Feds Start Search for Contractor to Operate $17 Billion Hanford Waste Plant

摘要

The Department of Energy has taken the first step toward finding a contractor to operate the $17 billion Hanford vitrification plant. On Thursday DOE asked for information from companies interested in operating the plant to help it develop its request for bids. The plant is required to be ready at the end of 2023 to turn some of Hanford's least radioactive waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form for disposal at a new lined landfill at Hanford. DOE contractor Bechtel National began construction on the plant in 2002, under a contract that included designing and building the plant and then starting it up and commissioning it. Now DOE is making plans for a new contract to begin partial operation of the vit plant.