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| | Los Alamos National Laboratory plans within a year to remove all weapons grade nuclear material from a part of the lab that has raised security concerns, according to an internal federal document.
The National Nuclear Security Administration document said the highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Technical Area 18 would be moved to a facility at the Nevada Test Site starting this month.
Transuranium radioactive waste:
According to the definition of US legislation, contaminated alpha-emitting transuranium radio nuclides with half-life periods of more than 20 years and a concentration of above 100 nKi/gm independent of their form or location excluding the highly active radioactive waste belong to this class. Elements with nuclear numbers, bigger than uranium, have got the name “Ttransuranium”. In connection with the long disintegration period of transuranium waste, burying them is done with the utmost care than the burial of less active and medium active waste. In the USA, transuranium radioactive waste is formed mainly as a result of weapon manufacture and clothes, instruments, rags, byproducts of chemical reactions, different types of garbage and other items, contaminated by small amounts of radioactive substances (mainly, plutonium) belong to transuranium waste.
According to US legislation, transuranium radioactive waste is divided into waste, which is allowed for contact handling and waste, demanding remote handling. The division is based on the level of radiation, measured on the surface of the container with the waste. The first subclass includes waste with a surface radiation level of not more than 200 millirem / hr and the second subclass - more hazardous waste, the radioactivity of which can reach up to 1000 millirem / hr. At present, the regular burial place of transuranium waste from power plants and ordnance factories in the USA is the first-ever pilot plant for the isolation of radioactive waste.
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