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On November 8, 1983, DOE began construction of the Defense Waste Processing
Facility (DWPF) at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina. DWPF is designed
to make high-level nuclear waste into a glass-like substance, which will then
be shipped to a repository deep within the Earth for permanent disposal. DWPF
will mix borosilicate glass with the waste, heat it to 2000 degrees F, and pour
the mixture into stainless steel canisters. The mixture will cool into solid
glass that can be permanently stored in a repository. DWPF will immobilize the
more than 34 million gallons of liquid high-level waste that have accumulated
from producing defense-related nuclear materials. It's estimated that it will
take 15 years for DWPF to process the backlog of waste. The technology used at
DWPF was based in part on the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York
(see October 1980).
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