The US Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has begun hot commissioning of the first 18,000-litre batch of radioactive waste in its new Salt Waste Processing Facility, a process which is expected to take about 10 days.
Construction of the facility was a 20-year project and it is expected to treat all the waste stored at Savannah River within 10 years. In August the DOE authorised “hot” or radioactive operations to begin at the SWPF, signalling project completion and the transition from project phase to operations.
The Aiken Standard reported that approximately 18,000 litres of waste was transferred to the facility on Monday. Savannah River Remediation, the liquid-waste contractor at the Savannah River Site, moved the inaugural batch from the H Tank Farm, the underground storage system where waste is kept and monitored.
The arrival of radioactive waste at the SWPF this week was in line with expectations laid out last month. A ceremony marking the official startup of the facility was held on 24 September.
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