A nuclear production facility in Washington state, called the Hanford site, once forged the plutonium that reshaped the world. Now it’s forging glass; a quiet act of undoing at one of Earth’s most contaminated sites.

Vitrification is being used to move the radioactive material into a “safe” form. Then it is stored in trenches or deep underground.

  • CommissarVulpin@lemmy.world
    15·
    2 天前

    I work there. Not many people know that Hanford even exists, but it’s nice to see an optimistic article rather than one comparing it to Chernobyl or something.

  • IWW4@lemmy.zip
    13·
    3 天前

    That was a great read!

    They are mixing the radioactive waste with sand and turning it into glass to make it inert. That is just incredible.

  • bitcrafter@programming.dev
    8·
    2 天前

    Wow, I had not realized there were millions of litres of radioactive sludge that needed to be dealt with… but on the other hand, it sounds like they didn’t either due to all of the secrecy.

  • jqubed@lemmy.world
    7·
    2 天前

    It’s the Hanford site in the state of Washington.

    Vitrification is a term I learned playing Portal 2!