Published Thursday, Mar. 15, 2012
Sen. Murray presses Steven Chu about confidence in vit plant technical issues
By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald
WASHINGTON, D.C. Energy Secretary Steven Chu hedged at a Senate hearing Wednesday on how confident he is that technical issues at the Hanford vitrification plant have all been identified and can be resolved.
More will be known about how well the plant's waste mixing system will work, a key technical issue at the $12.2 billion plant, when more testing is completed, Chu told Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., at a hearing of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee.
Murray used her time at the fiscal 2013 budget request hearing to raise not only vit plant technical issues, but also to ask whether DOE could be sure it will meet deadlines under a new court-enforced consent decree.
"You are quite right to be concerned," Chu said.
[snip]
The plant is being built to treat up to 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
Construction has been under way for almost a decade and design almost is complete,
yet several people who work on the project and outside agencies are raising significant technical issues, Murray said at the Senate hearing.
"Inside the black cells there is no room for error," she said.
Black cells will process high-level radioactive waste, making them too radioactively hot for workers to safely enter for maintenance after processing begins.
They will hold tanks where inadequate mixing of radioactive waste could lead to a criticality or buildup of flammable gases.
"I agree with you once it goes hot, we want to be sure it works," Chu said. That's why it's prudent to do extra testing of the technology, he said...
Read more here:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2012/03/15/1865261/sen-murray-presses-steven-chu.html#storylink=cpy
