ML20134N228

Forwards Article from 950121 Science News Vol 147 & Natl Geographic of Mar 1979

ML20134N228
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Site:	Millstone
Issue date:	10/12/1996
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New options for hazardous wastes?

ByADRIENNE C. BROOKS r* n his one-room studio, surrounded image almost shatters the reality of the Columbia, Md. He began by making an.

by delicate glass figures and other carcinogen as a health and environmen-exclusive partnership arrangement with w creations, artist Rick Sherbert experi-talthreat.

Catholic University's Vitreous State !.ab ments with two dark chunks of glass.

Asbestos ranks high on the list of haz-oratory (VSL), which developed and After firing the furnace and melting ardous materials. The Environmental patented a process for converting haz-the pieces together Sherbert gathers Protection Agency estimates that it caus-ardous waste into glass. With the tech-:

the molten glob on the end of his long, es 3,000 to 12,000 cases of cancer, usually. nology in hand, Prince has focused his ;

narrow blowpipe. He blows a short, fatal,in the United States each year. And sights on what he calls the "multhbillion :

burst of air down the pipe, turning the until now, dumping bags.of the fire-dollar environmental cleanup market."

I soft lump into a small, glowing bubble. retarding and insulating fibers in landfills However, Prince wants to go one step l Seated at his bench, he begins stretch-was the primary way to dispose of it.

further and recycle that glass into com-ing and shaping the taffylike material, A growing number of people are now mercial products. He predicts eventual,

uses will include fill for building and i M highway construction projects, ceramic l

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"cks, and even insulation.Once it's b bri 4*

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. no longer hazardous," says Pedro

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v and cochair of VSL " Asbestos poses a Macedo, a Catholle University physicist m

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M tains tiny fibers that can damage the f y;.3 g Sr W skin and lungs."

{ I ~ggd The problem lies in the geometry of P

the fiber, Macedo explains. The crystal-MP like structure of the asbestos fibers 1 m

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A breaks down above 900*C to form w;9 benign oxide compounds suitable for

[f forming glass.

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p,4 The EPA has no concerns about vitrify-ing asbestos. "Once the substance is vit-rified, it becomes glass, and there are no known [ environmental] issues surround-ing glass," says Regina Lankton, an

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agency spokeswoman.

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Em,o create the glass, workers feed cfj y

asbestos-fi!>d polyethylene bg j

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L through a chute into a large furnace

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called a melter. The researchers auto-

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- c hm mated the process as much as possible to eliminate any direct contact with the 5 heroert, at work in his studio, used glassblowing techniques similar to these to hazardous libers. Reaching temperatures forrn a vase made of vitrified asbestos.

of more than 1,000* C, the melter heats the waste material along with a batch of twirling and working the object until he betting that the process of converting borosilicate glass. The mixture bubbles forms a small vase.

toxic materials into glass, called vitrifica-and boils untilit becomes molten glass.

Although sand, or silica, serves as tion, can offer new options for disposing Vitrification works on two levels, the main ingredient of most glass, Sher-of asbestos and other hazardous wastes, First, the furnace consumes the organic bert's comes from a different, and even nuclear wastes. Whether they win chemicals of the hazardous material unlikely, source - asbestos. A few that het - and can take the technology and fuses the inorganic matter into days earlier, he had received the glass out of the laboratory and into the mar-glass molecules, reducing the volume from researchers at Catholic University ketplace - depends on a delicate bal-of the original waste. Glass made from in Washington, D.C. Like alchemists of ance of science and engineering, busi-asbestos would take up only a fraction medieval times, these researchers had ness acumen and public policy.

of the space in a landfill that bags of turned asbestos, a mineral fiber that unprocessed asbestos would. Second, can prove hazardous if inhaled or

- n ne entrepreneur who has staked glass is extremely durable. "The waste

'} Robert E. Prince, president of GTS his future on vitrification is is trapped in the glass, like the green ingested, into safe, smooth glass.

color in a beer bottle, says Prince.

From asbestos to a glass vase for the sweet, fresh flowers of spring? The Duratek, a small engineering company in "You can break the bottle, but the green 40 SCIENCE NEWS, VOL.147

a and figured ou these warheads remains a problem. The d which ones could possible resale of the weapor& grade

< ? blended togethe material on the nuclear black market g based on their chem-and its use by terrorists poses an addi-s leal composition, to tional concern.

f make durable glass."

The National Academy of Sciences'

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Boyd also thinks Committee on International Security the technology be-and Arms Control has identified vitrifi-y.,

g hind the vitrifica-cation as a possible technology for solv-tion process holds ing this problem. In its March 1994 up better than cur-port " Management and Disposition of rent disposal tech-cess Weapons Plutonium," the com-l the material instead aiutonium as fuel in existing or modified niques. " Glass binds nittee recommends two options: Reuse l

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of just mixing it up luclear reactors, or vitrify the material, g

together, as with making reuse extremely difficult, cement," he says.

To Arjun Makhljani, president of the

• lt's very stable, so Institute for Energy and Environmental you don't have to war-Research (IEER) in Takoma Park, Md.,

Molten glass emits a yellow glow as the asbestos bubbles ryabout thewasteget-vitrification comes out the clear winner.

in the metter.

ting into the ground-Last November, IEER issued a report, water anytime soon-

" Fissile Materials in a Glass, Darkly,"

stays in the glass."

although it's still hot, so you don't want that calls vitrification "the first practi-cal plan for putting all excess U.S. pluto-According to Prince, vitrification can people tfgetloortose "-

work with almost any form of waste - / GTS Duratek is under contract with nium into nonweapons-useable form."

from sollcontaminated bylead or radon, / DOE to build a melter at ;he agency's to medical wastes, industrial sludges, Savannah River nuclear weapons plant, and radioactive wastes.

. in Aiken, S.C., to turn tha' site's waste uch global issues aside, vitrifi-into glass.

y' cation may prove a disarmingly 7 _._ _-

't effective technology for resolv-

• n fact, vitrification of hazardous ing more routine waste problems that

wastes has its roots in the nuclear

. aking vitrification a step further, jeopardize hmnan health and the industry. The production of nuclear

. people concerned about nuclear environment. As Rick Sherbert sits at weapons for the Cold War created a cos weapons are looking at it as a way his workbench, engaged in the ancient ly and dangerous by-product: radioa' to eliminate the highly enriched urani-art of glassblowing, he reflects on the tive waste. The Department of Ener um and plutonium contained in disman possiblittles of the tiny vase created has estimated it would take 30 years an tied nuclear warheads.

from vitrified chunks of asbestos. That

$100 billion to clean up that waste Through various disarmament agree-he could transform that materialinto assuming it's possible to do so at all.

ments, the United States and Russia are an object of art doesn't really sur-Macedo began fusing nuclear waste committed to getting rid of thousandst prise Sherbert. "Why not?" he asks.

Into glass in 1985, when DOE sought of nuclear weapons. Yet disposing of "It's glass."

O VSI's help in processing high-level urani-um and p!utonium wastes at its West 7%

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• i Valley, N.Y., nuclear weapons facility. "We pD

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worked on the composition for the glass, E

what additives were needed, how to

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prove its durability, and how to control 5

for any potentially hazardous gases pro-duced in the process," he recalls.

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In the end, Macedo and VSL figured (

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q out how Ia manage the technology, but it had one catch - the cost. "It costs about 3

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$800 a pound to process high-level b

. nuclear waste, which, given its radioac-( tivity, was acceptable."

GTS Duratek's first major project involved the nuclear weapons plant at Fernald, Ohio, last August. Taking soli 1

contaminated by uranium and mixing it with sludges from industrial plants, the y

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company's engineers found they could 4

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Bidding against other companies that

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proposed to dispose of the waste in the W'"

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traditional manner, by mixing it with *

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'O cement, GT3 Duratek won the contract.

"Duratek had the lowest bid because d

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they didn't need to mix in expensive addi * - a -~- ~ A h, ?.

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-*2 tives," says Gerald G. Boyd, DOE's associ-Sherbert created the small black vase (left) entirely from chunks of vitrified asbestos.

l ate deputy assistant secretary for tech-The speckled vase, formed from a mix-of vitnfied asbestos and commercial glass, is nology development. *Rather, their engi-the work of Jerry Hovanec, an artist with the National Museum of American Art in neers analyzed all the wastes on the site Washington, D.C.

Y alt d $Lt ntG x.y JANUARY 21,1995 41 9d xNb

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1 d (he rough cavern floor 15 meters below.

Where to put the waste? How abog i etsummeroperated the world's first plant Daus Knhn, manager at Asse, told me shooting it into space, into the sun? Fineif t

@itnf1Tng nuclear wast;er.7

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( the two meters of rock salt between us worked, but incredibly costly and out ofikf la the French process hquid radioactive

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the hot wastes served as well as concrete question, say most e;cperts, until we deveig wre, left over after the reprocessing of

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m yGem otection.

foolproof rocketlaunches.

yet fuel, is evaporated. The residue is in-hat's fortunate," he added, "since the How about the great ice cap of Antarctxa

[ nrated at high temperature into 1,500-7y tion in that room is 1,000 rems an hour. or the deep-ocean sediments? Both hm

{ p.r.d blocks of extremely hard glass.

eutd not be a good idea to go in."

been considered, but both involve deixa

( Ne, say the French authorities, may be j y/

y grman officials hope in the 1980's to es-international considerations. Morcom

~ med in metal drums and buried safe]Iy f j f

1 psh a permanent waste storage facility in both would likely in time expose the wa3:a ' $

unturies.

j

%ds at Gorleben, nearthe East German to the marine environment, where t!q l

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'r y U. 5. experts sE%imistic about

[er. That may prove difficult, however; could spread to the entire biosphere, ps and believe that ceramics, for exam- ((

W oft the salt mine, Isaw signs demanding How about copying the alchemists' falu

[ y would beless vulnerable to teaching.

y kc s

n Atommnllin Assel-No Atom Waste trick of transmutinglead into gold-thatii.

J Whatever method is used, long storage y sse!" Anti-nuclear groups who oppose bombarding wastes with nuclear pani &,

J be required. The length of time involves b h

bge at Asse are also fighting against and converting them from unstable, ra6,,

or half-life of the most toxic isotopes: that aben. For that matter, they have been active elements into stable, innocuous sa,

3. ::.c time it takes for half or the radioactiv-W s

jh bously-and successfully-blocking a stances? The idea is not ridiculous-a:w:

r.: ta disappear. If the half-life is 30 years, yy ber of new nuclear plants.

all, radioactive decay itselfis a form of trr.>

br e s2mple, halfof the atoms disintegrate in ed gtually every country in Western Eu-mutation. B ut, alas, no one knows any p&

qtars; halfof what is left disappears in the shares to some degree this opposition to tical, economical way of doing it, and tu nt 30 years, and so on. Within 10 half j har power. For example, in Sweden, problem will not wait.

. bn. only one-thousandth of the radioac-s i

& gets nearly a fourth of its electricity Deep Bun. l Moit Likely Solutica rey i3 left; within 20 half-lives, only a !

~

the atom, two governments have fallen a

gg p over nuclear issues. In Austria last Lacking one of these imaginative A Mit happens,-most of thutrong gamma (national plebiscite by a narrow margin tions, most experts both here and abn.g rr ucts in nuclear waste have half-lives of

[nted licensing of a completed 600-believe that dangerous, long-lived form 3 d o.st 30 years orless. Thus in 300 years they mn-dollar nuclear plant at Zwenten-radioactive waste would best be concentry.

e.1 be reasonably safe; within 600 years.

to the great embarrassment of Chan-ed in solid form. Then it should be encased a wcly harmless. Plutonium 239, however, Bruno Kreisky and his government.

protective canisters and stored hundred,e wahalf-lifeof 24,400 years. Aquarterofa rance opposition climaxed in a bloody thousands of feet deep in suitable geo!,

ran > ears will pass before most of its al-the site of SuperPhenix, which will be formations.

p.a radiation is gone.

.rld's first commercial fast breeder re-Scientists are currently studying such p ball cases the wastes need to be stored in 5,000 riot police battled some 20,000 sibilities as salt beds, granites, basalts, na en w here grou nd water cannot easily reach astrators, leaving one person dead and shales. They seek to learn which are m_,c

.w: and where quakes and other tectonic dred wounded (pages 484-5).

stable and which would best prevent ras any are highly un likely. In addition they 2he United States nuclear opposition activity from leaking into the environmm wed to be secure from human mischief.

To detect theft of nuclear materials, a seal et reached such violent proportions.

Much of the technology is now avails i

.ime 370 million dollars has been spent oflight-transmitting glass fibers (top, left) olitically the impact has been strong.

to put the wastes deep into geologic fu.m j

mrching the waste problem. Yet it is un.

can stand watch on the door of a vault con-two states-California and Maine-tions and seal them off, according to severs rmn hcw soon burial iacilities will be taining, for example, plutonium. A micro-

,rohihited any further nuclear plants studies, most recently the draft report of th reblein the United States. The IRG re.

SC pe (top, middle) reveals the seal's h acceptable solution has been found Interagency Review G roup (IRG) on Nus-vi. wbich the Carter Administration is "I

aste disposal. Other states have im-ar Waste Management, a task force repn.

n;cc:rd to use as the basis for a comprehen-similar restrictions.

the tin b rs bo )

ef' sentmg 14 federal organizations.

or maste-disposal poh,ey, warns agamst pering would scramble the dots, permit-tomplicate the problem, eight states "A successful isolation of radioaan, e.d.c optimism. It says that 1988 is the ear-ting detection during regular inspections.

banned n2 clear waste repositories wastes from the biosphere appears feaslF mc that a permanent repository in salt for Another seal, shaped like a disk (top, their bordes, and others are consid-right), has at its centera randam numberor uch hans. Ir. addition a number of for a few thousand years, says the reg [

.Mevel wastes could be in operation for letter, programmed to change at specific which adds that assurance of succes3 de :,

j u.y If the decision goes instead to other intervals. Tampering disrupts such a se-nd communities have banned or se-ishes beyond that point._

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