Decontamination Technology

I once contaminated an analytical balance with some powdered UO2. The cleanup was surprisingly simple; the rad safety people just handed me a commercially available all-purpose household cleaner. (I don’t remember the name of the cleaner, but I think the bottle might have been dark orange.)

Cleanup of contaminated sites is a tad bit more complicated. It's so complicated and difficult, the Department of Energy's 2009 budget request (pdf) indicated it could cost the U.S. roughly $300 billion over the next 30 years. $300 billion! And I thought the $10 billion we spent on Yucca Mountain was bad. [Update: I later saw the number cited as only $260 billion. Only.]

So what is the dominant technology for cleanup of sites contaminated with radioactive material, and why does it cost so much?

The EPA has a website all about environmental remediation technology. According to their screening matrix, solidification/stabilization techniques are favored for most radionuclides. The specific approach I’ve heard the most buzz about uses a permeable reactive barrier (PRB). Essentially you bury a whole bunch of Fe(0) in the path that the uranium (or whatever oxidized baddie) is moving in, and then hope you didn't miss.

I am not aware of anyone is using microbes in any large-scale decontamination efforts yet. It’s a pretty neat idea, although I confess to having a vague Jurassic-Parkian paranoia about it.