Contacts: Gautam Pillay, INRA executive director, 208-282-7902, [email protected]
Teri Ehresman, INEEL News and Information, 208-526-7785, [email protected]
Bill Loftus, UI science writer, (208) 885-7694, [email protected]
UI Project to Track Fate of Stored Nuclear Waste Among New INEEL-related Research Grants
IDAHO FALLS - Six subsurface science projects, including a University of Idaho study of the possible fate of stored nuclear waste, have won Inland Northwest Research Alliance and U.S. Department of Energy Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory funding.
Scott A. Wood, a UI professor of geochemistry, will develop a thermodynamic model to track the fate of nuclear wastes if groundwater were to corrode the storage containers.
The $226,705 project will study how uranium and gadolinium would fare in the presence of groundwater. Gadolinium, a rare earth element, is added to nuclear waste packages to absorb neutrons and prevent a chain reaction.
If gadolinium, a so-called "neutron poison," moves with uranium, there's little likelihood of a nuclear reaction. A problem could occur if the water and other materials in storage canisters react with gadolinium differently than with the radioactive materials.
Wood's project will sort through the complex reactions that might occur. The answers he and his INEEL scientific partner, Larry Hull, learn in the lab will help predict what could happen in nature under a variety of conditions.
"These aquifers are so complex that even if you made a measurement in an aquifer, it would apply only to that aquifer. We want to try to distill it down to the least common denominator," he added. "This is portable science. What we learn we will be able to apply anywhere."
Wood's project is one of six new grants announced by Gautam Pillay, INRA's executive director at Idaho Falls. The alliance awarded 13 grants last year, two to UI. The grants are designed to organize collaborative research projects at INRA universities and the INEEL into a cohesive program that achieves national and international recognition in subsurface science. Combined funding for the 19 projects totals over $4.3 million over three years and funds doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who will work on collaborative projects. That total includes more than $1 million that INRA-member institutions will contribute toward the projects. The researchers will spend time on their projects at the INEEL and INRA campuses.
"These proposals have the potential to develop into new, significant collaborative research opportunities at INRA institutions and INEEL," Pillay said. Work on the projects begins Oct. 1.
In addition to Wood's project, five other new projects include:
* Characterizing inorganic precipitates formed on mineral surfaces, Montana State University and INEEL.
* New methods to characterize transport of microbes in aquifers, Boise State University, Montana State University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and INEEL.
* Microbial reduction of metal ions in solution, Washington State University, Montana State University and INEEL.
* Study of enzymes to detect microorganisms that destroy contaminants, Idaho State University and INEEL.
* Study of uncertainty in predicting water flow and contaminant transport in unsaturated soils, WSU and INEEL.
Selection of the projects coincides with a recent visit of the INRA Board of Trustees to Idaho Falls where the presidents of the seven INRA universities toured the laboratory and met with INEEL and DOE-Idaho senior managers. INRA leaders also recently spent two days in Washington D.C. where they met with regional congressional delegations to share information about INEEL and INRA universities' joint work in subsurface science.
The seven universities that formed INRA in the spring of 1999 include Boise State, Idaho State, UI, Montana State, University of Montana, Utah State and WSU. The INEEL, operated for the DOE by Bechtel BWXT Idaho LLC, is a science-based applied engineering national laboratory supporting the DOE's missions in environment, energy, science and national security. In a joint managing role, INRA helps set direction for scientific research performed at INEEL.
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