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posted by martyb on Thursday January 11 2018, @05:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the fast-enough-for-government-work dept.

The Buffalo News reports progress on the West Valley Demonstration Project. After years of converting liquid nuclear waste to glass, the buildings are now being taken down, very carefully.
http://buffalonews.com/2018/01/09/slow-and-steady-west-valleys-decommissioning-is-on-track/

West Valley was the nation’s only commercial nuclear reprocessing plant. The waste was created when the site was operated by Nuclear Fuel Services between 1966 and 1972.

[...] The building where the most highly radioactive materials at the West Valley Demonstration Project were once handled is being torn down.

The vitrification plant is where 600,000 gallons of liquid nuclear waste were turned into glass cylinders in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The cylinders were then packaged in fives and welded into steel canisters before being stored under 21-inch thick concrete casks and relocated to another spot on site.

In mid-September, contractors started peeling away the outside of the steel and sheet metal exterior of the building and the roof. That work wrapped up in early November, said West Valley officials.

“The (contractor) is making great progress with the safe completion of the first phase of this facility’s demolition,” said Bryan Bower, project director for the U.S. Department of Energy. “This accomplishment allows our team to continue its work in the completion of site demolition activities.”

The linked article includes several photos, inside and outside the plant.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday January 11 2018, @06:50PM (4 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday January 11 2018, @06:50PM (#621029) Journal

    Truly, silly AC, your ignorance is unfathomable!

    There can be only one reasonable explanation for all that low-grade uranium:

    No, there isn't. What is your definition of "reasonable", and what is it based on? You have given us nothing but your own opinion, beginning when you mis-read a poorly written sentence that used "commercial" ambiguously.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @08:28PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @08:28PM (#621072)

    I've shown that 99.5% of both the input and output materials are unsuited to nuclear bombs and Navy nuclear. (wrong isotopes)

    Now you explain why the fuck anybody would be reprocessing that material. Where could it come from? Where might it be going?

    Do you think there is a market for Fiestaware reprocessing?

    Maybe you should go back to blabbering about ethics, and leave the technical stuff for soylentnews users with technical degrees.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday January 11 2018, @08:36PM (2 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday January 11 2018, @08:36PM (#621078) Journal

      What are you, AC? A STEM major? This would explain your lack of facility with language. We are not talking about the technology of nuclear materials reprocessing, we are talking about grammar, and how "commercial nuclear reprocessing plant" could be taken in two entirely different senses, depending on what "commercial" is modifying. You can only see one way to interpret the sentence, probably because you are physicalist and not an economist or humanist. We get it. So carry on. You are only making yourself look foolish. I asked you to choose, and you have not yet done so.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:11PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:11PM (#621167)

        Oh, I get that there are theoretically two ways to interpret "commercial nuclear reprocessing plant", but one way is unreasonable.

        We resolve any doubt by looking up the numbers and/or other data for the facility. We don't fuck around with philosophical bullshit.

        I swear, we need a final solution for non-STEM people. We could turn them into diesel. That could be their rightful purpose. They might not completely fail at being diesel fuel, at least if we help them along.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:23PM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:23PM (#621171) Journal

          Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Groucho Marx. Are you a Marxist, AC? This was a Demonstration facility, government funded. See the EPA website. And it was sequestering waste, not reprocessing any since 1972? So where are your facts? We are not able to tell what you are saying because your use of English is so poor! And what is your point, anyway? Nukes are not commercially viable. There, I said it. We already figured out what to do with these STEM types, we turn them into STEM majors, destroying their ability to communicate with other human beings, and sentencing them to a life of constant suffering and ridicule.