Video monitoring nuclear bomb site clean up!

Industrial Video and Control (IVC) is supplying video cameras—50% of which are radiation tolerant—to Parsons Corporation.

Pic: New York Times

Parsons is building the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), a plant designed to process liquid waste stored in underground tanks at the Savannah River Site.  Video from the IVC cameras will be integrated into an Emerson Process Management DeltaV control system, where software from IVC will allow the video to be viewed on DeltaV Operate screens.  IVC’s software will also be used to build up multiple multi-monitor views that will display any number of live video windows.

The cameras will monitor processing operations in the SWPF, allowing operators at the DeltaV consoles to watch over critical steps in the process and monitor the activities of workers in the area.  IVC is supplying cameras, a complete video network, and Relay Server and View Station camera management software to Parsons.

The Savannah River Site is a “nuclear reservation” near Augusta, Georgia. The 310 square mile site was built during the 1950s to refine materials for use in nuclear weapons, and to store all the solid and liquid waste that resulted. From 1953 to 1988, the site produced 36 metric tonnes of plutonium in five nuclear reactors. None of the reactors on the site are operating at present, but plans are to clean up radioactive materials on the site and use the site for other purposes.

For example, the Savannah River Site will have a Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) manufacturing plant that will convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. Other plans call for a reactor park for power generation, and acting as a host for reactor research. The site is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy.

As part of the overall clean-up operation, the SWPF facility will process 75 million gallons of salt waste currently stored in underground tanks, at a rate of 6 million gallons per year. The SWPF will remove Caesium-137, Strontium-90, and actinides from the salt wastes.