A February 2014 explosion of a drum containing nuclear waste was due to chemically incompatible contents, mainly kitty litter used as absorbents, shows a report by the U.S. Department of Energy.
On February 14 last year, a nuclear waste drum exploded at the DoE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico; the drum was shipped from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.
A probe into the incident showed the particular drum to have contained absorbent Swheat Scoop kitty litter, which was incompatible with the nuclear waste contents.
Elaborating on the incident, the DOE report says the drum's chemically incompatible contents in combination with physical conditions (the configuration of the materials in the drum) supported exothermic chemical reactions leading to a thermal runaway.
As a result, there was a build-up of gases within the drum leading to the displacement of its lid, throwing out radioactive materials and hot matter that further reacted with air or other materials outside to cause the damage.
Fortunately, there were no personnel in the repository during the incident and and no personnel were determined to have received external contamination.
However, 21 individuals were found to have low-level amounts of internal contamination, and trace amounts of radioactive material were detected off-site.
The technical assessment for the DOE was led by the Savannah River National Laboratory.
WIPP provides permanent, underground disposal of defense-related transuranic (TRU) and TRU-mixed wastes (wastes that also have hazardous chemical components). TRU waste is contaminated with small amounts of plutonium and other TRU radioactive elements.
The accident at WIPP indefinitely suspended key operations at the site. In September, DOE estimated the cost of the initial recovery of the dump at $240 million.
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