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2 Comments

  1. sabine charmasson on March 8, 2021 at 5:32 pm

    Ken, Do you know what these tanks are made of? I imagine tritium can “leak” by hydrogen exchange. Will they last 60 years?



    • Ken Buesseler on March 10, 2021 at 1:23 pm

      I am not an expert in tank design, but I’ve heard that the earliest one’s were bolted plates that were more prone to leaks than later welded tanks. This improvement was made early on. I have also read that they are not designed for decades long storage as would be needed if for example you wanted to wait 60 years for 97% of the tritium to decay. So the current tanks are more or less designed as a temporary plan. There are much larger tanks used in earthquake prone areas like Japan by petroleum and LN2 facilities, and this is more of what might work if storage were to be considered, and land is available just outside the current boundary of the power plant site for additional storage.