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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2021
US works to ‘cocoon’ old nuclear reactors
By NICHOLAS K.
GERANIOS
Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. —
Costs to clean up a massive
nuclear weapons complex in
Washington state are usually
expressed in the hundreds of
billions of dollars and involve
decades of work.
But one project on the
Hanford Nuclear Reserva-
tion is progressing at a much
lower price.
The federal government
is moving forward with the
“cocooning” of eight pluto-
nium production reactors at
Hanford that will place them
in a state of long-term stor-
age to allow radiation inside
to dissipate over a period of
decades, until they can be
dismantled and buried.
“It’s relatively non-expen-
sive,” Mark French, a man-
ager for the U.S. Department
of Energy, said of cocooning.
“The cost of trying to dis-
mantle the reactor and demol-
ish the reactor core would be
extremely expensive and put
workers at risk.”
The federal govern-
ment built nine nuclear reac-
tors at Hanford to make plu-
tonium for atomic bombs
during World War II and the
Cold War. The site along the
Columbia River contains
America’s largest quantity of
radioactive waste.
The reactors are now shut
down and sit like cement for-
tresses near the southeast-
ern Washington city of Rich-
land. Six have already been
cocooned for long-term stor-
age, and two more are headed
in that direction. The ninth
reactor was turned into a
museum as part of the Man-
hattan Project National His-
torical Park.
While World War II ended
in 1945 and the Cold War
ended in 1989, the United
States is still paying billions
of dollars per year for the dis-
posal of the nuclear waste
produced by the atomic
weapons that played a big
role in ending those confl icts.
Nicholas K. Geranios/AP Photo
The decommissioned plutonium-producing DR reactor, left, and D reactor, right, are shown on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in June 2017.
The biggest expense is deal-
ing with a massive volume
of liquid wastes left over
from the production of plu-
tonium, a key ingredient in
nuclear weapons.
While the liquid wastes
stored in 177 underground
tanks will take decades of
work and hundreds of bil-
lions of dollars to clean,
eff orts to secure the nine
plutonium reactors are
much closer to completion.
The last two reactors,
shut down in 1970 and
1971, are about to enter the
cocooning stage, when they
are covered with steel and
cement to prevent radioac-
tivity from escaping into the
environment, French said.
The cocoons are expected
to last about 75 years, by
which time the radioactivity
inside will have dramatically
decreased and there presum-
ably will be a plan for fi nal
disposition of the remaining
parts, French said.
Every fi ve years, workers
enter the reactor building to
make sure there are no leaks
or rodent or bird infestations,
he said.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS
MOVING FORWARD WITH THE
‘COCOONING’ OF EIGHT PLUTONIUM
PRODUCTION REACTORS AT
HANFORD THAT WILL PLACE THEM
IN A STATE OF LONG-TERM STORAGE
TO ALLOW RADIATION INSIDE
TO DISSIPATE OVER A PERIOD OF
DECADES, UNTIL THEY CAN BE
DISMANTLED AND BURIED.
Cleanup of Hanford,
which has about 11,000
employees and is half the size
of Rhode Island, started in
the late 1980s, and now costs
about $2.5 billion per year.
The work has been slowed
by technical issues, lack of
funding, lawsuits from state
regulators, worker exposure
to radiation and turnover of
contractors on the complex
job.
But the handling of the old
reactors is a bright spot.
The nine reactors —
called B Reactor, C Reac-
tor, D Reactor, DR Reactor,
F Reactor, H Reactor, K-East
Reactor, K-West Reactor, and
N Reactor — were built from
1943 through 1965.
They were constructed
next to the Columbia River
because of the abundance
of hydropower and cooling
water needed by the reactors
during operation.
All have been cocooned
except K-East and K-West.
Work on cocooning the
K-East reactor has already
started and should be fi n-
ished by 2023, French said.
Work on the K-West reactor
is scheduled for completion
in 2026.
The cocoon plan for
K-East and K-West is to
basically construct steel
buildings around them.
Each building is 158 feet
long, 151 feet wide and 123
feet tall, French said. The
two steel buildings will cost
less than $10 million each.
The government also
operated fi ve plutonium
production reactors at the
Savannah River Site in
South Carolina during the
Cold War. All of those are
also shut down, although
three of the reactor build-
ings are being used to store
radioactive materials. Two
of the reactors at Savannah
River are closed but under a
diff erent procedure than the
Hanford reactors, said Amy
Boyette, a spokeswoman for
Savannah River.
Future generations will
decide the fi nal disposition
of the eight Hanford reactors,
French said. They will likely
be dismantled and buried in
the central area of the Han-
ford site, away from the river.
“Robots may be deployed
in the future” for that work,
French said.
Hanford watchdogs gen-
erally agree with this pro-
cess, said Tom Carpenter,
director of the Seattle-based
watchdog group Hanford
Challenge.
“Nobody is raising any
concerns about cocooning,”
Carpenter said. “We’re all
worried about the tank waste
that needs immediate and
urgent attention.”
The bigger question is
whether future generations
will be willing to pay the
massive costs of Hanford
cleanup, he said.
Carpenter said the esti-
mated cost to completely
clean up just the tank wastes
at the Hanford site is around
$660 billion.
“It’s rather grim. It’s mul-
tigenerational,” he said.
“This will cost more than
anyone thought possible,”
Carpenter said of the tank
wastes and other wastes that
were dumped into the ground
at Hanford. “It’s a hidden cost
of the (nuclear) buildup.”
By then, there might be
bigger budget concerns such
as dealing with the eff ects
of climate change, Carpen-
ter said.
The most intriguing of the
old reactors is the B Reac-
tor, the fi rst one built during
World War II. It will not be
cocooned, and can be vis-
ited by tourists at the national
historical park. B Reactor,
which shut down in 1968,
was cleaned up enough to
allow some 10,000 tourists
to visit each year and learn
the history of Hanford. It has
been designated a National
Historic Landmark.
Plutonium from Han-
ford’s B Reactor was used in
the testing of the world’s fi rst
atomic bomb in July 1945.
Called the Trinity Test, the
bomb was blown up in the
New Mexico desert. Hanford
plutonium was also used for
the bomb that was dropped
over Nagasaki, Japan, on
Aug. 9, 1945.
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