The State of Development of Waste Forms for Mixed Wastes U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management (1999) / Chapter Skim
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7. Findings and Recommendations
7. Findings and Recommendations
Pages 97-105
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From page 97... ...
The committee was also asked to identify the options the Department of Energy (DOE) might consider in technology development in order to achieve the desired waste forms that are cost-effective and safe for disposal.
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From page 98... ...
MWFA presentations to the committee described a clear strategy for resolving technology deficiencies that fits within the scope of a supporting R&D organization such as OST.i However, the presentations indicated that MWFA is using only part of a comprehensive systems approach to waste management, which begins with the untreated waste and ends with closure of the disposal facility, and evolves stepwise from basic R&D to technical support for process deployment. The committee's recommendations discussed below reflect its view of the importance of the systems approach for technology development and deployment activities by the MWFA.
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From page 99... ...
The MWFA is developing and proposing technological methods to convert EM's mixed inventory into stable waste forms for disposal on a time schedule to meet the EM's "Paths to Closure" commitments. However, many of the disposal sites that will receive mixed waste forms, waste acceptance criteria, and the actual disposal conditions for the waste forms are unspecified.
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From page 100... ...
3. The MWFA should strive for a balance between the risks, benefits, and cost of detailed characterization and the effort and cost to develop more robust treatment technologies that can handle a wide variety of waste compositions, thus reducing the required degree of waste characterization.
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From page 101... ...
Similar detection and determination of 'silent' hazardous materials such as toxic organic compounds and metals or characteristic waste components that could pose processing problems during the generation of acceptable waste forms continues to represent a major theoretical and practical challenge. The committee believes research efforts devoted to this problem could pay significant dividends, particularly in reducing the quantity of waste that must be treated as mixed waste that is, waste minimization.
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From page 102... ...
This strategy should consider the waste form as a part of an overall mixed waste management system that includes the following: . options, compatibility of waste form with transportation and disposal trade-offs between risks to personnel associated with additional waste characterization and additional costs of a more robust treatment and stabilization system, and trade-offs between the increased number of disposal options for a very stable waste form, versus the lower costs but reduced disposal options for less stable waste forms.
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From page 103... ...
WASTE FORM CHARACTERIZATION AND PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT To determine if current waste forms are sufficiently developed to stabilize EM's inventory of mixed waste, test protocols to characterize the waste forms must be available. The committee found no established tests that can demonstrate the long-term (greater than a few hundred years)
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From page 104... ...
cooperation among investigators who are characterizing waste forms and those who are developing PA models to help ensure that characterization data are useful for PA models, and that PA models properly incorporate this data. The credibility of performance assessments can be enhanced by better representation of waste form behavior in the disposal environment.
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From page 105... ...
This should be done as soon as possible to reduce the risk of EM deploying technologies that are later judged inadequate because of unanticipated regulatory requirements.
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