Cost of Nuclear Waste Plant Has Nearly Tripled
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The cost to build a waste treatment plant at the highly contaminated Hanford nuclear reservation in south-central Washington has risen to $11.55 billion, according to a new cost estimate released by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The vitrification plant is being built to convert millions of gallons of radioactive waste to glasslike logs for permanent disposal underground in a nuclear waste repository. The plant is considered the cornerstone of cleanup at the Hanford site.
When contractor Bechtel National was hired in 2000, the cost of the project was estimated at $4.3 billion.
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