Solution to Special Egghead Puzzler Question: Question: Part 1: The Department of Energy is considering reprocessing a variety of materials at the Savannah River Site. One material is Mark-31 targets used to produce plutonium. The DOE currently has approximately 16,000 Mark-31 targets at the Savannah River Site. Reprocessing would generate approximately 131.25 liters of liquid high-level waste (HLW) for every target processed. How many liters of liquid HLW would be generated from reprocessing all the Mark-31 targets? Solution to Part 1: Find the amount of liquid HLW that would be generated by multiplying the number of liters of HLW generated per target by the total number of targets: 131.25 liters / target x 16,000 targets __________________ = 2,100,000 liters of liquid HLW Part 2: The DOE had 127 million liters of liquid HLW at the Savannah River Site at the end of 1993. What would be the percentage increase in liquid HLW at the site with the waste generated by reprocessing the Mark-31 targets, and an additional 9.5 million liters of liquid HLW from other proposed reprocessing plans? (Express answer as a percent, rounded to the nearest whole number.) Solution to Part 2: First find the total amount of waste generated by reprocessing Mark-31 targets and from other reprocessing plans: Liquid HLW from Mark-31 reprocessing: 2,100,000 liters (solution from Part 1) Liquid HLW from other reprocessing: 9,500,000 liters So: 2,100,000 liters +9,500,000 liters _____________ 11,600,000 liters of liquid HLW Second, determine what percentage increase this represents when added to existing waste stored at Savannah River: Additional waste: 11,600,000 liters Existing waste: 127,000,000 liters In other words, what percent of 127,000,000 liters is 11,600,000 liters? Find this by dividing the amount of new waste by the amount of existing waste: 11,600,000 / 127,000,000 = 0.0913 or 9.13% (0.0913 x 100) The additional waste represents 9.13% of the existing waste. So when added to the existing waste, it represents about a nine percent (9 %) increase in liquid HLW at the Savannah River Site. (We rounded 9.13% down to 9.0%, the nearest whole number, as instructed in the question.) The answer is nine percent.

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