nuclear-news

And then there’s the more hope-inducing prospect of transmuting the most-highly-radioactive long-living radioactive wastes into shorter-lived less radioactive isotopes.  This is one of the possibilities for the particle-accelerator-driven liquid-metal-cooled MYRRHA(Multi-purpose hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications), currently under construction in Mol as well…..

similar to certain Thorium reactors, there is a possibility that innovative reactor designs like MYRRHA could assist in the transition from the extremely irresponsible era of currently used nuclear technologies towards a post-nuclear era.  (Problem is that fans of such new technologies seem just Gung ho about continuing the nuclear era, period, usually while downplaying cleaner alternatives, ánd accompanied with spewing nuclear propaganda, including belittling the effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima, as well as current nuclear waste disposal issues, and thus end up ultimately undermining their own credibility… The shameful propaganda-shit-movie, Pandora’s Promise, was such a horrid feat of deception, for example.)  ……

A Visit to Belgium’s Nuclear Waste Depository Lab, HADES, 750 feet Underground. Not All Alleged is Apparent, March 20, 2015 “……..Part of my concerns stem not from what is going on at the lab per se, but more so from the Belgian government’s irresponsible delays to tackle key decisions, such as giving the green light and allocate the needed funds to start the search for an actual waste deposit site. Unbelievable:  Although scheduled, thát actually hasn’t even started yet.

The radioactive waste are simply accumulating in spent fuel pools and bunkers.  No long-term disposal site is even under construction yet.  They have NO IDEA YET where they’ll put it!   HADES, as it is now, is only an undergound laboratory.  Belgium has been researching the waste disposal issue longer than most other countries, but is currently (2015) near the end of the line for implementation (2035?).

Yet, also true, since disposal can’t even start until a couple more decades anyhow (during which the spent fuel and other wastes need to cool down more), ongoing research should help with making better decisions when that time has come.  Anyhow… “We’ll see.” is the very attitude of kicking the can onto the next generation…

And then there’s the more hope-inducing prospect of transmuting the most-highly-radioactive long-living radioactive wastes into shorter-lived less radioactive isotopes.  This is one of the possibilities for the particle-accelerator-driven liquid-metal-cooled MYRRHA(Multi-purpose hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications), currently under construction in Mol as well…..

similar to certain Thorium reactors, there is a possibility that innovative reactor designs like MYRRHA could assist in the transition from the extremely irresponsible era of currently used nuclear technologies towards a post-nuclear era.  (Problem is that fans of such new technologies seem just Gung ho about continuing the nuclear era, period, usually while downplaying cleaner alternatives, ánd accompanied with spewing nuclear propaganda, including belittling the effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima, as well as current nuclear waste disposal issues, and thus end up ultimately undermining their own credibility… The shameful propaganda-shit-movie, Pandora’s Promise, was such a horrid feat of deception, for example.)  ……

• Heat & Radiation Waste Challenges

At the current state of waste management, it’s a pretty dire picture.  The fact that 20th century-style nuclear fission reactors aren’t banned yet is utter insanity, as far as I’m concerned.   The worst Class C waste remains hot for a millennium, as well as highly radioactive for literally hundreds of thousands of years.  In human terms, ‘forever’.

So here we are now…  Decisions that got us into this mess were made by a handful of people, completely outside any democratic process.  By sociopaths, really, when you think about it.  All this happened on the side-lines of a horrible war and within an economic context that nowadays ultimately looks at ‘quarter earnings’ and short-term profitability for its guidance.  And yet the physical reality of the consequences of the decisions made literally span geologic time, many thousands, even hundreds of thousands, up to millions of years.  No civilization has remained in existence, let alone stable and prosperous, for that long.  (The Egyptian Empire lasted less than 4,000 years, at most.)  [good diagrams here]

Even with current state-of-the-art technologies, no material or construction can be guaranteed to remain perfectly sealed for tens of thousands of years, and certainly not for these chemically volatile, still-warm and very radioactive wastes.   Although all is done to design special containers to prevent leakage, it is assumed ‘possible’, even ‘likely’ that in as little as a few thousand years, or less, the containers may start leaking.

Early results from experiments in the clay environment suggest it would take 100,000 to 1,000,000 years for health-hazardous radioisotopes to reach the surface.  By that time, their radioactivity would only constitute a small fraction of their current danger.  That’s the calculated guess and hope…….

Regardless of scientific feats and research fame, the center’s history includes plenty of darker chapters too, including dumping some of its nuclear waste into the Atlantic Ocean[=> Source in Dutch] in the 1970s and 1980s. Belgium’s total waste dumped that way amounts to 55,324  containers with a total of 23,000 tons of (mainly low-level) wastes, dumped at 6 sites in the NE Atlantic.  Much of came from Doel NPP, but a part of it also came from this research site in Mol.

If you consider that the few active other sites in the world came about somewhat similarly: through a period of various experiments, then modeling, and then convincing people of the merits of the specific underground disposal site, then it’s worth looking at how things are going at these already-operational sites.

WIPP is real good… – We’re only less than a few decades into the intended hundreds of thousands of years, and at already one of three, things are clearly not as predictable and safe as they were made to sound.

In 2014, at WIPP, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, USA, (included in a presentation panel at EURIDICE in Mol, see above, center), where military “legacy” nuclear waste is stored in a geologically stable salt layer, various mishaps have underscored unknown dangers, some of which can occur BEFORE the waste enters a site, only to show their explosive consequences many years later.  WIPP ended up leaking Americium and Plutonium above-ground already!  “The leak contaminated 22 workers and forced the indefinite closure of the nuclear waste repository. Resuming full operations could take years, at a cost estimated at more than $500 million.”  (See WIPP link above.)  Thát just as one example of things not always working out as rosy as presented………https://allegedlyapparent.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/a-visit-to-belgiums-nuclear-waste-depository-lab-hades-750-feet-underground/