Systems engineering analysis to examine the economic impact for treatment of tritiated water in the Hanford KE-Basin

摘要

Federal and state agencies have established a Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) to address some key environmental issues faced at the Hanford Site. Under the TPA, the Department of Energy is currently under a consent order to reduce the tritium concentration in the spent fuel storage basin for KE-Reactor from 3.0 (mu)Ci/L to 0.3 (mu)Ci/L in the KE spent fuel storage basin, starting in 1996. The 100KE and 100KW Area fuel storage basins (K-Basins) at Hanford were built in the early 1950s to receive and provide temporary storage for irradiated fuel from the now shutdown KE and KW production reactors. In 1977, the KE-Basin began to leak at a rate of 13.5 gpm (51 L/min.), but, decreased to 0.03 to 0.05 gpm (0. 13 to 0.19 L/min.) by 1980. In 1993, the leak increased to a rate of 0.42 gpm (1.6 L/min.). This engineering analysis examines the relative costs to reduce the tritium concentration KE-Basin water using a polyphosphazene polymer membrane under development at Pacific Northwest Laboratory. The estimated cost of using the membrane to reduce the tritium concentration is compared to three no-treatment alternatives that include: (1) disposing of the tritium-contaminated water directly to the Columbia River, (2) disposing of the contaminated water to the soil at the on-site Effluent Treatment Facility, and (3) disposing of the contaminated water by evaporation using solar evaporation ponds.