Life cycle benefit-cost analysis of alternatives for deployment of the transportable vitrification system

摘要

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) occupies almost 37,000 acres in and around the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In the rapid effort to produce a working atomic bomb, three plants were constructed: Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (K-25), now the Oak Ridge K-25 Site and the Center for Environmental Technology and Waste Management; Clinton Laboratories (now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)); and the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant. Following the end of the Cold War and the resulting reduction in nuclear weapons production, the DOE faced an unprecedented task of safely managing, storing, and treating legacy waste while, at the same time, cleaning up the contaminated areas within its sites in 33 states in a manner that uses the most cost-effective methods in conjunction with its responsibility to protect human health and the environment. The Transportable Vitrification system (TVS), an alternative waste treatment technology, has been developed by the DOE Office of Technology Development (EM-50). EM-50, or OTD, is the DOE program concerned with developing, demonstrating, and deploying new methods for environmental restoration and waste management and, as such, has provided the majority of the funding for the development of the TVS. This study reports the results of life cycle benefit-cost-risk analyses of the TVS for a series of use-scenarios proposed for treating mixed low-level waste (MLLW) streams on the ORR in accordance with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines contained in OMB Circular 94. The system is designed to produce about 300 lb of glass per hour at its maximum capacity and is capable of processing wet, dry, or slurried waste. When formed into glass by the TVS, MLLW streams meet the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) land disposal requirements (LDR) and can potentially be disposed of as low-level wastes (LLW).