatives are technically feasible and should meet all salt disposition requirements. But the IPE Team judges that the SE Team's qualitative criteria and judgments used in their downselection to a primary and a backup alternative do not clearly discriminate between the two alternatives. To properly choose between Small-Tank TPB and CST Ion Exchange for the primary alternative, the IPE Team suggests the following path forward: Complete all essential R and D activities for both alternatives and formulate an appropriate set of quantitative decision criteria that will be rigorously applied at the end of the R and D activities. Concurrent conceptual design activities should be limited to common elements of the alternatives.
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 14
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Department of Energy's (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) high-level waste (HLW) program is responsible for storage, treatment, and immobilization of HLW for disposal. The Salt Processing Project (SPP) is the salt waste (water-soluble) treatment portion of this effort. The overall SPP encompasses the selection, design, construction, and operation of technologies to prepare the salt-waste feed material for immobilization at the site's Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) and vitrification facility (Defense Waste Processing Facility [DWPF]). Major constituents that must be removed from the salt waste and sent as feed to DWPF include cesium (Cs), strontium (Sr), and actinides. In April 2000, the DOE Deputy Secretary for Project Completion (EM-40) established the SRS Salt Processing Project Technical Working Group (TWG) to manage technology development of treatment alternatives for SRS high-level salt wastes. The separation alternatives investigated included three candidate Cs-removal processes selected, as well as actinide and Sr removal that are also required as a part of each process. The candidate Cs-removal processes are: crystalline Silicotitanate Non-Elutable Ion Exchange (CST); caustic Side Solvent Extraction (CSSX); and small Tank Tetraphenylborate Precipitation (STTP). The Tanks Focus Area was asked to assist DOE by managing the SPP research and development (R & D), revising roadmaps, and developing down-selection criteria. The down-selection decision process focused its analysis on three levels: (a) identification of goals that the selected technology should achieve, (b) selection criteria that are a measure of performance of the goal, and (c) criteria scoring and weighting for each technology alternative. After identifying the goals and criteria, the TWG analyzed R & D results and engineering data and scored the technology alternatives versus the criteria. Based their analysis and scoring, the TWG recommended CSSX as the preferred alternative. This recommendation was formalized in July 2001 when DOE published the Savannah River Site Salt Processing Alternatives Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) and was finalized in the DOE Record of Decision issued in October 2001.
