of High-level Waste at the U.S. Department of Energys Idaho Site Past, Present, and Future

A byproduct of the development and application of processes to recycleuseful isotopes from irradiated nuclear fuels is highly radioactivewastes that require permanent isolation from the environment.Liquid, high-level waste was produced directly from the reprocessingoperations at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) IdahoSite. Beginning in 1953, these reprocessing liquids were stored instainless steel tanks, each tank having a 300,000 gallon capacity. In1963 the Idaho Site began to convert the liquid waste to granularsolids by evaporating the water and other volatile components. Thisprocess, termed calcination, produces a more manageable nuclearmaterial and has been basically completed. The granular solids orcalcines that were produced are currently stored in stainless steelbins. The calcine will ultimately be treated by the Calcine DispositionProject that will retrieve and treat the calcine for shipment toa repository by a target date of 2035.