The US spends $ 550 billion to 'erase' the most dangerous place in the world

Hanford is home to the scariest records. Become one of the most dangerous places on the planet! Reporters have called it the most polluted place in the Western Hemisphere. It is also the location of one of the largest construction projects in the world.

The Hanford site, in south-central Washington state, produced plutonium for nuclear weapons during World War II and the Cold War. The Hanford Vit plant is designed to clean up the waste from that nuclear legacy.

At the Hanford Site in south-central Washington state (Northwest United States), 177 huge storage tanks lie beneath sandy soil, filled with radioactive material left over from 44 years of nuclear material production.

From World War II (1939-1945) to the Cold War (1946-1991), the Hanford nuclear production complex produced radioactive plutonium material for more than 60,000 nuclear weapons, including nuclear weapons. Atomic bombs bombarded the city of Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.

This vast site ended up contaminating soil and groundwater and leaving 212 million liters of toxic radioactive waste - enough to fill 85 standard Olympic-sized swimming pools. Decades after the site stopped producing plutonium, the US government is still grappling with how to clean it all up - 'wipe out' a legacy of dangerous radioactive contamination of the wartime.

Today, the 1,518 square kilometer site, roughly half the size of the State of Rhode Island (USA), is a tranquil enclave of sage and soft grass outside the city of Richland, Washington. Beneath it, however, is a thorny problem for America.

Cleaning up this huge radioactive waste tank is expected to take another 60 years and cost about $550 billion.

The underground reinforced concrete and steel storage tanks were grouped into "farms" below the central plateau, while the nuclear reactors were closed. Scientists identified about 1,800 contaminants inside the tanks, including plutonium, uranium, cesium, aluminum, iodine and mercury.

The waste is the remains of a fierce World War II and Cold War era. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project [an American government project established to build the most destructive weapon in history] in Hanford, south-central Washington state, this site is home to the Reactor. B, the world's first full-scale plutonium production reactor.

Starting in 1943, experts at Hanford pioneered industrial-scale methods to chemically separate plutonium from irradiated uranium, and they did so safely.

Their original bismuth-phosphate process produced a hockey plutonium "button" that was used in history's first atomic bomb test - the Trinity on July 16, 1945, in the state of California. New Mexico; and then the bomb that the US dropped on the city of Nagasaki (Japan) in 1945. Over the years, five more processes were discovered, culminating in plutonium extraction of uranium (PUREX), which became global standard for nuclear fuel processing.

For more than 40 years, radioactive waste from plutonium processing has been pumped into 177 underground storage tanks at the Hanford Site.

Each tank contains a mixture of toxic liquids, solids and sludge. None of the 177 tanks has the same (after mixed) waste composition. PHOTO: US ENERGY SET

Each of these methods generates separate waste streams, which are stored on-site and then pumped into underground storage tanks. When some of the older single-shell tanks started leaking years later, workers pumped the liquid into newer, sturdier double-shell tanks. Chemical reactions ensue as different waste products mix, leaving each tank filled with its own mix of liquids, solids, and silt.

As a result, in 1987, when Hanford stopped making plutonium, the tank 'farms' contained deadly amounts of chemicals, metals and long-lasting radionuclides.

No 2 out of 177 cisterns are exactly alike (since each has its own waste mix), but all of them pose a significant public risk. The site, bordered by the Columbia River, feeds the region's potato crops and vineyards, spawns salmon and provides drinking water for millions of people. So far, many of the cracks in the gradually corroded storage tank have leaked about 4 million liters of toxic waste. Some experts say it is only a matter of time before more waste seeps through the cracks.

60 years and $550 billion to clean up the "painful legacy"

The US Department of Energy (DOE), which controls the Hanford area, has had a goal for decades to treat and "vitrify" or vitrify the waste in the tank for safer disposal.

Vitrification is a method of rapid cooling of a liquid medium in the absence of ice crystal formation. Simply put, vitrification is the solidification of a liquid. Specifically, the case at Hanford was the solidification of radioactive waste into glass blocks.

With such solidified waste, harmful radionuclides cannot drift into rivers or seep into groundwater levels. To enhance isolation, the most toxic radioactive blocks are placed in steel tanks, which can then be deposited in a dry and geologically stable underground bunker. Vitrification plants have been successfully built and operated in Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, UK and USA.

The challenge is, Hanford's waste is the most differentiated of any nuclear waste in the world, both in composition and volume. Before they can turn it into glass, workers have to figure out exactly what's inside each tank and then develop a recipe for glass production for each tank. As a reminder, each of the 177 tanks has its own waste impurities.

This is a huge task and one of the biggest engineering projects in the world. At the heart of the construction is a series of extensive facilities known as the Waste Fixation and Treatment Plant, also known as the Hanford Vit Plant, spread over approximately 25 hectares.

The $16.8 billion Hanford Vit plant is designed to separate and process 212 million liters of Hanford Site radioactive tank waste.

The US Department of Energy currently estimates it will cost $16.8 billion to complete the Hanford Vit Plant, built by Bechtel National and a series of subcontractors.

According to scientists, the Hanford Site, which was frantically born and built in the heat of World War II, is now in a position to deal with the 'legacy of war'. slowly and the destination is hazy.

Will Eaton, who leads the vitrification team at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, said: "Hanford is the most endemic place in the world. Although the treatment of radioactive waste is a long and expensive process, it needs a clear roadmap."

According to the US Department of Energy, even after the Vit Factory is completed, the actual cleanup will take decades. In its 2019 "Hanford Lifecycle Range, Schedule, and Costs" Report, the US Department of Energy estimates that Hanford's purification and waste treatment processes could cost up to $550 billion. and for another 60 years.

The vitrification of radioactive waste at Hanford must be handled according to its own "recipe".

Talking more about the vitrification of radioactive waste at Hanford, US experts said: Hanford's radioactive waste treatment includes vitrifying it into solid glass blocks for safer handling. Other sites around the world have used vitrification to successfully immobilize their nuclear waste.

But Hanford's waste is so complex and diverse that scientists need to devise a unique vitrification "recipe" for each batch of waste. Finally, the stainless steel-coated vitrification blocks of low activity waste will be buried at the Hanford Site. High level vitrification waste will be transported to an unspecified location.

During Hanford's heyday of plutonium production, workers dumped about 1.7 trillion liters of the liquid into landfills, which developed into underground piles of toxic chemicals, including toxic chemicals. carcinogens such as hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) and carbon tetrachloride (CCl4).

No one can predict when Hanford will start vitrifying the second most toxic waste. The US Department of Energy said the technical issues that had brought construction to a standstill had mostly been resolved but it was 'impossible to predict with certainty' as the chemical glass and pretreatment facilities hazardous waste will be completed and put into use. The answer depends on many factors, including federal funding, the effectiveness of contractors, and the rate of technological advancement.

In September 2019, the US Department of Energy issued a "severe" warning for the entire state of Washington if by 2033 Hanford cannot handle highly hazardous waste; and Vit Factory is not completed in 2036.

Although the US Department of Energy has introduced some temporary treatment methods such as pouring concrete into waste tanks to immobilize them and prevent leakage, they still assert that vitrification is the safest and surest route to radioactive waste disposal at Hanford.

It's a bleak reality that most of the people doing Hanford's cleaning today won't live to see the end results. Because, a person in their 40s (in 2018) will be a 100-year-old in 2078 - the year the US Department of Energy is expected to finish its Hanford cleaning work.

Leckband, Chairman of the Hanford Advisory Council, says it's important to have the foresight. "The most important mantra that we must repeat again and again is that we must clean Hanford as thoroughly as possible, to ensure life for the public, for those who will drink water, breathe air and eat. vegetables in the entire Pacific Northwest. We do it not only for ourselves but also for future generations."