U.S. Hanford Nuclear Site to Glassify Plutonium Waste
RICHLAND, Washington, January 12, 2021 (ENS) – The U.S. Department of Energy is poised to complete a cleanup commitment that has been decades in the making – immobilizing in glass the least radioactive portion of the tank waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south central Washington State. For more than 40 years, nuclear reactors at Hanford produced plutonium for America’s defense program. Beginning in 1943, the site was used to produce plutonium for the bomb that brought an end to World War II. Production was ramped up again in 1947 to meet the challenges of the Cold War and continued until 1987 when the last reactor stopped operation.