A STRATEGY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OFALTERNATIVE MIXED WASTE TECHNOLOGIES IN RESPONSE TO THEPROPOSED SHUTDOWN OF DOE INCINERATORS

摘要

The Department of Energy (DOE) has successfully incinerated a variety of the organicbasedmixed wastes that were generated from its past and present waste remediation,nuclear energy, and weapons missions. However, recent stakeholder and public concernover incinerator emissions and the increasingly stringent mandates of the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) to monitor and treat these emissions has caused the DOE toconsider closure of all mixed waste incinerators complex wide. Regardless, some of themore challenging mixed waste existing in DOE storage contain sufficient quantities oftransuranics, mercury compounds, explosives, and/or reactives, such that they are notamenable to efficient incineration and therefore technically require alternative methodsfor organic destruction. Consequently, the DOE’s Office of Science and Technology(OST) has established a new strategy to develop, demonstrate, and deploy the costeffective and timely alternative technologies needed to replace the role of incineration aswell as to address these more challenging waste streams.General descriptions of the emerging alternative incineration technologies to be advancedthrough the strategy are provided, and these methods are classified in the three generalcategories of either thermal, aqueous based chemical oxidation (includingdehalogenation), or separations. The strategy presented to develop these methods (andtherefore to effectively compensate for any recent and pending DOE incinerationclosures) requires a broad range of efforts at various development stages, including thoseinvolving any basic science research and full- scale integrated demonstrations. To besuccessful, the specific development and deployment strategy (to be initiated by DOE’sand OST’s Transuranic and Mixed Waste Focus Area (TMWF)) must also include aregulatory and stakeholder approach, in addition to the traditional technical component.