A year after the Hanford vitrification plant started turning radioactive and hazardous chemical waste into a stable glass form for disposal, it has treated 250,000 gallons of waste.
Crews for Bechtel National, the Department of Energy contractor for the Waste Treatment Plant, or vit plant, reached that milestone Saturday, 364 days after the plant started up.
“The Low-Activity Waste Facility is producing results, and continues to treat larger amounts of waste as planned ramp-up activities continue,” said Stephanie Schleif, nuclear waste program manager for the Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford nuclear site regulator, Monday.
“We look forward to building on this momentum,” she said.
Initially, only the less radioactive waste is being immobilized in a stable glass form using the vit plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, with construction progressing on the plants’ High-Level Waste Facility to meet a 2033 federal court deadline to start treating the most radioactive waste stored in underground tanks.
Significant progress has been made to increase the rate at which the vitrification plant turns out stainless steel canisters filled with radioactive waste to be disposed at a nearby, lined landfill at Hanford.
Of the 250,000 gallons of waste treated, 110,000 was glassified in the last quarter, including more than 40,000 gallons in September. Bechtel expects productivity to continue to increase as crews gain experience and continuing learning more about plant operations.
The recent progress brings the plant closer to the initial goal set by DOE and Bechtel to have 500,000 gallons of waste treated by the end of 2026. Then plans call for treatment of 1 million gallons of waste in 2027 and 1.5 million gallons of waste in 2028.
That aligns with a federal court deadline to have the plant at 70% of total operating capacity by October 2028.
“Our team continues to optimize the vitrification process as we progress through the hot commissioning phase,” said Brian Hartman, Bechtel senior vice president and vitrification plant project director.
Bechtel began building the plant in 2002 and after repeated delays due to technical, funding and other issues, moved on to commissioning the plant. Vit plant change coming
Bechtel will spend the next few months building production consistency and establishing a steady rhythm for safe and sustained operations, it said.
DOE has picked Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure, or H2C, as its operations contractor for the plant as Bechtel continues work to prepare for treating high-level radioactive waste.
H2C is expected to start working at the vitrification plant in January, with the transition from Bechtel to H2C complete in mid-April.
The vitrification plant’s low activity waste facility now has two melters for glassifying radioactive waste.
It is operating them one at a time now, but by April is required by the Department of Ecology to have a test run of both melters operating at the same time.
Operating both at the same time will allow more waste to be treated at once, according to the Department of Ecology.
The waste is left from the past production of nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.
The vitrification plant mixes glass-forming materials with the portion of the tank contents that is low-activity radioactive waste and then heats it to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. The mixture is then poured into large steel containers to cool.
The containers are disposed of at the nearby Integrated Disposal Facility, which was designed and built for glassified low-activity radioactive waste.
The landfill has impermeable layers on its bottom and sides and a clay floor to prevent leaks from entering the ground below. It also has a leachate collection system to capture rainfall or other liquids.
As of a month ago, the landfilled had received 144 containers of glassified waste, totaling about 767 tons, in the landfill.
Vitrified low-activity waste has proven to be the most robust and protective waste form, according to the Department of Ecology. The state has agreed to allow some of the less radioactive tank waste to be turned into a concrete-like grout form, but it must be disposed of in Utah or Texas rather than at Hanford above groundwater that moves toward the Columbia River.
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