The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico stores transuranic wastes. In February 2014, a 55-gallon (208 L) barrel there leaked, probably because cat litter made from wheat reacted chemically with nitrate salts. The facility is closed, pending clean-up.
The Los Angeles Times revisited the situation and its possible financial costs:
The direct cost of the cleanup is now $640 million, based on a contract modification made last month with Nuclear Waste Partnership that increased the cost from $1.3 billion to nearly $2 billion. The cost-plus contract leaves open the possibility of even higher costs as repairs continue. And it does not include the complete replacement of the contaminated ventilation system or any future costs of operating the mine longer than originally planned.
[...] It costs about $200 million a year to operate the dump, so keeping it open an additional seven years could cost $1.4 billion.
Previously:
Only U.S. Underground Nuclear Waste Dump-Site Needs More Down Time
Kitty Litter to Blame for Nuclear Waste Leak
Related Stories
An article from livescience lets us know, "If you're trying to stabilize nuclear waste, don't use organic kitty litter."
Always use regular cat litter!
Further quotes:
Investigators confirmed that a 55-gallon metal drum of nuclear waste burst open after it was packed with the wrong kind of cat litter.... Kitty litter isn't just used to absorb urine; it's long been used for industrial purposes, too. Traditional cat litter is usually made from inorganic silicates that can stabilize nitrate salts found in nuclear waste.... When the drum in question was packed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico, it was filled with organic kitty litter called Swheat Scoop, which, as the name suggests, is primarily made with wheat.
I guess one should always test substances before using them to contain radioactivity:
DOE officials concluded the contents of the drum were "chemically incompatible" and that gases built up over time, causing the lid to burst open after it was stored at WIPP.
After a truck fire and a leaking drum of radioactive waste shut down the nation's only underground nuclear waste facility near Carlsbad in February 2014, the Department of Energy said that by March 2016, it could cleanup and safely reopen the critical site.
The agency knew it had only a 1 percent chance of meeting that deadline, according to an audit released this week by the Government Accountability Office, an investigating arm of Congress.
In 2015, the agency admitted it couldn't safely reopen the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, even for limited operations, until at least December 2016 — and at a higher cost. Now auditors say even the revised cost estimate was flawed. The agency "did not follow all best practices for cost and schedule estimates," federal auditors found, including having an independent analyst review them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday August 24 2016, @01:49PM
With stakes that high, I tend to wonder how procedures are formalized in these cases. Leaks and disasters have happened before (Washginton site, Asse in Germany, Fukushima) in the nuclear industry. My impression is, however, that they came by surprise. Shouldn't there be regular testing of all procedures including testing the tests. For example, why was the packaging process of the waste that led to the leak not properly checked? It appears to me, that the nuclear as well as other high-stakes industries (the BP disaster comes to mind) could profit from a continuous integration process as is used in software development.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2016, @02:50PM
With stakes that high
A sloppy cost plus contract and seven year delay? Apparently, the stakes aren't high enough for the people making the decisions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @04:57PM
Wheat, eh? Gluten strikes again! See? we told you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @05:23PM
Wikipedia link suggests that this site may become repository for commercial nuclear power waste, in addition to bomb making waste that it was originally designed for (as replacement for Yucca Mtn).
If so, will the utilities be required to contribute to the cost?
(Score: 2) by hoeferbe on Wednesday August 24 2016, @06:26PM
The utilities have been, up until 2013, paying into a fund [wikipedia.org] for waste disposal. They only stopped after a Federal court agreed that the Federal government reneged on their responsibilities under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1987.
"The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons." (Quoted from Wikipedia's "Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository" article [wikipedia.org], which references this article [nytimes.com].)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2016, @11:11PM
If so, will the utilities be required to contribute to the cost?
Did the utilities contribute to the externality in the first place? These utilities didn't create the situation where used fuel rods have to be kept on at the generator site because there is no established place to store or recycle fuel rods.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @03:44AM
> Did the utilities contribute to the externality in the first place?
Come on, how twisted can your logic get? Of course they did, the utility companies chose to build nukes instead of coal plants or some other type. And by the time our current crop of nukes were built the long term storage/isolation requirements for spent fuel were well understood.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2016, @12:50PM