Bidders Seek To Build Vitrification Plant Plant To Turn Liquid N-Wastes At Hanford Into Solid Glass
Two contractor teams submitted proposals Monday for a multibillion-dollar contract to build and operate a private plant to turn highly radioactive Hanford liquid wastes into solid glass.
Teams led by BNFL Inc., of Fairfax, Va., and Lockheed Martin Advanced Environmental Systems submitted proposals for the contract worth an estimated $4 billion to $6 billion, U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Guy Schien said.
The Energy Department will recommend a contract winner by the end of May. The winning team is to design, build and operate a waste vitrification plant by the end of 2002.
“We challenged private industry to help us implement creative and cost-effective solutions to a complex cleanup problem,” Hanford site manager John Wagoner said. “These proposals are a vital step in the Department of Energy’s efforts to resolve one of Hanford’s greatest environmental problems.”
The process would begin treating and immobilizing some of the 54 million gallons of highly radioactive wastes stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford, said Bill Taylor, the Energy Department’s director of waste disposal at Hanford.
Highly radioactive wastes would be mixed into molten glass that would be poured into 15-foot-long metal canisters for eventual storage at a high-level underground waste repository in Nevada, Taylor said.
Slightly radioactive wastes in glass would be poured into carbon steel boxes for eventual storage on the 560-square-mile reservation, he said.
Although the wastes still would be radioactive, they would be encased in glass and steel to prevent them from seeping into the environment, Taylor said.
The contract which will be awarded in May is different from the usual cost reimbursement contract, asking the private companies to share the risks with the government, Taylor said.
“We’ve asked them to put a piece of their corporate equity at risk and to guarantee success,” Taylor said.
In other words, the company that is awarded the contract will have to guarantee that the plant not only will be built but also will operate as designed, said David Campbell, a BNFL spokesman. “It puts you on the hook for a plant that works.”
The operator would be paid a fixed amount per ton to immobilize, or vitrify, the liquid wastes.
“The reality in what the Energy Department is trying to accomplish … results in a net savings, a net value to the government,” he said.
The contract calls for immobilizing as much as 13 percent of the Hanford wastes over nine years, Taylor said.
Both BNFL and the team headed by Lockheed Martin have experience in a British vitrification plant, he said.
xxxx The winner is … The Energy Department will recommend a contract winner by the end of May. That team would design, build and operate a waste vitrification plant by the end of 2002.