nuclear-news

From Hanford.gov with our comments in brackets:

“Transuranic Waste Retrieval and Certification
Transuranic waste consists of waste that is contaminated with man-made radioactive elements which are heavier than uranium (meaning the elements have higher atomic numbers than uranium on the Periodic Table of the Elements)” [i.e. plutonium, americium, etc.] “Because they come after uranium on the periodic table, they are referred to as “transuranic”. The concentration of these transuranic elements in the waste determines whether it is transuranic (TRU) waste or low-level waste“. [Note that it is concentration rather than how long-lived and dangerous.]

“More than 70,000 containers of this waste (sometimes referred to as suspect TRU waste) were stored under a layer of dirt in the in the 1970s and 1980s, in the 200 Area Low-Level Burial Grounds of the Hanford Site. The intention was to retrieve the waste (which is why sometimes…