Inel Leading Plutonium Task Force Group Will Find Ways To Deal With Contaminated Materials
Plutonium is dangerous stuff, and its radioactivity only fades slightly after thousands of years.
What to do with the plutonium-contaminated materials once used to produce weapons has the attention of the Plutonium Focus Area, led by the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
The materials of concern are not at INEL, nor will research be done there. But INEL is leading the Plutonium Focus Area and looking for ways to get the material safely stored.
The job is complicated by the fact hundreds of different materials, such as incinerator ash and cans of salts contaminated with plutonium, continue to require special safeguards.
The Department of Energy-Idaho, Argonne National Laboratory-West and Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies together were chosen to lead the $22 million annual effort last October.
Serious safety concerns have been voiced at weapons labs such as Rocky Flats in Colorado and the Hanford facility near Richland. Some of the substances, metals and oxides, remaining when assembly lines were stopped seven years ago, are extremely hazardous and corroding the hardware. The containers never were intended to withstand the deteriorating effects of such long-term work stoppage.
The group is 18 months into three- and eight-year deadlines to stabilize and safely store the substances.
“It will be most challenging,” said Grant McClellan, Argonne National Laboratory-West manager for plutonium technology for the Plutonium Focus Area.
McClellan said the most pervasive problems are residue at Rocky Flats and liquid waste in tanks at Hanford.
The task force will work with citizen advisory boards.
Much of the material will be converted into a generic “oxide powder” that can be safely stored.