Talk:Salt Waste Processing Facility

Contradictory

The article says near the beginning that there are 84 million gallons of salt waste solution that need to be processed, but then a few paragraphs later that the amount of salt waste totals 33.8 million gallons. I suspect that's not the only inconsistency, too. I don't have the background or the energy to sift through the documents and figure out what's really going on, but I hope that someone else can take a crack at it.... Tim Pierce 18:30, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Tim: Did you expect perfection from references excerpted from DOE articles? The amount of salt waste will vary due to "new" salt waste that is added to the storage vessels from the further processing of fuels in the canyons. Also, the existing salt cake will need to be hydrated to make it transportable from the tanks to the new facility. Since you are a "software engineer" and may not be familiar with nuclear fuels, SNM, nuclear reprocessing, and nuclear element extraction wastes, I would suggest that you look at some of the references for these topics. If you are knowledgeable on this topic, there is no inconsistency. You probably don't know how an automatic tranmission clutch pack/torque converter works, but I'd bet you can drive a car with an automatic transmission. Read the link to Nuclear Fuels or type in Nuclear Fuels in the search box on the left panel. If you don't understand it, it is because you may not understand the chemistry and physics involved in the Nuclear Fuel cycle, not because the article on SWPF is deficient. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.207.180.146 (talk • contribs)
  • I don't expect perfection from anyone, but I do expect that when something appears to be contradictory that there will at least be some attempt to explain the inconsistency! It may be that the article is right, but it should still explain why the numbers look wrong. The article should be comprehensible even to someone who is not schooled in nuclear fuels, nuclear reprocessing and nuclear element extraction wastes; if we all were, there would be no need to write about it here :-) Tim Pierce 22:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem with an anonymous posting system is that some people tend to leave derogatory responses simply because they do not have to take responsibility for their actions. Tim, I apologize for 65.207.180.146, and rest assured he does not represent the majority of people on Wiki. Most people are fairly nice, patient, and understanding, though there are a few who are... less than pastoral.

Answering your question is actually quite difficult in this case as there are great amounts of chemistry and process that would also have to be explained, but I'll try a rather simplistic and possibly not too terribly correct manner to get the information across. I have a pool at home which consists of 50,000 gallons of water per year. That is a strange statement, but it is a true statement even though my pool only holds 10,000 gallons of water. It appears as if I have just contradicted myself, but I haven't yet explained the principal of evaporation, the process of refilling my pool ever so many days, replacing the water removed from backwashing, etc... Of course these figures are just examples, but the chemistry, and processes are quite real.

Getting now to the article itself, it states that waste is stored there, brought there for processing, and that there is currently a backlog of storage. The different numbers each refer to something different and not the same processes at all. Remember that this facility is a storage facility for many other plants so the numbers can change quite fast depending on the processed percentage and overall storage.

Another way to think of this is that my house used to have about 1900sqft of livable space. It is now 2400sqft of livable space. You are quite right if you thought I added on to the house. The same may hold true for the processing plant since they haven't finished the facility as of yet (to my untrained knowledge and by use of a quick google search.)

And finally, is this the only processing facility or will some of the waste be farmed out to other places either for study, military use, or other? So while 84 million gallons may be there, and only 75 million processed, perhaps the balance will either be stored, or divvied up to other locations or processing plants. Some will be lost to the chemical interactions, evaporation, processing, and finally cleaned material that can be removed from the center itself.

I'm going to remove the Contradiction tag for now, but if you still feel there is a contradiction, please feel free to re-add it in article, and then discuss it here, or even try to fix the contradiction if you can find appropriate documentation (citation) for the changes you make.

Once again, I'm sorry for the other response to you and I hope some of what I said helped. Kjnelan (talk) 16:10, 21 July 2009 (UTC)