Beneficial reuse of a national resource from the nuclear enterprise
- Scientific Ecology Group, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
The purpose of this paper is to describe a vital national resource existing within and being generated by the US nuclear enterprise and current and planned technologies and techniques for its beneficial use. Several million tons of radioactively contaminated metals, considered scrap and waste, have been identified at the many commercial and federal sites involved in the nuclear enterprise. Both the public and private sectors have several concerns regarding the disposition of existing inventories and potential generation of contaminated scrap metals. In the past, good metal has been buried as waste. The time has come and is long overdue for that practice to cease. In the late eighties, the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge office pioneered the move to involve private industry in dealing with the contaminated scrap metal under its purview. Consequently, the Scientific Ecology Group, Inc. (SEG) emerged as the leader in processing contaminated metal for beneficial reuse. To use and advance the technologies and techniques for disposal of radioactively contaminated metals, SEG has built and operates in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a metal processing facility (MPF). This MPF is used to process radioactively contaminated metals, rid them of most of the contamination, and form them into customized shield blocks and other beneficial-use items. Significant volume reduction for scrap metals (estimated to be in excess of 20 to 1) is achieved with metal-melting services.
- OSTI ID:
- 5812786
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-930601-; CODEN: TANSAO
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Vol. 68; Conference: American Nuclear Society (ANS) annual meeting, San Diego, CA (United States), 20-24 Jun 1993; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
SCRAP METALS
DECONTAMINATION
MATERIALS RECOVERY
METAL INDUSTRY
PROCESSING
RECYCLING
RESOURCE CONSERVATION
CLEANING
ELEMENTS
INDUSTRY
MANAGEMENT
METALS
SCRAP
SOLID WASTES
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTE PROCESSING
WASTES
052001* - Nuclear Fuels- Waste Processing