§ Mr. Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made by BNFL in developing the tank waste remediation system for vitrification of long-lived radioactive wastes at Hanford; and what plans it has to apply this technique to the immobilisation of high level radioactive wastes at BNFL' s Sellafield site. [67105]
§ Mr. BattleWhile this is a commercial matter for BNFL, the company announced in July 1998 that they had been awarded the contract for the first phase in developing the tank waste remediation system at Hanford. Much of the technology and approach for this contract has been developed at BNFL' s Sellafield site.
This phase involves BNFL in carrying out a 2 year study on the feasibility of designing and constructing a processing facility to immobilise USDOE-owned radioactive waste in glass form using vitrification technology.