David Kosson, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering at Vanderbilt University, gives an overview of various past and present waste management issues, efforts, technologies and impacts. He also presents some challenges regarding waste management. The NuClean Kick-Off workshop was held on Nov. 7, 2013 at the Handlery Union Square Hotel in San Francisco, CA, co-located with the AIChE 2013 Annual Meeting. For more information on NuClean, visit: http://www.aiche.org/cei/conferences/nuclean-workshop/2013. For more information on AIChE's Center for Energy Initiatives (CEI), visit: http://www.aiche.org/cei.

1. Nuclear Waste and the Defense Nuclear
Legacy:
Put Title HereChallenge in the
An Overview of the
Put SubTitle Here
United States
David S. Kosson, Ph.D.
Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering
Vanderbilt University
November 7, 2013
1

2. Acknowledgement & Disclaimer
• Many of the slides used were provided by
DOE – Office Environmental Management.
• I am not representing the DOE in any manner
and any opinions expressed are solely my own.
• DOE-EM provided support for my participation
here through CRESP.
2

3. 3

4. National Agencies and Organizations
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Environmental Protection Agency
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board
National Research Council of The National
Academies
• Advocacy organizations
•
•
•
•
•
4

5. Atomic Energy Commission – Mid
1950’s to Mid 1960’s
Linking Legacies, DOE-EM, 1997
www.energy.gov/EM
5

6. D. Huizenga, EM-1, FY 13 Budget Request, 2-2012

7. D. Huizenga, EM-1, FY 13 Budget Request, 2-2012

8. EM Has Significantly Reduced Risks to the
Environment and Public
Completed cleanup on 90 of 107 former nuclear weapons and research sites
AK
Sites Remaining in 2012
EM Historical Cleanup Sites
HI
PR
A. Williams, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
For Environmental Management, 10-30-2013
www.energy.gov/EM
8

9. D. Huizenga, EM-1, 2-2013

10. D. Huizenga, EM-1, 2-2013

11. D. Huizenga, EM-1, 2-2013

12. D. Huizenga, EM-1, 2-2013

13. K. Picha, EM-DAS, 12-2012

14. K. Picha, EM-DAS, 12-2012

15. K. Picha, EM-DAS, 12-2012

16. Graphics courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

17. D. Huizenga, EM-1, 2-2013

18. Hanford Groundwater Plumes and Site Layout
Graphics courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

19. D. Huizenga, EM-1, 2-2013

20. Courtesy of K. Smith, Mgr., Office of River Protection
20

21. Hanford High Level Waste Tanks
Single Shell Tank (SST)
Double Shell Tank (DST)
149 SSTs (constructed 1943-1964), 28 DSTs
Typical: 23m diameter , 9 to 16m tall; 200 to 3,800 m3

22. Courtesy of K. Smith, Mgr., Office of River Protection
22

23. Courtesy of K. Smith, Mgr., Office of River Protection
23

26. Hanford Regional Stakeholders
• Local and Regional Public
• State of Washington, including Depts. of Ecology
and Health
• State of Oregon
• 4 Tribal Nations
• Elected Officials
• Hanford Advisory Board
• Local and regional advocacy groups
• Contractors and Unions
26

27. Environmental Management Priorities
• Activities to maintain a safe and secure posture in the EM
complex
• Radioactive tank waste stabilization, treatment, and disposal
• Spent nuclear fuel storage, receipt, and disposition
• Special nuclear material consolidation, processing, and
disposition
• High risk soil and groundwater remediation
• Transuranic and mixed/low-level waste disposition
• Soil and groundwater remediation
• Excess facilities deactivation and decommissioning
A. Williams, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
For Environmental Management, 10-30-2013
www.energy.gov/EM
27

28. The Life-Cycle Cost of the EM Program:
Approximately $200 Billion in Costs to Go
• The EM legacy cleanup
program is forecasted to
continue past 2060 with
“to go” costs of up to
$209 billion.
• Facility D&D, soil and
groundwater activities
represent the second
most costly cleanup
activity.
$8
$7
Year of Expenditure Dollars (Billions)
• Tank waste activities are
the most costly of EM’s
cleanup activities.
$9
$6
TRU Waste
$5
Facility D&D, Soil &
Groundwater
$4
SNM/SNF
$3
Tank Waste
$2
$1
LLW &
MLLW
$0
Year
A. Williams, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
For Environmental Management, 10-30-2013
www.energy.gov/EM
28

29. Compliance, Risk, and Priority Setting
• Environmental Compliance: One of EM’s top program drivers
• Different environmental statutes drive different removal
end points
• Location of points of compliance (risk envelope)
• Risk prioritization: Existing processes provide the framework
• Sequence and schedule – Federal Facility Agreements and
Consent Orders
• Remedy Selection – CERCLA Nine Criteria and Waste
Determinations/Disposal Authorization Statements
• Decisions regarding cleanup priorities need to be risk-informed
to provide a balanced approach
• Protection of human health and the environment
• Consideration of future use and sustainability –
environmental, social, and economic
A. Williams, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
For Environmental Management, 10-30-2013
www.energy.gov/EM
29

30. Risk-informed Decision Making
•
Manage environmental contamination and waste
in a manner that balances protection of human
health and the environment and cost effectiveness
for current and future generations
•
Will be necessary to leave residual waste in place
•
•
•
•
Allows for natural attenuation
Integrates stewardship into holistic, life-cycle
management options
Requires further development of predictive
modeling and visualization, and monitoring and
sensor technologies
Recognizes U.S. Government’s long term
commitment to monitoring and other
institutional controls
A. Williams, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
For Environmental Management, 10-30-2013
Savannah River Tank 5 Heel Removal (Tank
Interior)
Natural attenuation of uranium contamination at the
300 area , Hanford site
www.energy.gov/EM
30

31. Challenge
• How do we take a more comprehensive and integrated approach to
balancing impacts of addressing environmental contamination risk?
• Short-term and long term impacts?
• Worker and community impacts?
• Local and global impacts?
• Cost and risk mitigation?
• End states and future use?
• How do we (or should we) change the basic question of “How clean is
clean?” to “How much residual waste can remain and still ensure
protectiveness?”?
• How do we expand our thinking about risk and sustainability to best
manage existing risks and execute our mission?
A. Williams, Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
For Environmental Management, 10-30-2013
www.energy.gov/EM
31

32. Risk Informed Decisions
Human judgment further informs decisions
Risk
Characterization
Community views/Congressional Mandates, etc.
Always Augment the Analysis
Risk
Management

33. Consortium for Risk Evaluation with
Stakeholder Participation
Put Title Here
David Kosson (PI)1 , Charles Powers (Co-PI)1
Put SubTitle Here
The CRESP III Management Board
Craig Benson8, Joanna Burger2, James Clarke1, Michael Greenberg2, Kathryn Higley3,
Kimberly Jones4, Steve Krahn1, Shlomo Neuman7, Ron Rousseau9, Richard Stewart5 and
the Co-PI’s
1Vanderbilt
University, 2Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 3Oregon State University, 4Howard University,
York University, 6Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 7University of Arizona, 8University of WisconsinMadison, 9Georgia Institute of Technology
5New

34. Support safe, effective, publiclycredible, risk-informed
management of existing and
future nuclear waste from
Put SubTitle Here
government and civilian sources
through independent strategic
analysis, review, applied
research and education.
Put Title Here
www.CRESP.org
Certainty
Confidence
in environmental
management
decisions
Credibility
Capability

35. CRESP Provides Unique Capability
Focus on assisting decision making for DOE
strategic planning and investments:
• Consideration of and input from broad range of
stakeholders
• Developing proof-of-concepts with multi-disciplinary
teams
– Science & Engineering
– Safety, Health & Environment
– Policy, Economics & Law
• Independent review & assessment
35

36. CRESP Provides Unique Capability
• Practical solutions to complex challenges that
are scientifically sound and unbiased
• Examples:
– Oak Ridge risk-informed prioritization
– Fish consumption fact sheet
– Landfills management
– Amchitka ecological assessment
– Low-level waste disposition
36

37. Develop a reasonable and
credible set of tools to
predict the structural,
hydraulic and chemical
performance of cement
barriers used in nuclear
applications over extended
time frames (e.g., up to and
>100 years for operating
facilities and >1000 years for
waste management).
www.CementBarriers.org
Inflow
Advection
Diffusion
Inflow
Outflow
R
Outflow
Stagnant zone
Radial Diffusion

38. Nuclear Waste
Management Policy
and Strategy
Stakeholder
Engagement and
Communication
A Substantial New Literature
On Nuclear Waste Law, Policy
and Public Perception
38

39. Waste Processing &
Special Nuclear
Materials
Current Activities
• Nuclear safety support
– Safety Culture, Use of PRAs, Integration of chemical
and nuclear safety
• Cementitious Barriers Partnership
–
–
–
–
Saltstone system performance issues
Waste form evaluation & selection
Tank integrity and closure performance
Impacts of cracking, carbonation, oxidation
• EPA Leaching Environmental Assessment
Framework implementation wrt DOE-EM

40. Waste Processing &
Special Nuclear
Materials
Current Activities
• Crystallization and Particle Technology
– In-situ/ in-process particle size distribution
measurement
– Sulfur separation
• Cross-flow filtration
– Strategies to minimize fouling during waste
processing
• Glass formulation review
• TRA guidance update support (EM)
• TRA development for NE

41. Remediation, Near
Surface Disposal &
Long-term Stewardship
Current Activities
• Landfills Partnership
– Engagement with state & federal regulators, sites
(NRC, EPA, West Valley, Paducah, Portsmouth)
– Full-scale field performance of landfills (validity of
PA assumptions)
– Cover and liner barrier performance prediction
• Long-term performance of near-surface
isolation systems
– Impact of site-specific factors and
climate change on design requirements
and long-term performance

42. Opportunities for AIChE - NuClean
• Education
– Nuclear Environmental Engineering as part of
undergraduate and graduate curricula
– Professional development
– Public Education and Outreach
• Leadership regarding nuclear chemical processing &
safety
• Advocating for applicable research
– Nuclear chemical processing
– Waste processing
– Environmental clean up