Hanford Site is a disabled nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in the US state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including Hanford Project Hanford Works Hanford Engineer Works Hanford Nuclear Reservation , Hanford Works , Hanford Works . Founded in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project in Hanford, south-central Washington, it is home to Reactor B, the world's first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium produced on the site was used in the first nuclear bomb, tested on the Trinity site, and in Fat Man, a bomb was detonated in Nagasaki, Japan.
During the Cold War, the project expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, producing plutonium for more than 60,000 weapons built for the US nuclear arsenal. Nuclear technology expanded rapidly during this period, and Hanford scientists produced great technological achievements. Many initial safety procedures and waste disposal practices are inadequate, and government documents have confirmed that Hanford operations release large amounts of radioactive material into the air and the Columbia River.
The weapon production reactors were disabled at the end of the Cold War, and decades of manufacturing left 53 million tonnes of USA (200,000 m 3 ) of high-grade radioactive waste stored in 177 storage tanks, an additional 25 million cubic feet (710,000 m 3 ) of solid radioactive waste, and 200 square miles (520Ã, km 2 ) from contaminated groundwater below the site. In 2011, a federal agency in charge of the US Department of Energy (DOE) location emptied 149 single-shell tanks by pumping almost all liquid waste into 28 newer double-shell tanks. DOE later found water to infiltrate at least 14 single shell tanks and one of them has leaked about 640 US gallons (2.400 liters 530 gallons) per year into the soil since about 2010. In 2012, DOE found a leak also from the two tanks shells caused by construction and corrosion defects at the bottom, and that 12 double shell tanks have similar construction deficiencies. Since then, DOE has changed to monitor single tank shell of monthly tank and double tank every three years, and also change monitoring method. In March 2014, the DOE announced a further delay in the construction of a Waste Treatment Plant, which will affect the timetable for disposing of waste from the tank. Intermittent findings of undocumented contamination have slowed the pace and raised the cleaning costs.
In 2007, the Hanford site represented 60% of high-level radioactive waste based on volumes maintained by the US Department of Energy and 7-9% of all nuclear waste in the United States (DOE manages 15% of nuclear waste in the US, with the remaining 85% being fuel commercial nuclear spent). Hanford is currently a contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation's largest environmental cleansing. In addition to the cleaning project, Hanford also hosts the commercial nuclear power plant, Columbia Generating Station, and various scientific research and development centers, such as the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Hanford LIGO Observatory.
On November 10, 2015, it was designated as part of the Manhattan National Parks History Project alongside other sites in Oak Ridge and Los Alamos.
Video Hanford Site
Geography
The Hanford site occupies 586 square miles (1.518 km 2 ) - roughly equivalent to half the total of Rhode Island - in Benton County, Washington. This land is closed to the general public. It is a desert environment that receives under 10 inches of annual rainfall, which is mostly covered by vegetation grass-prairie. The Columbia River flows along the site about 50 miles (80 km), forming the northern and eastern borders. The original site is 670 square miles (1,740 km 2 ) and includes a buffer area across the river in the Grant and Franklin area. Some of this land has been returned to private use and is now covered with irrigated gardens and rice fields. In 2000, most sites were diverted to the Hanford Reach National Monument. Site divided by function into three main areas. The nuclear reactor is located along the river in an area designated as Area 100; a chemical separation complex located on land in the Central Highlands, designated as Area 200; and various support facilities located at the southeast corner of the site, designated as 300 Area.
The site is bordered on the southeast by Tri-Cities, a metropolitan area composed of Richland, Kennewick, Pasco, and a smaller community, and home to over 230,000 residents. Hanford is the main economic base for these cities.
Maps Hanford Site
Climate
Initial history
The Yakima, Snake, and Columbia river meetings have been a meeting place for natives for centuries. The archaeological record of Native American living in this area stretches back more than ten thousand years. Tribes and nations including Yakama, Nez Perce, and Umatilla use this area for hunting, fishing, and collecting plant foods. The Hanford archaeologists have identified many Native American sites, including "pit village villages, open camp sites, fish farm sites, hunting/killing sites, game complexes, mines, and spirit search sites", and two archaeological sites listed on the National Register of Places - Historic place in 1976. The use of Native Americans in the area continued into the 20th century, even when the tribes were transferred to the reservation places. The Wanapum people were never forced to make reservations, and they stayed along the Columbia River in the Priest Rapids Valley until 1943. Settlers moved into the area in the 1860s, initially along the Columbia River in the southern Priest Rapids. They set up farms and gardens supported by small-scale irrigation projects and rail transport, with small town centers in Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland.
Manhattan Project
During World War II, the S-1 Department of the Federal Research and Development Office (OSRD) sponsored an intensive research project on plutonium. The research contract was awarded to scientists at the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab). At that time, plutonium was a rare element that had just been isolated in a University of California laboratory. The Met Lab researchers are working on producing uranium-reacting "pile" chains to convert them into plutonium and find a way to separate plutonium from uranium. The program was accelerated in 1942, when the United States government became concerned that scientists in Nazi Germany were developing a nuclear weapons program.
Site selection
In September 1942, the Army Corps of Engineers placed the newly formed Manhattan Project under the command of Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, charging it with the construction of industrial-size factories for the manufacture of plutonium and uranium. Groves is recruiting DuPont Company to become a prime contractor for the construction of a plutonium production complex. DuPont recommends that its location be far from uranium production facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The ideal site is illustrated by this criteria:
- Large and distant land
- "Dangerous manufacturing area" at least 12 times 16 miles (19 x 26 km)
- Space for laboratory facilities at least 8 miles (13 km) from nearby reactor or separation plant
- There is no city with more than 1,000 people closer than 20 miles (32 km) from the dangerous rectangle
- No major highway, railway or employee village closer than 10 miles (16 km) from a dangerous box
- Water supply and abundant
- Large power supply
- Soils that can withstand heavy loads.
In December 1942, Groves sent his assistant engineers Colonel Franklin T. Matthias and DuPont to search for potential locations. Matthias reports that Hanford is "ideal in every way", except for the agricultural cities of White Bluffs and Hanford. General Groves visited this site in January 1943 and founded Hanford Engineer Works, codenamed "Site W". The federal government quickly acquired the land under the authority of its war powers and displaced about 1,500 Hanford, White Bluffs, and nearby settlers, as well as the Wanapumians, Confederate and Band Tribes of the Yakama Nation, the Confederate Tribe of Indian Reserves Umatilla, and the Nez Perce Tribe.
Construction
The Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) broke ground in March 1943 and soon launched a major and technically challenging construction project. DuPont advertises newspaper workers for an unspecified "war-building project" in southeastern Washington, offering "exciting wage scales" and living facilities.
The construction workers (who peaked at 44,900 in June 1944) lived in a construction camp near the old Hanford townsite. Administrators and engineers live in a government town established in Richland Village, which eventually has accommodation in 4,300 family units and 25 dormitories.
Construction of nuclear facilities runs quickly. Before the end of the war in August 1945, HEW built 554 buildings in Hanford, including three nuclear reactors (105-B, 105-D, and 105-F) and three canyons of plutonium processing (221-T, 221-B, and 221- U), each along the length of 250 meters (820 feet).
To receive radioactive waste from chemical separation processes, HEW built an "agricultural tank" consisting of 64 single-shell underground waste tanks (241-B, 241-C, 241-T, and 241-U). The project requires 386 miles (621 km) of roads, 158 miles (254 km) of trains, and four electrical substations. HEW used 780,000 cubic meters (600,000 m 3 ) concrete and 40,000 short (36,000 t) of structural steel and spent $ 230 million between 1943 and 1946.
Production of plutonium
Reactor B (105-B) at Hanford is the world's first large-scale plutonium production reactor. It was designed and built by DuPont based on an experimental design by Enrico Fermi, and was initially operated at 250 megawatts (thermal). The reactor is a water-moderated and water-cooled graphite. It consists of 28-by-36-feet (8.5 x 11.0 m), 1,200-short-ton (1,100Ã, t) of cylindrical graphite lying on its side, penetrating through its entire length horizontally with 2,004 aluminum tubes. Two hundred short tons (180 Â °) of uranium snails, 1.625 inches (4.13 cm) in diameter by 8 inches (20 cm) long, sealed in aluminum cans into tubes. Cooling water is pumped through an aluminum tube around a uranium snail at a speed of 30,000 US gallons (110,000 L) per minute.
Construction of Reactor B began in August 1943 and was completed on 13 September 1944. The reactor became critical at the end of September and, after overcoming nuclear poisoning, produced its first plutonium on 6 November 1944. Plutonium was produced at the Hanford reactor when Atom uranium-238 in absorbing fuel slug neutrons to form uranium-239. U-239 rapidly undergoes beta decay to form neptunium-239, which rapidly undergoes a second beta decay to form plutonium-239. Irradiated fuel slugs are transported by trains to three remote-operated chemical separation plants called "canyons" which are about 10 miles (16 km) away. A series of chemical processing steps separates the small amount of plutonium produced from the remaining uranium and fission waste products. The first batch of plutonium was perfected at the 221-T plant from 26 December 1944, until 2 February 1945, and sent to the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico on 5 February 1945.
Two identical reactors, Reactor D and F reactor, came online in December 1944 and February 1945, respectively. In April 1945, delivery of plutonium to Los Alamos every five days, and Hanford soon provided enough material for the bombs tested at Trinity and crashed in Nagasaki. During this period, the Manhattan Project maintained a classified secret. Until news of the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, less than one percent of Hanford workers knew they were working on a nuclear weapons project. General Groves noted in his memoirs that "We ensure that every member of the project truly understands his role in total effort; that is, and nothing more."
Originally six reactors or "piles" were proposed, when plutonium would be used in a Tipis type gun bomb. By mid-1944, simple weapon-type bombs were found to be impractical for plutonium, and the more advanced Fat Man bombs required less plutonium. The number of piles is reduced to four and three; and the number of chemical separation plants from four to three.
Technological innovation
Within a short period of the Manhattan Project, Hanford engineers made significant technological advances. Since no one has ever built an industrial scale nuclear reactor before, scientists are not sure how much heat is generated by fission during normal operation. Looking for the largest possible production while maintaining adequate safety margins, DuPont engineers installed an ammonia-based cooling system with D and F reactors to further cool the river water before being used as reactor coolant.
Another difficulty facing engineers is how to handle radioactive contamination. Once the canyon begins to process irradiated slugs, the machine will become so radioactive that it is not safe for humans to come into contact with it. Engineers therefore have to devise a method to allow the replacement of any component via remote control. They come with a modular cell concept, which allows the main component to be removed and replaced by the operator sitting on top of the crane on top. This method requires the initial practical application of two technologies that are then used extensively: Teflon, used as a gasket material, and closed-circuit television, is used to give the crane operator a better outlook of the process.
Cold War Expansion
In September 1946, General Electric Company assumed the management of Hanford Works under the supervision of the newly created Atomic Energy Commission. When the Cold War began, the United States faced a new strategic threat in the resurgence of the Soviet nuclear weapons program. In August 1947, Hanford Works announced funding for the construction of two new weapon reactors and research to develop a new chemical separation process, entering a new expansion phase.
In 1963, Hanford Site became home to nine nuclear reactors along the Columbia River, five reprocessing plants in the central highlands, and more than 900 supporting buildings and radiological laboratories around the site. Extensive modifications and improvements were made to three original World War II reactors, and a total of 177 underground waste tanks were built. Hanford was at the peak of production from 1956 to 1965. For 40 years of operation, the site produced about 63 short tons (57 tons) of plutonium, supplying the majority of 60,000 weapons in the US arsenal. Uranium-233 is also produced.
In 1976, Hanford technician Harold McCluskey received the largest dose of americium after a laboratory accident. Due to rapid medical intervention, he survived the incident and died eleven years later due to natural causes.
Decommissioning
Most of the reactors were closed between 1964 and 1971, with an average lifespan of 22-year-old individuals. The last reactor, N Reactor, continues to operate as a double-purpose reactor, a power reactor used to feed civilian power lines through Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) and plutonium production reactors for nuclear weapons. N Reactor was operated until 1987. Since then, most Hanford reactors have been buried ("compacted") to allow radioactive material to decay, and surrounding structures have been removed and buried. B-Reactors are not yet cocooned and publicly accessible on an occasional guided tour. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992, and some historians advocated turning it into a museum. Reactor B was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service on August 19, 2008.
Operation later
The US Department of Energy took control of the Hanford Site in 1977. Although uranium and plutonium breeding enrichment is slowly removed, the nuclear legacy left an indelible mark in the Tri-Cities. Since World War II, the area has grown from a small farming community to a rapidly expanding "Front Line of Atom" to the nuclear industrial center. Decades of federal investment create a community of highly skilled scientists and engineers. As a result of this special skill concentration, Hanford Site is able to diversify its operations to include scientific research, testing facilities, and commercial nuclear power production.
In 2013, operating facilities located at Hanford Site include:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, owned by the Department of Energy and operated by the Battelle Memorial Institute
- Quick Flux Test Facility (FFTF), a national research facility operating from 1980 to 1992 whose final fuel was removed in 2008
- Hanford LIGO Observatory, interferometer that looks for gravitational waves
- Columbia Generating Station, a commercial nuclear power plant operated by Energy Northwest.
- Storage site storage of a US Navy nuclear submarine reactor containing a closed reactor section of 114 US Navy ships in 2008.
The Department of Energy and its contractors offer tours to this site. A free tour, can be booked in advance through the department's website, and is limited to US citizens for at least 18 years.
Tunnel collapse
On the morning of May 9, 2017, the twenty-foot (6 m) section of the 360-foot (110 m) tunnel collapsed. It is used to store contaminated materials and is located next to the Uranium Plutonium Extraction Facility (PUREX) in 200 East Area at the Hanford Site center. All unnecessary personnel are placed under the closing alarm on the site. About 53 trucks (about 550 cubic meters (420 m) of land used to fill the pit.
Environmental issues
The large volume of water from the Columbia River is needed to remove the heat generated by the Hanford nuclear reactor. From 1944 to 1971, the pump system withdrew cooling water from the river and, after treating this water for use by the reactor, returned it to the river. Before being released into the river, the water used is stored in a large tank known as a retention basin up to six hours. Longer-lived isotopes are not affected by this retention, and some terabecquerels enter the river every day. The federal government keeps a knowledge of the secrets of this radioactive release. Radiation was then measured 200 miles (320 km) downstream as far west as the shores of Washington and Oregon.
The process of separating plutonium results in the release of radioactive isotopes into the air, carried by winds throughout southeastern Washington and into parts of Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and British Columbia. Downwinders are exposed to radionuclides, especially iodine-131, with the heaviest release during the period 1945-1951. These radionuclides enter the food chain through dairy cows grazing in contaminated fields; harmful effects are swallowed by people consuming radioactive food and milk. Much of this air release is part of Hanford's routine operations, while some larger discharges occur in separate incidents. In 1949, a deliberate release known as "Green Run" released 8,000 iodine curies-131â € ™ for two days. Other contaminated food sources come from the fish of the Columbia River, an impact that is disproportionately felt by the indigenous American people who depend on the river for their traditional food. The US government report released in 1992 estimated that 685,000 radioactive iodine-131 dentures had been released into the stream and air from the Hanford site between 1944 and 1947.
Beginning in the 1960s, scientists from the U.S. Public Health Service published a radioactive report released from Hanford, and there were protests from the Oregon and Washington health departments. In response to an article in Spokane Spokesman Review in September 1985, the Department of Energy announced to unlock the secrets of environmental records and, in February 1986, released 19,000 pages of historical documents that were previously unavailable regarding Hanford operations. The Washington State Department of Health is working with a citizen-led Hanford Health Information Network (HHIN) to publish data on the health effects of Hanford operations. The HHIN report concludes that people living against the wind from Hanford or those using downstream Columbia River are exposed to high-dose radiation that puts them at increased risk for various cancers and other diseases, especially forms of thyroid disease. The mass litigation lawsuit brought by two thousand Hanford downwinders against the federal government spent years in the court system. In 2005, two of the six plaintiffs who went to court got $ 500,000 in damages. In October 2015, the Department of Energy finalized the latest cases. They paid over $ 60 million in legal fees and $ 7 million in damages.
Since 2003, radioactive material has been leaked from Hanford to the environment: "The highest concentration of tritium detected in river basins during 2002 was 58,000 pCi/L (2,100 Bq/L) at Hanford Townsite The highest concentration of iodine-129 0.19 pCi/L (0.007 Bq/L) is also found in the Spring Hanford Townsite WHO guideline for radionuclides in drinking water levels of iodine-129 at 1 Bq/L, and tritium at 10,000 Bq/L. radionuclides including tritium, technetium-99, and iodine-129 in river water near Hanford Townsite has generally increased since 1994. This is the area where the main groundwater clumps of 200 East Area cut the river... Detected radionuclides including strontium -90, technetium-99, iodine- 129, uranium-234, -235, and -238, and tritium.Other detaminants detected include arsenic, chromium, chloride, fluoride, nitrate and sulfate. "
In February 2013, Governor Jay Inslee announced that the tank that stores radioactive waste at the site has released an average fluid of 150 to 300 gallons per year. He said that although leaks do not pose a direct health risk to the public, it should not be an excuse for not doing anything. On February 22, 2013, the Governor declared that "6 more tanks on the Hanford site" were "leaking radioactive waste." By 2013, there were 177 tanks at Hanford, 149 of whom had one shell. Historically a single shell tank is used to store radioactive liquid waste and is designed for the last 20 years. In 2005, some liquid waste was moved from one combat tank to a double shell tank (safer). A large number of residues remain in an older single shell tank with one containing about 447,000 gallons (1,700 m 3 ) of radioactive mud, for example. It is believed that up to six "empty" tanks were leaked. Two tanks were reportedly leaking at a rate of 300 gallons (1,136 liters) per year each, while four other tanks leaked at a rate of 15 gallons (57 liters) per year each.
Occupational health issues
Since 1987, workers have reported exposure to harmful vapors after working around an underground nuclear storage tank, with no solutions found. More than 40 workers in 2014 alone report the smell of steam and become sick with "nosebleeds, headaches, watery eyes, sunburn, contact dermatitis, increased heart rate, difficulty breathing, cough, sore throat, sputum, dizziness and nausea. Some of these workers have long-term disabilities. "Doctors check workers and clean them up to get back to work. The monitors employed by tank workers did not find samples with chemicals that were close to the federal limit for exposure to work.
In August 2014, OSHA ordered the facility to reinstate a contractor and pay $ 220,000 in revenues to fire them for revealing safety concerns on site.
On November 19, 2014, US Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the country plans to demand the DOE and its contractors to protect workers from hazardous vapors in Hanford. A 2014 report by the DOE Savannah River National Laboratory initiated by the 'Washington River Protection Solutions' found that DOE methods for studying vapor release are inadequate, in particular, that they do not take into account the short but intense release of steam. They recommend "proactive sampling of air in the tank to determine their chemical composition, accelerate new practices to prevent workers exposure, and modify medical evaluations to reflect how workers are exposed to steam".
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On June 25, 1988, the Hanford site was divided into four regions and proposed for inclusion in the National Priority List. On May 15, 1989, the Washington Department of Ecology, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Energy signed the Tri-Party Agreement, which provides a legal framework for environmental improvement at Hanford. In 2014, these institutions are involved in the largest environmental cleansing in the world, with many challenges to be addressed in the face of overlapping technical, political, regulatory and cultural interests. Cleanup efforts are focused on three outcomes: restoring the Columbia River corridor for other uses, turning the central highlands into long-term waste and storage, and preparing for the future. Cleaning efforts are administered by the Department of Energy under the supervision of two regulatory bodies. The Hanford-led Advisory Council provides recommendations from community stakeholders, including local and state governments, regional environmental organizations, business interests, and Native American tribes. Quoting the 2014 Lifecycle Expenditure Schedule and the 2014 Cost report, the estimated cost of 2014 from the rest of Hanford's clearance is $ 113.6 billion - over $ 3 billion per year for the next six years, with a projected lower cost of about $ 2 billion annually until 2046. Approximately 11,000 workers are on site to consolidate, clean, and reduce waste, contaminated buildings, and contaminated soil. Originally scheduled to be completed within thirty years, the clearance was less than half completed in 2008. Of the four areas officially listed as the Superfund site on October 4, 1989, only one has been removed from the following cleaning list.
While major releases of radioactive material ended with the closure of reactors in the 1970s and many of the most dangerous wastes contained, there were continued concerns about contaminated groundwater leading to the Columbia River and on workers' health and safety.
The most significant challenge at Hanford is to stabilize 53,000,000 US gallons (200,000,000, 44,000,000 gallons) of high-grade radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks. In 1998, about a third of these tanks had leaked waste to soil and ground water. In 2008, most of the wastewater has been diverted to safer double-seated tanks; however, 2.800,000 US gallons (11,000,000 liters, 2,300,000 impÃ,reg) of liquid waste, together with 27,000,000 US gallons (100,000,000 liters, 22,000,000 gallons) of salt and sludge cake, remain within single skin tank. DOE has no information about the extent to which 27 double combat tanks may be vulnerable to corrosion. Without specifying the extent to which the factors contributing to leakage in AY-102 are similar to the other 27 double-shell tanks, DOE can not be sure how long its double-shell tank can safely store waste. The waste was originally scheduled to be removed by 2018. In 2008, the revised time limit was 2040. The nearby aquifer contains about 270 billion gallons of US (1.0 ÃÆ' - 10 12 l, 2,2 ÃÆ' - 10 11 Ã, impÃ, gal) contaminated ground water as a result of leakage. In 2008, 1,000,000 US gallons (3,800,000 liters, 830,000 gallons) of radioactive waste traveled through groundwater to the Columbia River. This waste is expected to reach the river in 12 to 50 years if cleaning does not run on schedule. This site covers 25 million cubic feet (710,000 m 3 ) of solid radioactive waste.
Under the Tri-Party Agreement, low-grade hazardous waste is buried in large lined holes that will be sealed and monitored with sophisticated instruments for years. The disposal of plutonium and other high-level waste is a more difficult issue that continues to be an intense debate. For example, plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years, and a ten-and-a-half decay of life is required before the sample is considered to stop its radioactivity. In 2000, the Department of Energy awarded a $ 4.3 billion contract to Bechtel, a San Francisco-based construction and engineering company, to build a vitrification plant to combine hazardous waste with glass to stabilize it. Construction began in 2002. The plant was originally scheduled to be operational in 2011, with vitrification completed in 2028. According to the 2012 study by the General Accounting Firm, there are a number of unresolved technical and managerial issues. As of 2013, the estimated cost is $ 13.4 billion with the commencement of operations estimated in 2022 and about 3 decades of operation.
In May 2007, state and federal officials initiated closed negotiations on the possibility of extending the legal clearance period for vitrified waste in exchange for shifting the focus of the purge to urgent priorities, such as groundwater remediation. The talks broke off in October 2007. In early 2008, a $ 600 million cut to the Hanford cleaning budget was proposed. Washington state officials expressed concern about budget cuts, as well as missed deadlines and recent security lapses on the site, and threatened to file a lawsuit alleging that the Department of Energy violates environmental laws. They appeared to retreat from the threat in April 2008 after meetings of federal and other state officials made progress toward a temporary agreement.
During excavations from 2004 to 2007, a purified plutonium sample was found in a safe in a sewage ditch, and was dated in the 1940s, making it the second oldest known sample of pure plutonium. The analysis published in 2009 concluded that the sample came from Oak Ridge, and was one of several that was sent to Hanford for the T-Plant optimization test until Hanford was able to produce its own plutonium. The document refers to such a sample, belonging to the "Watt group", which is dumped in its safe when a radiation leak is suspected.
Some of the radioactive waste at Hanford should have been stored in a Yucca nuclear waste deposit, but after the project was suspended, the State of Washington was charged, joining South Carolina. Their first outfit was dismissed in July 2011. In the next lawsuit, federal authorities were ordered to approve or reject plans for the Yucca Mountain storage site.
Potential radioactive leaks reported in 2013; cleaning is estimated to spend $ 40 billion with $ 115 billion more needed.
Hanford Organization
The Hanford site operation was originally directed by Colonel Franklin Matthias of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The postwar Atomic Energy Commission took over, and then the Agency for Energy Research and Development. Since 1977, Hanford operations are directed by the US Department of Energy. It has been operated under government contracts by various private companies over the years, as summarized in the table until 2000.
Other divisions of the site (historical)
- Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) - make plutonium metal for use in weapons
- Plant B, S Plant, T Plant - processing, separation, and extraction of various chemicals and isotopes
- The Medical Devices section - an effort to keep workers and the environment safe
- REDOX Plant/C Plant - restores uranium wasted from World War II process
- Animal Experimental Farm and Aquatic Biology Laboratory
- Technical Center - radiochemistry, physics, metallurgy, biophysics, radioactive channels, neutralization, extraordinary metals, fuel manufacturing
- Tank Farms - liquid nuclear waste storage
- Metal Recovery Plant/U Plant - restores uranium from livestock tanks
- Uranium Trioxide Plant (Uranium Oxide Plant aka UO3 Plant) - Takes output from other plants (ie, uranium nitrate hexahydrate from U-plant and PUREX plant), makes uranium trioxide powder
- Plutonium-Uranium Extraction Plant/PUREX Plant - extracts useful materials from spent fuel waste (see also PUREX article)
- Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR) - experiment with alternative fuel mixtures
- Plutonium Fuels Pilot Plant (PFPP) - see PRTR
Historical photo
See also
- List of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents
- Timeline of nuclear weapons development
References
Further reading
- John M. Findlay and Bruce Hevly. Atomic Frontier Days: Hanford and West America (University of Washington Press; 2011) 368 pages; explores Hanford's nuclear reservation history and tri-towns of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, Washington
External links
- The official website Department of Energy.
- Washington Department of Ecology - Nuclear Waste Disposal Program State agency that administers Hanford cleaning.
- US. Environmental Protection Agency The federal agency that governs the Hanford cleansing.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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