An Evaluation of the Electrometallurgical Approach for Treatment of Excess Weapons Plutonium (1996) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 11-16
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With the termination of the IFR program, the electrometallurgical process at ANL was redirected and modified with the goal of being able to treat spent nuclear fuels within the DOE inventory. Initially, the electrometallurgical process under development at ANL (Fig.
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In its earlier reports, the committee observed that "the electrometallurgical technique is not a new technology,"2 and that "the chemical feasibility of the technique is well established except with respect to the proposed zeolite-based steps for waste treatment" and the possible deleterious effects of high levels of radiation.3 The committee noted that a major limitation of the electrometallurgical process was its present inability to produce waste forms with behavior that is well understood. Even without considering the uncertainty regarding the waste forms, the committee concluded that a "substantial development and demonstration program is still necessary to show whether the electrometallurgical technique can be a viable option" for the treatment of DOE spent fuels.4 This observation is consistent with DOE's commitment to process EBR-II spent fuels, for which development and demonstration of the electrometallurgical treatment technology are expected to continue during the several years required for processing (i.e., until 2001, the scheduled completion aviate for processing EBR-II driver and blanket fuel)
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51. 6 See the report cited in footnote 5, p.
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in existing reactors, both of which would be likely to involve lower costs, lower technical uncertainties, and shorter delay." In the originally proposed scheme (see Figure 1) that was considered by CISAC and its Reactor Panel, the plutonium, other transuranics, rare-earth fission products, and some uranium were to be reduced to metals at a molten cadmium cathode and finally cast as metal ingots.~3 The Reactor Pane} report questioned whether it would be possible "to design the process so that a large fraction of the fission products are retained."~4 In addition to pointing out Me cost and scheduling issues noted above, the Reactor Parted concluded that it would be 'unlikely that a metal matrix such as that produced by the pyroprocessing would be a suitable waste form for the chemical environment of Yucca Mountain: the metal, once exposed to 7 See the report cited in footnote 5, p.
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i7 DOE Fissile Material Disposition Program, Alternative Team Technical Data Document: Electrometallurgical Treatment Alternative, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, L-20220- 1, Predecisional Draft, 1995. 8Also see comments of William Magwood as summarized in Appendix A, pp.
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Regarding the electrometallurgical technique, ANE has submitted a PEIS data call input draft report20 to the FLAP describing the immobilization of surplus fissile materials as part of the effort to evaluate the electrometallurgical technique for the treatment of spent fuels. In preparing the document, ANE assumed that the WPu disposition operations would be integrated with the treatment of spent field and that the same "hot" cells and some of the same equipment would be used.
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