Nuclear Waste Processing Update

The clean-up project at the Idaho National Laboratory site to process 900,000 gallons of nuclear waste is currently ahead of schedule and under budget.

Prior to processing, modifications to the facility that will process the nuclear waste will need to be completed.

Those modifications include bringing in more oxygen to the facility and upgrades to the alarm system.

Following those modifications, the facility will undergo a mandatory heating which takes several days to raise the temperature to the proper level needed to process nuclear waste.

Once the heating phase is complete, the facility will undergo a surrogate test to ensure all the modifications are properly working.

If the surrogate test returns positive results, processing of the nuclear waste will begin.

Processing of the nuclear waste at the INL site is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2014. The three year project has a budget of 735 million dollars.