nuclear-news

Opposition to USA plan to commercialise plutonium wastes at Savannah

The preferred plan under consideration calls for the shipment of 7.1 metric tons of so-called pits — or cores — of an undisclosed number of nuclear warheads now stored at the Pantex plant in West Texas to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site for disarmament and processing into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.

Anti-nuclear activists question plan for shipping plutonium from warheads to New Mexico  By Associated Press, August 22 LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Nuclear watchdogs are fighting a proposal to ship tons of plutonium to New Mexico, including the cores of nuclear warheads that would be dismantled at an aging and structurally questionable lab atop an earthquake fault zone.

Opponents voiced their opposition at a series of public hearings that opened this week on the best way to dispose of the radioactive material as the federal government works to reduce the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
The Department of Energy is studying alternatives for disposing of plutonium in light of federal budget cuts that have derailed plans for new multi-billion-dollar facilities at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

The preferred plan under consideration calls for the shipment of 7.1 metric tons of so-called pits — or cores — of an undisclosed number of nuclear warheads now stored at the Pantex plant in West Texas to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site for disarmament and processing into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.

The plan also calls for another 6 tons of surplus plutonium to be
buried at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M. That
proposal has raised concerns about whether that waste would take up
space needed for disposing of thousands of barrels of low-level
radioactive waste that have been sitting for years above ground at a
Los Alamos dump.

Potential threats from that waste drew attention when a massive
wildfire lapped at lab property in 2011.

During the initial hearing Tuesday night in Los Alamos, activists
questioned the safety of bringing more plutonium to the 1970s-era Los
Alamos lab known as PF-4. A federal oversight board has said the
facility remains structurally unable to safely withstand a major
earthquake. The lab was built over fault lines that were later found
to have the potential for more severe earthquakes than previously
thought.

Additionally, the Defense Nuclear Safety Facilities Board recently
said officials had significantly underestimated how much radiation
would be released if there were a major earthquake and fire at Los
Alamos.
Activist Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group,
said he couldn’t understand why using the lab was a preferred option
“when these very basic problems have not been resolved.”

“We are talking about a very large new mission, a type of mission for
which this building was not designed,” he said during the hearing.

Mello said the government should simply look at ways to safely bury
the plutonium……. Another hearing is scheduled Thursday in Santa
Fe, and a third Tuesday in Carlsbad…..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/anti-nuclear-activists-question-plans-for-disposing-of-plutonium-used-in-nuclear-weapons/2012/08/22/953145d4-ec81-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_story.html

August 23, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, reprocessing, USA