Radioactive wastes

The world's largest radioactive waste vitrification facility is now under construction at the United State Department of Energy's (DOE's) Hanford site. The Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) is designed to treat nearly 53 million gallons of mixed hazardous and radioactive waste now residing in 177 underground storage tanks. This multi-decade processing campaign will be one of the

A nuclear waste packaging facility comprising: (a) a first section substantially surrounded by radiation shielding, including means for remotely handling waste delivered to the first section and for placing the waste into a disposal module; (b) a second section substantially surrounded by radiation shielding, including means for handling a deformable container bearing waste delivered to the second section, the handling

Human activities such as oil and gas production can enhance the natural level of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in by-product and waste streams. Iran has been among the top five oil producing countries since 2005. This high production rate emphasizes the importance of NORM management to ensure the safety of humans and wildlife. Petroleum storage and transport facilities are located at Lavan Island, Iran. Presence of animals including dolphins, sea turtles, and chinkaras make this island one of the most unique wildlife refuges in Iran. This paper combines waste disposal methods relevant to the petroleum offshore industries, NORM waste characteristics, and geographical, geological, and climate conditions of Lavan Island in order to develop enveloping exposure scenarios. Sludge burning is determined as the most concerning scenario by assuming chinkaras as the endpoint. Ecological and radiological assessment procedure is modeled with MATLAB-Simulink as a dynamic system. Clearance level for radiation protection of chinkaras is calculated as 41 Bq/kg. This value may be insufficient for radiation protection of workers, because exposure pathways are not derived based on human behavior. According to environmental pathways and condition of chinkaras, this value sufficiently covers all aspects of radiation protection. Citation: Sedighian S, Abdoli MA, Niksokhan MH, Kim MJ, Cho SY. Radiological dose assessment of naturally occurring radioactive materials generated by the petroleum industry in wildlife: A case study of chinkaras of Lavan Island, Iran. J Adv Environ Health Res 2014; 2(4): 215-22.

Demonstrating that a waste form produced by a given immobilization process is chemically and physically durable as well as compliant with disposal facility acceptance criteria is critical to the success of a waste treatment program, and must be pursued in conjunction with the maturation of the waste processing technology. Testing of waste forms produced using differing scales of processing units and classes of feeds (simulants versus actual waste) is the crux of the waste form qualification process. Testing is typically focused on leachability of constituents of concern (COCs), as well as chemical and physical durability of the waste form. A principal challenge regarding testing immobilized low-activity waste (ILAW) forms is the absence of a standard test suite or set of mandatory parameters against which waste forms may be tested, compared, and qualified for acceptance in existing and proposed nuclear waste disposal sites at Hanford and across the Department of Energy (DOE) complex...

The Polyarninsky Shipyard (sometimes called Navy Yard No. 10 or the Shkval Shipyard) has been designated as the recipient for Solid Radioactive Waste (SRW) management facilities under the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) Program. The existing SRW storage site at this shipyard is filled to capacity, which is forcing the shipyard to reduce its submarine dismantlement activities. The Polyarninsky Shipyard Waste Management Installation is planned as a combination of several AMEC projects. It will have several elements, including a set of hydraulic metal cutting tools, containers for transport and storage, the Mobile Pretreatment Facility (MPF) for Solid Radioactive Waste, the PICASSO system for radiation monitoring, and a Waste Storage Facility. Hydraulically operated cutting tools can cut many metal items via shearing so that dusts or particulates are not generated. The AMEC Program procured a cutting tool system, consisting of a motor and hydraulic pumping unit, a 38-m...

The Polyarninsky Shipyard (sometimes called Navy Yard No. 10 or the Shkval Shipyard) has been designated as the recipient for Solid Radioactive Waste (SRW) management facilities under the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) Program. The existing SRW storage site at this shipyard is filled to capacity, which is forcing the shipyard to reduce its submarine dismantlement activities. The Polyarninsky Shipyard Waste Management Installation is planned as a combination of several AMEC projects. It will have several elements, including a set of hydraulic metal cutting tools, containers for transport and storage, the Mobile Pretreatment Facility (MPF) for Solid Radioactive Waste, the PICASSO system for radiation monitoring, and a Waste Storage Facility. Hydraulically operated cutting tools can cut many metal items via shearing so that dusts or particulates are not generated. The AMEC Program procured a cutting tool system, consisting of a motor and hydraulic pumping unit, a 38-m...

Oxidative alkaline leaching has been proposed to pretreat the high‐level nuclear waste sludges to remove some of the problematic (e.g., Cr) and/or nonradioactive (e.g., Na, Al) constituents before vitrification. It is critical to understand the behavior of actinides, americium and plutonium in particular, in oxidative alkaline leaching. We have studied the leaching behavior of americium from four different sludge simulants

Methods for conditioning liquid and dry radioactive waste can be its immobilization, solidification or encapsulation by means of cement mixtures. Considering the availability and quality of the raw materials, the requirements of the regulatory framework, and the specific conditions of the waste disposal cycle, a range of mixtures of cements, reactive additives, and fillers can be used. In the last decades, the percentage of products containing latent hydraulic, pozzolanic or limestone filler has steadily increased. Moreover, innovative products have been developed, such as super-plasticisers, to allow the largescale application of ultrahigh performance and self-compacting concrete. This progress influenced the revision and the definition of standards. NDA contracted DBE TECHNOLOGY GmbH as part of a consortium led by EDEN Nuclear and Environment, UK, with a multiphase study to analyze the development in the building sector and the availability of suitable cement compositions for encapsulation purposes. The aim of the first phase of the study is to gain an overview of the practice. Then, the requirements on the cement compositions are to be summarized, taking into account the different disposal strategies in the European countries. The scope and characteristics of the quality assurance programs and the approaches in case of an occurrence of non-conformities are reviewed as well. The aim is to make it possible to identify the need
of material optimization and to guarantee a future availability of adequate high-quality cement compositions.

This paper describes numerical prediction of the coupled thermal-hydrological processes (TH) in the vicinity of waste emplacement drifts during the heating phase of the proposed geologic repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Heating of rock water to above-boiling conditions induces water saturation changes and perturbed water fluxes that affect the potential of water seepage into drifts. In addition to the capillary barrier at the rock-drift interface--independent of the thermal conditions--a second barrier exists to downward percolation at above-boiling conditions. This barrier is caused by vaporization of water in the fractured rock overlying the repository. A TOUGH2 simulation model was developed to analyze the combined effect of these two barriers; it accounts for all relevant TH processes in response to heating, while incorporating the capillary barrier condition at the drift wall. Model results are presented for a variety of simulation cases.

Increasing public confidence in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as an effective and independent regulator is an explicit goal of the Agency (1). Consistent with long-established mechanisms and procedures, NRC provides the public access to its decision-making process. Recently, during the course of a rulemaking required by statute, NRC examined its means for inviting public access as well as the NRC staff's effectiveness in furthering public confidence in it's actions as a regulator. When developing new, site-specific regulations for the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, NRC's Division of Waste Management found it necessary to adapt and improve its efforts to inform and involve the public in NRC's decision making process. Major changes were made to the way in which technical staff prepare for speaking to general audiences. The format used for public meetings was modified to encourage dialogue with participants. Handout and presentati...

Prepared for the US Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830 ... AP Poloski F Nigl HE Adkins MJ Minette J Abrefah JJ Toth AM Casella JM Tingey RE Hohimer ST Yokuda ... AP Poloski F Nigl HE Adkins MJ Minette J Abrefah JJ Toth AM Casella JM Tingey RE ...