wastes « nuclear-news

New research into plutonium workers’ internal radiation exposure.

Job-exposure matrix sheds light on plutonium workers’ radiation exposure https://physicsworld.com/a/job-exposure-matrix-sheds-light-on-plutonium-workers-radiation-exposure/

22 May 2019 Tami Freeman Researchers in the UK have developed a new method for evaluating plutonium workers’ historical internal radiation exposure. They focused their study on workers employed at the start of plutonium operations at the Sellafield (formerly Windscale) nuclear reprocessing facility (J. Radiol. Prot. 10.1088/1361-6498/ab1168).

Internal exposure to plutonium, which decays via alpha particle emission, is a recognised health hazard. But with little specific information available, potential risks from plutonium exposure have largely been assessed through knowledge of radiation exposure risks in general, much of which comes from external exposure to photon radiation such as gamma and X-rays. However, due to its high linear energy transfer rate, alpha particle radiation exhibits significantly enhanced biological effects at the cellular level, creating a specific need to investigate the associated exposure risks.

To obtain more direct estimates of potential internal exposure risks, epidemiological studies of plutonium workers need to be conducted,” explains lead author Tony Riddell, from Public Health England’s Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards. “These studies require individual plutonium exposure estimates that are as accurate and unbiased as possible.”

The Sellafield workforce includes one of the world’s largest cohorts of plutonium workers. Through the support of the workforce, this group has been comprehensively monitored for internal exposure to plutonium, primarily through inhalation.

However, for 630 workers employed there at the start of plutonium operations, from 1952 to 1963, the historical urinalysis results available do not provide sufficiently accurate and unbiased exposure assessments. These results were based on a threshold level of urinary plutonium excretion, which was suitable for operational protection purposes at the time, but tended to overestimate exposure, leading to underestimation of any risks if used in epidemiological analyses.

“This means these early workers are excluded from epidemiological studies of exposure risks, which significantly reduces the power of these studies,” says Riddell. “Early workers are important for assessing potential exposure risks because they usually received some of the highest plutonium exposures and, due to the passage of time, health outcomes for these workers will now be largely known.”

To solve this problem, Riddell and colleagues employed an approach called a job-exposure matrix (JEM). The JEM approach uses exposure data from other sources to estimate the average exposure that a typical worker (in the same work group) would have received in a given period. Substituting the missing data with these JEM estimates allowed the researchers to build a more reliable picture of the early workers’ radiation exposure.

“To overcome the problem of missing or deficient exposure data, we used more reliable data from other relevant workers (‘exposure analogues’) along with statistical, mathematical and empirical analyses to estimate the average exposures for a typical worker at Windscale/Sellafield for all combinations of specific occupation and year required to build the JEM,” explains principal investigator Frank De Vocht from the University of Bristol.

The authors note that the exposure analogues approach developed in this study provides a generic methodological advance that is potentially transferable to other internally exposed workers, and which may permit other epidemiological cohorts to include significant groups of workers who otherwise might have been excluded due to the lack of reliable exposure information.

“It’s likely that replacing the missing or unreliable exposure data with JEM-derived values in future epidemiological studies could have considerable impact on the risk estimates which can be produced,” adds De Vocht.

May 23, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, employment, Reference, UK | 1 Comment

Chernobyl’s spent nuclear fuel to be stored (Holtec’s in on this one, too)

Final trials begin on a facility to store Chernobyl’s spent nuclear fuel The Chemical Engineer Amanda Jasi 2 May 19, ON 6 May the final system-wide trials of a new dry storage facility at Chernobyl began. ISF2, located at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, will process and store spent nuclear fuel to allow for decommissioning of the plant……..

“Dismembering more than 21,000 RBMK spent fuel assemblies in a special purpose “hot cell” [shielded nuclear radiation containment chamber], packaging those fuel assemblies in double walled canisters, and transferring them from (open) water-cooled pools into hermetically sealed rugged helium-filled storage systems inside ventilated modules will mark a huge safety milestone for Ukraine,” said Holtec International, the diversified energy company responsible for the project. RBMK is a nuclear reactor type developed by the Soviet Union.

Units 1, 2, and 3 of the Chernobyl plant were important for Ukraine’s electricity needs and continued to operate for some years before shutting down in 1996, 1991, and 2000 respectively, reported World Nuclear News (WNN). The last damaged spent fuel assembly from units 1-3 was removed from the cooling pool of unit 1in 2016 and transferred to an interim wet storage facility, ISF1, says WNN. 1SF2 is to accept used fuel from ISF1 and store it on site for 100 years, the news service added. According to Holtec, transfer will be expedited.

Holtec said it would complete “stem-to-stern” functional demonstrations of spent fuel handling and storage processes over the next two months. Following the demonstrations, the facility will be handed over to Ukraine’s state-owned enterprise Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP), which will initiate commissioning.

WNN reported that the Chenobyl nuclear power plant entered decommissioning last year after gaining approval from Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate. According to the news service, the first stage of decommissioning – the so-called final shutdown and preservation stage – is expected to take ten years.

The ISF2 project began in the 1990s but stalled for nearly a decade when the previous contractors’ technology proved to be “inadequate to meet the facility’s functional and regulatory requirements”. Holtec was awarded the project contract in 2011.

Principal contactors on the ISF2 project are UTEM, BNG, and Maloni, reports WNN. It is funded by a group of Western countries and Japan, and administered by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). …..

In partnership with Energoatom, Holtec is also constructing the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF), which will receive and store spent nuclear fuel assemblies from Ukraine’s pressurised water reactors (VVERs). The facility will mean Ukraine will no longer have to spend US$200m/y to store nuclear fuel in Russia, says WNN. Full operation is expected in 2020. https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/final-trials-begin-on-a-facility-to-store-chernobyl-s-spent-nuclear-fuel/

May 23, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Ukraine, wastes | 1 Comment

USA’s nuclear waste dome ‘leaking’ radioactive sludge into the Pacific

US ‘nuclear coffin’ on island in the Pacific could be ‘leaking’ radioactive sludge into the sea, By Christopher Carbone https://www.foxnews.com/science/us-nuclear-coffin-leaking-radioactive-sludge Radioactive waste from Cold War nuclear weapons tests could be leaking into the Pacific Ocean.

According to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a concrete dome that was built on Runit Island in the late 1970s to contain waste from massive atomic bomb tests conducted after World War II could be leaking toxic sludge into the sea.

“The Pacific was victimized in the past as we all know,” Guterres said, according to AFP, referring to nuclear explosions carried out by the United States and France in the region.

The island nation was where 67 American nuclear weapons tests were conducted, which included the 1954 “Bravo” hydrogen bomb, the most powerful ever detonated by the U.S. and about 1,000 times bigger than the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

In the Marshall Islands, many residents were forced to leave their land and thousands of others were exposed to radioactive fallout.

“I’ve just been with the president of the Marshall Islands [Hilda Heine], who is very worried because there is a risk of leaking of radioactive materials that are contained in a kind of coffin in the area,” Guterres, who is touring the South Pacific to raise awareness about climate change, told AFP.

Radioactive soil and ash from the blasts were put into the crater and capped with an 18-inch thick concrete dome that was seen as a temporary fix at the time.

Now, cracks have developed in the concrete and there are fears that it could break apart in the event of a tropical cyclone. “A lot needs to be done in relation to the explosions that took place in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands,” the U.N. chief said. “This is in relation to the health consequences, the impact on communities and other aspects. Of course, there are questions of compensation and mechanisms to allow these impacts to be minimized.”

May 21, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, wastes | Leave a comment

US Congress ‘s continued search for nuclear trash dump – but they still let ’em keep making it!

Congress continues search for nuclear waste dump, https://www.graydc.com/content/news/Congress-continues-search-for-nuclear-waste-dump-510161521.html By Kyle Midura | WASHINGTON (Gray DC) 20 May 19, – More than 70,000 tons of nuclear waste has no place to go. Congress agreed to take care of it decades ago, but lawmakers can’t agree on where to send it. Waste from 42 years of operation at Yankee Nuclear in Vermont remains on-site years after the shuttered plant stopped generating power. For now, it’s being held in large, thick cannisters known as dry casks.Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) said that’s a direct result of Congress failing to fulfill its promise to create a national dump for used fuel. “Every place where we have a nuclear plant including Vermont has in effect become a long-term storage plant,” he said, “that’s not viable.”

The government developed Nevada’s Yucca Mountain to be the repository for the country’s spent fuel, planning to bury it deep underground and within thick barriers designed to be impenetrable. President Donald Trump is trying to revive that plan.

Welch would like to see Yucca Mountain used as a permanent site – though he said political opposition in the state may make that impossible — and is working on a bill to move forward with a temporary site in Texas.

“Bottom line: after spending 15 billion dollars on Yucca, I think that is a bad place to be permanently storing the nuclear waste in this country,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Sanders said he’s concerned by the potential for earthquakes at the site given geological fault lines in the area. He opposes further expansion of nuclear – especially while the search for a permanent repository continues. Like many of his fellow Senators seeking the democratic nomination – Sanders signed onto a bill allowing a state like Nevada to say ‘no’ to storing nuclear waste in its backyard.

“We need to find a permanent solution which is not going to be Yucca,” Sanders said.

“The science says it’s safe, but we’ve got to make sure it’s correct and let Nevada have its day in court,” said Baker Elmore, Senior Director of Federal Programs for the Nuclear Energy Institute.

He argues the best path forward is to create temporary storage sites, and finalize plans for a permanent repository as soon as possible. After decades of waiting, Elmore says the country appears to be getting closer to signing-off on a plan. “I’m excited because we’re finally getting around to having a meaningful conversation on this issue,” he said.

May 21, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

$Billions spent on attempt to clean up USA’s most dangerously toxic nuclear sites, but it’s no getting very far

Soaring costs but limited progress in cleanup of “scariest” nuclear sites https://www.salon.com/2019/05/18/soaring-costs-but-limited-progress-in-cleanup-of-scariest-nuclear-sites_partner/

The progress to clean up nuclear waste sites appears to be slowing down though still devouring billions of dollars, PHIL ZAHODIAKIN, MAY 18, 2019 THE PROGRESS OF A DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY PROGRAM TO CLEAN UP THE NATION’S MOST DANGEROUS NUCLEAR WASTE SITES APPEARS TO BE SLOWING DOWN EVEN THOUGH IT’S STILL DEVOURING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

That discouraging picture emerges in the latest report by the federal Government Accountability Office on the long-running cleanup effort. Launched in 1989, it was designed to clean up 107 sites engaged in research or production of enriched uranium or plutonium for making nuclear weapons.

Cleanup work at 91 of the Cold War-era sites is finished. But the remaining 16 pose the greatest health risks — especially those with underground storage tanks leaking highly radioactive waste.

Testifying last week before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, a GAO official said that for reasons that are unclear, estimated cleanup costs at the 16 ”biggest and scariest sites” have increased by $214 billion despite the Department of Energy (DOE) spending $48 billion since 2011.

David C. Trimble, the GAO’s director for natural resources and the environment, said the soaring costs ”are getting worse as the growth in cleanup liabilities vastly outpaces [the DOE’s] ability to reduce them.”

DOE officials are trying to pin down the reasons for delays and cost overruns, Trimble said, “but they haven’t finished their ‘root cause’ analysis.”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) asked Trimble and Ann Marie White, director of the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management how they would “explain to the taxpayers this astonishing cost increase when the number of cleanup sites hasn’t changed.” White replied that the 56 million gallons of radioactive liquids and sludge in the underground tanks at the immense Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington are driving “much of the increase.”

But the GAO has cited other problems, too, including DOE providing Congress with inconsistent and misleading information. For example, Trimble said, legislation passed in 2011 required DOE to annually report on its funding needs, but the reports have been submitted in only two of the years since.

“So, what are [the taxpayers] buying for all this money?” Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked, observing that the latest estimate to complete the work at all 16 sites has reached $377 billion.

Rep. Ann M. Kuster (D-N.H.) pointed out that, besides costs, the risk of accidents or sabotage at the 16 sites only increases with time. And Trimble drew an analogy to a type of mortgage popular during the housing bubble of the early 2000s.

By spending billions to contain radioactive soil, water, and nuclear materials at their sites of origin without a path to completing cleanups, “There’s a danger that, at some point, the dynamic starts to look like an interest-only loan that doesn’t require you to pay down the principal amount of the loan,” Trimble said.

Trimble said he was encouraged by DOE’s willingness to accept management improvements recommended by GAO

But Ed Lyman, acting director of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Fair Warning that “GAO issues one report after another about DOE’s mismanagement of the nuclear cleanup program but the reports don’t seem to move the ball.”

Pointing out that the experiments to condense and vitrify (or turn into glass) the liquid wastes at Hanford and Savannah River, S.C., “have not been going well,” Lyman added that the long disposal delays leave the safety of the sites in a nether world of “borrowed time.”

Besides Hanford, where cleanup activities are expected to continue at least until 2070, and the Savannah River Nuclear Reservation, which will keep producing radioactive tritium during its cleanup, some of the other, major sites among the 16 left to clean up include the World War 2-era facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and the gaseous diffusion plants in Piketon, Ohio and Paducah, Ky.: formerly principal source of enriched uranium.

May 20, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Warning on leakage of radiation from Pacific island’s “nuclear coffin”

UN chief warns nuclear waste could be leaking into the Pacific https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/17/un-warns-nuclear-waste-leaking-pacific/

Cracks in a 40-year-old nuclear ‘coffin’ are raising concern. Christine Fisher, @cfisherwrites A UN chief is concerned that a Cold War-era nuclear ‘coffin’ could be leaking radioactive material into the Pacific. The concerns are both alarming and oddly similar to the plot of Shin Godzilla — including the part about it being the US’s fault.

According to Phys.org, the structure in question is on Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands — where the US conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958. The tests included the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb, which was reportedly about 1,000 times bigger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In the late 70s, waste from those tests was dumped into a crater and capped with a concrete dome 18 inches thick. That was intended to be a temporary solution, so the bottom of the crater was never lined.

Now, UN Secretary General António Guterres and Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine fear nuclear waste could be leaking from the pit. They’re also concerned about cracks in the concrete, which they worry could break apart if hit by a tropical cyclone. Guterres says the Pacific’s

nuclear history needs to be addressed — hopefully he’ll be taken more seriously than Shin Godzilla‘s Goro Maki, who warned of impending trouble but went unheard.

May 18, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, wastes | Leave a comment

USA government gives Piketon community no chance to resist hosting a radioactive waste dump

This Town Didn’t Want to Be a Radioactive Waste Dump. The Government Is Giving Them No Choice. Earther, Yessenia Funes , 17 May 19,PIKETON, OHIO—David and Pam Mills have grown tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and okra on their secluded Appalachian property for about 18 years now. This will be the first year the retired couple doesn’t. They just can’t trust their soil anymore. Not with what’s being built barely a five-minute walk away.
Past the shed and through the gray, bare trees that grow in the backyard, bulldozers and dump trucks are busy scooping tan-colored dirt atop an overlooking hill on a brisk January afternoon. They’re constructing a 100-acre landfill for radioactive waste. …..On a short metal fence marking where the Mills property ends, a sign reads, “U.S. PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING,” in big, bold letters with red, white, and blue borders.

The Department of Energy (DOE) owns what sits on the other side: the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The DOE built the 1,200-acre facility, located just outside town of Piketon about an hour’s drive south of Columbus in southcentral Ohio, in 1954, as one of three plants it was using to enrich uranium and develop the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Now, the agency is trying to clean it up.

The landfill—or “on-site waste disposal cell,” as the department calls it—would extend about 60-feet down and house 2 million tons of low-level radioactive waste comprised of soil, asbestos, concrete, and debris. It’ll be outfitted with a clay liner, a plastic cover layer, and a treatment system for any water that leaches through it. When finished, it will be one of the largest nuclear waste dumps east of the Mississippi.

Waste could begin entering it as soon as this fall…….

“It’s gonna contaminate everything,” David says, after he shows me how close the landfill sits to his property. “It’s just a matter of time.”

The couple is far from alone in their fears. The 2,000-strong Village of Piketon passed a resolution in August 2017 opposing the landfill. So did the local school district and the Pike County General Health District, where Piketon resides. The rural, low income, and largely white county is home to more than 28,000 people across a number of small towns and cities, some of which have passed their own resolutions against this project. Driving through neighborhoods behind Piketon’s main highway, lawn signs covered in red stating “NO RADIOACTIVE WASTE DUMP in Pike County” can be seen everywhere……

The Zahn’s Corner Middle School, which sits barely a 10-minute drive away from the plant, closed on May 13 after university researchers detected enriched uranium inside the building, and traces of neptunium appeared in readings from an air quality monitor right outside the school. While the DOE believes everything’s fine, the Pike County General Health District has been calling for the department to halt work while it investigates the matter. Townspeople worry this contamination is a direct result of recent activity at the plant.

All of this highlights deep public distrust over the nuclear facility’s cleanup plan. And after reviewing thousands of pages of documents—including independent studies, the project’s record of decision, and the remedial investigation and feasibility studies that went into writing it—to understand the risks, it’s clear the public isn’t worried for nothing.

Here’s the thing: Nothing is technically illegal about the landfill. The DOE, though the polluter, is taking the lead on cleaning up the facility, and the Ohio EPA supports its plan. Whether their decision is morally right given local opposition is another matter. But this is what often happens when a corporation or governmental entity needs to dispose of toxic waste: It gets left in an overlooked town no one’s heard of……..

What they, and everyone really, didn’t understand at the outset of the Cold War was the lasting impacts uranium enrichment could have. Sure, scientists understood radioactive material could cause cancer, but they thought that it’d take a lot of radiation, explained Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist and acting director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Nuclear Safety Project. Now, we know any exposure poses a risk……

Now, the DOE is left with the task of cleaning up the more than 2 million tons of low-level radioactive waste and thousands more tons of hazardous waste the plant’s operations left behind. Completing the landfill is estimated to take another 10 to 12 years, with the entire clean-up projected to go on until 2035. ……

Money aside, shipping radioactive waste off-site has other benefits. Some 24 wetlands and 38 streams sit near the landfill. To bury the waste on-site, the DOE must waive a requirement that prevents it from constructing the landfill within 200 feet of these kinds of water bodies. The department can do so because even though it’s not technically a Superfund, it’s being regulated as one, a common practice for such DOE facilities. ……

the local hydrology is a key point of concern among community members. The region has a rainy climate, and it’s been seeing above-average levels of precipitation in recent years. More than anything, it’s the idea of rainfall causing the landfill’s contents to leak into the groundwater that makes people so nervous…….

Despite the fancy cut-outs put together by DOE contractor Fluor-BWXT, Chillicothe city council members passed a resolution that day against the waste cell. And it wouldn’t be the last: at least 11 counties, townships, city councils, and school boards in southcentral Ohio have come out against the project. Unfortunately, the plan was set by the time these resolutions passed.

Here’s the thing: Many residents didn’t even know about the landfill until after the DOE had already decided on it. The public had between November 2014 and March 2015 to comment on the project. The department published its record of decision in favor of the landfill on June 30, 2015. Then, the backlash hit……..

A lot of community members worry that the town will continue to be impoverished and devoid of business opportunities so long as it’s home to the landfill. Who’s going to want to invest in a place that’s a nuclear dumpsite?

And Piketon officials don’t trust the DOE at all. Neither does the plant’s former chief scientist, David Manuta, who worked there for nearly 11 years and has seen firsthand the operations that went on.

“DOE has a history in this community of not listening,” Manuta told Earther. “DOE is not a popular government agency in this community.”……

As the Ferguson Group points out in its analysis, fractures deeper than 20 feet exist throughout the entirety of where the landfill will be built, with some reaching as deep as 70 feet.

“This is the craziness of it all. They go out there and investigate this what we call ‘ideal site,’ right?” Karl Kalbacher, the Ferguson Group consultant Piketon hired for this analysis, told me. “There’s groundwater just oozing out of the ground, which tells you there’s a very shallow water table. They document that there are streams that are flowing through the proposed site area.”……..

To opponents of the landfill, all these fractures and discrepancies raise concerns about the DOE’s commitment to keeping the region contaminant-free. So does the recent independent analysis from Northern Arizona University that prompted the closure of Piketon’s Zahn’s Corner Middle School this week. That analysis found that the Scioto River and village creeks, as well as dust and soils from the school and private homes, are currently contaminated with enriched uranium, neptunium, and plutonium—all radioactive carcinogens. While the analysis did not measure concentrations, it found that much of this contamination could, indeed, be traced back to the plant……..

Regardless of whether the DOE is concerned, the evidence suggests demolition of the plant and construction of the landfill may already be spreading some contaminants via the air. Add in the threat of the landfill impacting groundwater, and opponents see several additional health risks in a regional already overburdened by cancer.

Pike County’s cancer rate of 487.9 per 100,000 incidences is higher than the state average of 459.8 per 100,000 incidences. In fact, all the counties surrounding Portsmouth—Vinton, Ross, Highland, Adams, Scioto—have some of the highest rates in the state.

Jeanie Williams, a 63-year-old who’s lived in a spacious trailer home since 1972 right alongside the plant—not far from where the Mills live—knows that statistic all too personally. Cancer took Williams’ brother in 1999. Her dad worked at the plant and died of lung disease about 10 years ago. Her stepfather worked there and died last year from cancer. Her daughter is battling colon cancer. https://earther.gizmodo.com/this-town-didnt-want-to-be-a-radioactive-waste-dump-th-1834789264?IR=T

May 18, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

USA’s federal government is not likely ever to secure local consent for disposal of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors

Former DOE Nuclear Waste Chief Critical of Consent-Based Siting https://www.exchangemonitor.com/former-doe-nuclear-waste-chief-critical-consent-based-siting/

BY EXCHANGEMONITOR 13 May 19, The federal government is not likely ever to secure local consent for disposal of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors, but that approach could nonetheless be tested in a plan for temporary storage of the radioactive material, according to a former head of the Energy Department’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM).

“Consent-based siting does sound very appealing. I just don’t see it leading to a successful leading to a successful conclusion. Of course, I may be wrong,” Ward Sproat, who managed OCRWM from June 2006 to January 2009 before it was dismantled by the Obama administration, wrote in a May 2 letter to Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), the top members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Among the obstacles to consent, Sproat wrote: history, as illustrated by failed Private Spent Fuel storage project in Utah; politics, including the potential for elected officials who support a facility to be replaced by opponents; and the need for at least two layers of local approval to analyze a selected location and then to begin licensing.

Still, Sproat indicated support for assessing the viability of a consent-based approach for interim storage discussed before the committee by an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Geoff Fettus, senior attorney for the NRDC’s nuclear program, was among the witnesses for a May 1 hearing on a draft bill from Barrasso that is intended to advance interim storage and permanent disposal of U.S. spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Among the measures, the legislation would authorize the secretary of energy to site, build, and operate at least one monitored retrievable storage facility and to store DOE-held waste in a privately operated facility.

In his prepared testimony, Fettus said the NRDC supports changing existing federal laws to give states more authority for regulating radioactive waste as part of a consent-based approach. A pilot program for interim storage should specifically involve a hardened structure at an operational nuclear power plant, Fettus said.

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | 2 Comments

USA preparing Hanford vitrification plant to deal with 56 million gallons of radioactive waste

17 years after work started on a $17 billion Hanford plant, crews are being hired to run it, Tri City Herald BY ANNETTE CARY, MAY 12, 2019 The Department of Energy is preparing to start turning some of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form at the Hanford vitrification plant. BY DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Hiring is underway for some of the workers who likely will operate Hanford’s $17 billion vitrification plant.

Some are already at work in one of the Hanford nuclear reservation plant’s key control rooms, helping monitor the Low Activity Waste Facility and its systems around the clock.

The hiring and training of workers to operate the plant is “a significant development on the path to finally beginning to treat Hanford’s toxic and radioactive tank waste,” said the Washington state Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator…..

The Department of Energy is making plans for a new contract covering vitrification plant operations and maintenance for when the plant starts full operations for treating low activity radioactive waste as soon as 2022. ……

The plant is being built to turn much of the 56 million gallons of waste held in underground tanks into a stable glass form for disposal. The waste is left from the production of plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program during World War II and the Cold War.

Initially, only low activity waste separated out from the waste in the tanks will be treated, with treatment of high level radioactive waste likely delayed until 2033 because of technical issues being resolved at the plant. …The control room is being staffed 24 hours a day now, just as it will be when the plant begins operating. Melters that will heat mixtures of waste and glass-forming materials to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit will be left on once they are started up…… Commissioning of the Low Activity Waste Facility, or testing all of its systems in unison, could begin in 2021 with the nonradioactive waste simulant……. https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article230192404.html

May 14, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

Chernobyl nuclear accident: how it happened, and the aftermath

In the immediate aftermath of Chernobyl, a total of 31 firemen and plant workers died. Some of their bodies were so radioactive, they had to be buried in lead coffins. A report by the World Health Organization estimated that 600,000 people within the Soviet Union were exposed to high levels of radiation, and of those, 4,000 would die. Those who lived near the Chernobyl site have reported increased instances of thyroid cancer, and they have an increased risk of developing leukemia.

700 Million Years

The Chernobyl accident is one of only two nuclear energy accidents that is classified as a “Level 7 Event,” the highest classification. The other is 2011’s Fukushima disaster in Japan. At the lowest level of Reactor 4 lies the famous “elephant’s foot”, a several-meter wide mass of corium that is still giving off lethal amounts of radiation. The half-life of radioactive elements is defined as the amount of time it takes for the radioactivity to fall to half its original value. The half life of U-235 is 700 million years.

Chernobyl – A Timeline of The Worst Nuclear Accident in History [the original of this article gives details on how the accident happened. ]

33 years ago, a series of missteps caused the worst nuclear accident in history, and its effects are still being felt to this day. Interesting Engineering, 11 May By Marcia Wendorf Located 65 miles north of Kiev, Ukraine, the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station at Chernobyl was a model of Soviet engineering. Its four RBMK nuclear reactors produced enough electricity for 30 million homes and businesses.The RBMK reactor is a class of graphite-moderated nuclear power reactor that was designed and built by the Soviet Union. Certain aspects of the design contributed to the Chernobyl disaster, and there were calls for the reactors to be decommissioned. However, the reactors were redesigned, and as of 2019, ten are still in operation.

1,600 Radioactive U-235 Fuel RodsIn 1986, Chernobyl had four working reactors, with two new ones under construction. The newest of the four, Reactor No. 4, contained 1,600 radioactive uranium-235 fuel rods. Because U-235 is unstable, its atoms spontaneously release neutrons, which hit other U-235 nuclei, causing them to release neutrons. This is what is called a chain reaction.

……… This night involved the continuation of a test that was begun twelve hours earlier.

……..“The odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years.” — Vitali Sklyarov, Minister of Power and Electrification of Ukraine Continue reading →

May 13, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | incidents, Ukraine, wastes | Leave a comment

US Dept of Energy plans changes to definition of “High Level” nuclear wastes: Rick Perry keen, environmentalists not

Perry Supports DOE Reconsideration of High-Level Waste Definition, Exchange Monitor, BY CHRIS SCHNEIDMILLER, MAY 10, 2019

Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday voiced support for his agency’s potential reinterpretation of the definition of high-level radioactive waste.

The Department of Energy proposed the reinterpretation in October and is now reviewing public comments submitted through Jan. 9 on the matter.

Ultimately, DOE could determine the definition should emphasize the radiological threat waste poses to human health, rather than where or how it was generated. That could open the door to disposal methods now prohibited for high-level waste.

The department has not given a timeline for a decision……

Subcommittee Vice Chairman Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) suggested the reinterpretation could lead to high-level waste being dispoosed of “in less secure sites.” He asked Perry to specify the amount of material DOE is considering reclassifying. The DOE chief did not provide a specific figure.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 define HLW as highly radioactive material that comes from spent nuclear fuel. That generally involves separating contents in irradiated nuclear fuel and target materials, such as plutonium.

There is roughly 90 million gallons of solids, liquids, and sludge left over from decades of nuclear weapons production, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future said in 2012. By law, that material must go into a geologic repository – which the United States does not yet have, after decades of efforts to bring the Yucca Mountain disposal site into existence.

Some high-level waste that is redesignated as another waste type could be shipped to the Nevada National Security Site, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, and the privately held Waste Control Specialists facility in West Texas, the nongovernmental Energy Communities Alliance has said. The Washington, D.C.-based group, which represents communities near DOE sites, has said it does not expect any decision from the department until late 2019. https://www.exchangemonitor.com/perry-supports-doe-reconsideration-high-level-waste-definition/

May 11, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Environmentalists astounded that panel rules in favour of Holtec’s nuclear waste storage plan for New Mexico

Holtec clears hurdle for proposed nuclear-waste storage facility https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/2019/05/09/holtec-lea-county-new-mexico-storage-site-uranium-nuclear-waste/1155441001/

Jim Walsh, Cherry Hill Courier-Post May 9, 2019 CAMDEN – Holtec International has won a round in its fight to open a nuclear-waste storage facility, but the company’s opponents say they’re not giving up.

A three-judge panel this week rejected nearly 50 objections to the Camden firm’s proposal for a “consolidated interim storage facility” that would initially hold up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium in a remote area of southeastern New Mexico.

The radioactive waste would be stored underground in 500 canisters made at Holtec’s Camden plant and elsewhere. The spent fuel would come from nuclear power plants across the country, including some being decommissioned by a Holtec affiliate.

The ruling keeps Holtec’s proposal “on track for licensing in 2020,” the company said.It describes the planned facility as “safe and secure” and says the sealed metal canisters, to be buried in steel and concrete vaults, are “terror-resistant.”

“Provided funding is obtained … and if construction could start in 2021, the (storage facility) could be ready to accept spent fuel shipments beginning in 2023,” Holtec spokeswoman Joy Russell said Thursday.

“This ‘interim” storage facility could well become a permanent repository without the protections of a permanent repository,” Sierra Club attorney Wally Taylor said in a statement.

Beyond Nuclear, a Maryland-based nonprofit, said it was “astounded” by the ruling.

It estimates the Holtec complex, with plans for 19 expansion phases over 20 years, could ultimately hold more than 173,000 metric tons of uranium.

Environmentalists have also expressed concern over the potential danger of transporting spent fuel from nuclear plants across the country.

In its ruling, the board said only three of six challengers had standing to request a hearing on Holtec’s license application.

It said Sierra Club and Beyond Nuclear have members living near the proposed storage site, while an oil-and-gas company, Fasken Land and Minerals, has business operations in the area.

But the board said none of the petitioners’ objections were admissible. As a result, it concluded, “this proceeding is terminated.”

Jim Walsh: @jimwalsh_cp; 856-486-2646; jwalsh@gannettnj.com

May 11, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | 1 Comment

Long delay before Savannah River Plutonium Disposal can start

NNSA Won’t Start Savannah River Plutonium Disposal Until 2028 https://www.exchangemonitor.com/mfff-alternative-wont-running-2028-nnsa-says/?printmode=1BY EXCHANGEMONITOR 8 May 19 The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) indicated Monday it will not start disposal of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium in South Carolina until 2028 — a date by which the agency could accrue more than $1 billion in financial penalties for failing to remove the material from the South Carolina facility.The semiautonomous Department of Energy cited the schedule for startup of the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Project in a chart in the “NNSA Strategic Integrated Roadmap 2020-2044.”

The unfunded, unauthorized Surplus Plutonium Disposition Project, also sometimes called dilute-and-dispose, is the NNSA’s new method of getting rid of the plutonium under an arms-reduction pact signed with Russia in 2000.

The NNSA once planned to dispose of the plutonium by turning it into commercial reactor fuel in Savannah River’s now-canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) — a partially built structure the agency now wants to turn into a factory for fissile nuclear warhead cores called pits.

Under federal law, the NNSA must pay the state of South Carolina a maximum of $100 million annually for every year after Jan. 1, 2016, that the agency fails to remove 1 metric ton of surplus weapon-usable plutonium from the Savannah River Site.

South Carolina in 2016 sued DOE in federal court to collect after the agency ditched the MFFF in favor of dilute-and-dispose — chemically weakening the plutonium, suspending it in an inert material known as stardust, and burying it deep underground at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.

In a separate lawsuit in 2017, a U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina ordered the NNSA to remove 1 metric ton of the formerly MFFF-bound plutonium from Savannah River. The NNSA folded that metric ton of material back into its weapon-production pipeline and, some time last year, shipped half of that amount to the Nevada National Security Site over Nevada’s loud objections.

May 9, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | - plutonium, USA | Leave a comment

America’s accumulating nuclear trash: new Bill threatens Nevada

Nevada Warns of Impacts of Rad Waste Disposal Bill https://www.exchangemonitor.com/nevada-warns-impacts-rad-waste-disposal-bill/ BY EXCHANGEMONITOR, 8 May 19, The proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada could conceivably end up receiving 150,000 metric tons of radioactive waste by the second half of this century, according to a Nevada state government analysis of a proposed U.S. Senate bill to speed up that project.The April 29 memo from Bob Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, is another salvo in the state’s decades-long fight against the planned Department of Energy disposal site. In this case, the target is legislation pending from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.).

The discussion draft of the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019 also, according to Halstead: would allow a mobile retrievable storage facility in Nevada; does not guarantee the nation’s nuclear wastes would avoid Las Vegas while being sent to Yucca Mountain; and ignores adverse economic impacts if something goes wrong with the transportation and storage of the wastes.

Barrasso’s draft is effectively identical to 2017 legislation from Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) that died in the Senate. It contains a set of measures to advance both temporary storage of the nation’s nuclear waste in a small number of locations and the final repository in Nevada.

The proposed bill would increase the limit of wastes at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository from 70,000 metric tons to 110,000 metric tons. “If this change is permitted, Congress will almost certainly further revise upward or eliminate the capacity limit,” Halstead wrote in his memo to the state’s congressional delegation and Gov. Steve Sisolak (D).

The analysis estimated that the United States will create 150,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel by 2050. While a second repository closer to the East Coast had at one been considered in the disposal plan, Congress in 1987 limited the disposal approach to Yucca Mountain.

May 9, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

A national political conflict over USA’s nuclear waste dump plan for Yucca Mt, Nevada

War over nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain spreads to nation’s capital, by John Treanor, May 6th 2019

https://news3lv.com/news/local/war-over-nuclear-waste-at-yucca-mountain-spreads-to-nations-capital LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — It’s becoming a familiar scene in Carson City.

“Many believe Yucca Mountain is settled science. That Yucca was selected, or that it’s ready to receive nuclear waste. Well, they are wrong,” said Senator Cortez Masto.

The war over Yucca Mountain continues, and the latest battleground was a committee meeting in Washington D.C. where senators debated the plan to open funding to study the site.

Right now, sites across the country have nuclear waste sitting in danger of contaminating waterways or nearby communities.

The federal government has long wanted to bury it deep in Yucca, but Nevada politicians are united against that plan.

Saying that storing it could be dangerous, transporting it here a matter of national security.

Senator Jacky Rosen said, “Severe risks in transportation threaten the health and costs billions in cleanup costs. I ask the members here today, is this a risk you’re willing to take?”

Nevada Senators Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto want states to sign off on any nuclear plan before the waste is shipped to them, giving Nevada the opportunity to turn those shipments away. https://news3lv.com/news/local/war-over-nuclear-waste-at-yucca-mountain-spreads-to-nations-capital

May 7, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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9 September – online public forum THREE MILE ISLAND:

7-8:30 PM ET,

Legacy, resistance to reopening – https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-LGJU4j6TD2Hgf0rpgAr1A#/registration

The nuclear industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are threatening to restart Pennsylvania’s permanently closed and decommissioning Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear power station. Three expert speakers will present the resistance to this dangerous misadventure in a webinar hosted by the Clamshell Alliance, Beyond Nuclear and Massachusetts Peace Action.

No Nuclear in Cwm Llynfi! Stop the nuclear power station near Maesteg.

To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com

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