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07-11-2021, 10:13 AM
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
November 5, 2021
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Costs to clean up a massive nuclear weapons complex in Washington state are usually expressed in the hundreds of billions of dollars and involve decades of work.
But one project on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is progressing at a much lower price.
The federal government is moving forward with the “cocooning” of eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford that will place them in a state of long-term storage to allow radiation inside to dissipate over a period of decades, until they can be dismantled and buried.
“It’s relatively non-expensive,” Mark French, a manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, said of cocooning. “The cost of trying to dismantle the reactor and demolish the reactor core would be extremely expensive and put workers at risk.”
......
The cocoons are expected to last about 75 years, by which time the radioactivity inside will have dramatically decreased and there presumably will be a plan for final disposition of the remaining parts, French said.
Much more at: https://apnews.com/article/science-lifes...00ac8d1ea2
November 5, 2021
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Costs to clean up a massive nuclear weapons complex in Washington state are usually expressed in the hundreds of billions of dollars and involve decades of work.
But one project on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is progressing at a much lower price.
The federal government is moving forward with the “cocooning” of eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford that will place them in a state of long-term storage to allow radiation inside to dissipate over a period of decades, until they can be dismantled and buried.
“It’s relatively non-expensive,” Mark French, a manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, said of cocooning. “The cost of trying to dismantle the reactor and demolish the reactor core would be extremely expensive and put workers at risk.”
......
The cocoons are expected to last about 75 years, by which time the radioactivity inside will have dramatically decreased and there presumably will be a plan for final disposition of the remaining parts, French said.
Much more at: https://apnews.com/article/science-lifes...00ac8d1ea2
