Hanford tank waste cleanup

["Dukelow, James S Jr" <jim.dukelow@pnl.gov>]

Sandy Perle wrote:

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 08:42:28 -0700
*rom: "Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>
To: radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Hanford Tank Cleanup Now $15.2B

Hanford Tank Cleanup Now $15.2B  April 24, 2000 

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The cost of cleaning up the Hanford nuclear 
reservation's highly radioactive nuclear waste storage tanks has 
jumped to $15.2 billion - more than twice the original estimate, the 
contractor estimated Monday. Earlier this month, the BNFL Inc. had 
offered a nearly $13 billion estimate, up from an initial price tag 
of $6.9 billion. 

    <snip>

Jim Dukelow comments:

Both the AP and -- guilt by association -- Sandy Perle have the Hanford tank
waste cleanup cost wrong.  The $15.2 billion figure is both a bit too big and
way too small.  It is too big in the sense that some of the Hanford non-tank
waste will also be vitrified in the vit plant BNFL has been designing.  It is
way too small in the sense that the construction and operation of the vit plant
is only one component of the overall tank waste cleanup.  DOE and its other
Hanford contractors will be spending money retrieving waste from single shell
tanks and moving it to double shell tanks (none of which have leaked, by the
way) and staging it for delivery to the vit plant contractor, whomever that
finally turns out to be.  I don't have a figure for the non-vit-plant part of
the tank cleanup, but I would guess it is approximately equal to the vit plant
portion of the cost.

The idea that the vitrification of the waste could be privatized in a way that
would put the technological and political risks of the cleanup on the backs of
the vitrification contractor and would save DOE money was one of Hazel O'Leary's
sillier initiatives, although, if memory serves, it was part of a general
administration response to the Republican congressional victories in the 1994
election.  Sort of a "See, we can privatize government functions, too".  The AP
story notes that $6 billion of the $15.2 billion BNFL estimate is financing
cost, to carry the costs of the project until BNFL's revenue stream BEGINS in
2007.  That money can be saved with a pay-as-you-go program, with reliable
Congressional funding [Note to natterers: Yes, I know about opportunity costs].
The "reliable" part of "Congressional funding" is a bit much to hope for.

An editorial in yesterday's Tri-City Herald suggested that DOE ought to ask BNFL
whether they mean "a thousand million" or "a million million" when they say
"billion".

Best regards.

Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov

These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my
management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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