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Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Plutonium Waste May Be Heading to N.M.
By John Fleck
Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
The National Nuclear Security Administration is considering sending 1,000 truckloads of plutonium waste to New Mexico from South Carolina for disposal.
The waste would be sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the 2,150-foot-deep salt mine beneath southeast New Mexico where the federal government has been disposing of radioactive nuclear weapons waste since 1999.
A new study will look at WIPP disposal as one of the options for a portion of 14 tons of plutonium that was in the U.S. nuclear weapons production pipeline when the Cold War ended two decades ago.
Another possibility is mixing the plutonium into glass logs, which would immobilize the dangerous radioactive material, allowing safer long-term storage on site at Savannah River while decisions about long-term disposal are made.
More than half of the plutonium under study could be purified and turned into nuclear reactor fuel, which eventually would be burned to generate electricity. But the rest is mixed with other materials that makes it unsuitable for nuclear reactor fuel, said Jim Giusti, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration's Savannah River office.
The material is similar to waste that has already been brought to WIPP, and therefore should meet the New Mexico mine's disposal rules, said Roger Nelson, director of international programs and science for the Department of Energy's Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees WIPP.
WIPP watchdog Don Hancock, of the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, said further study will be needed to determine whether the waste meets the strict federal guidelines that govern what waste can and cannot be brought to WIPP.
WIPP, the country's only deep underground waste disposal site, is a frequently discussed option in future efforts to deal with a wide range of radioactive waste.
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