HLW & TRU Wastes

James Conca has a blog explaining the difference between the two categories (there are others) of radioactive waste.  The point he seems to be making is that if we classify the 57 million gallons of Hanford waste as TRU rather than HLW, it will be $200 billion cheaper to physically and chemically treat.



But he never explains why it's cheaper, so I asked in his comments (I log on as "Anon" because it wouldn't take my name when I registered).

To my recollection the law provides the definitions he gave and also the disposal sites (Yucca Mountain for HLW and WIPP for TRU).  I don't recall any legal stuff regarding treatment methods and costs.

UPDATE:  HA!  Conca claims the Cs-137 and Sr-90 are what are driving the need for vitrification and hence the costs.  But that's not true.  We've long known how short their half lives are.  They can be rendered relatively safe in 300 years (10 half lives) and we've already blown by about 50 years in relatively simple tanks.

The driver for vitrification is the need for very long term (tens of thousands of years) immobilization and that is due to Tc-99 (220,000 year half life), I-129 (15.7 million year half life), Np-237(2 million year half life) and Pu-239 (24,000 year half life).