There’s a huge building with a massive pool of water at the Hanford nuclear site in southeast Washington state. The water glows an eerie neon blue from an effect known as the Cherenkov Glow. The light comes from the decay of the nearly 2,000 highly-radioactive cesium and strontium capsules held in the pool.
It’s like something you’d see on "The Simpsons."
Friday, a $23 million contract was awarded to put that waste into a more-stable dry storage. And putting these capsules into dry storage is a big deal.
The pool and surrounding building are around 50 years old. The cesium and strontium capsules in the pool were separated out of Hanford’s 56 million gallons of tank waste in the 1970s. Officials separated it out to cool off the underground waste tanks that contain all the leftovers from plutonium production during WWII and the Cold War.
If Hanford workers can transfer the capsules into dry storage, there’s less risk from things like earthquakes or possible leaks in the pool. These new dry casks will be made to go into a deep hole -- like a Yucca Mountain.
The new casks will be stored at Hanford until there is a national long-term repository where they can be transferred. The Hanford contractor will begin constructing the dry casks in a couple of years.
