Giant Nuke Waste 'Vit' Plant Hits Initial Building Deadline

摘要

Nearly two decades after design and construction began on what became a $17-billion complex to immobilize 56 million gallons of nuclear and chemical wastes at the U.S. Energy Dept. Hanford former weapons site in Washington state, work has largely finished on a facility to treat the least contaminated but largest volume of wastes to meet a cleanup deadline. Construction completion by Bechtel National moves a key part of the Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant into start-up testing, including permanently firing the first of two 300-ton melters this year in a "vitrification" process that will turn nuclear and chemical wastes into glass logs for permanent onsite burial. Building what is said to be the world's largest plant to treat nuclear waste "is truly a scientific and engineering feat," said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash).