Even if the optimism of the scientists and engineers is well-founded, it will still take almost two more decades for the vitrification plant to run at full bore. So it may be 2047—or later—before the ghosts of plutonium are finally laid to rest.
illustration by Abigail Malate, Staff Illustrator, American Institute of Physics
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Plutonium Waste Continues to Haunt Nuclear Site https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2018/09/plutonium-waste-continues-haunt-nuclear-site 09/20/2018 – by Valerie Brown, Inside Science Nearly 30 years ago, the state of Washington and two federal agencies agreed to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a 586-square-mile chunk of sagebrush desert where the U.S. produced plutonium for nuclear weapons starting 75 years ago. In the process, half a trillion gallons of chemically toxic and radioactive waste was dumped on the ground or injected into groundwater. Some of it has reached the Columbia River. Another 56 million gallons of concentrated, radioactive sludge and crystallized salts sit corroding within 177 steel-and-concrete underground tanks.Although the tank waste is only a fraction of the total, its safe disposal is one of the site’s most urgent priorities, especially to the policymakers and residents of Washington and Oregon. Eighteen years ago, workers began constructing a plant for “immobilizing” the remaining waste by vitrifying it—a process whereby it is mixed with molten glass, cooled and encased in stainless steel canisters for long-term storage underground in an as yet undesignated location.
Today the task remains unfinished. Prominent among the reasons for this is that designing, building and operating the infrastructure to treat the waste may be the most complicated project of its kind ever attempted. And that’s because the waste itself is, well, complicated. Although plutonium is no longer being created at Hanford this most peculiar element continues to loom ghostlike over the government’s efforts to mitigate the damage its creation caused and prevent any further environmental and human risk for centuries to come. Continue reading →
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September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
- plutonium, Reference, USA |
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Nuclear plant mud dumping worries raised by Labour AMs , BBC News, 19 September 2018
Two senior Labour AMs have raised concerns in the Senedd about the dumping of mud from a nuclear plant site into the sea near Cardiff.
Julie Morgan and Jane Hutt – both close to leadership frontrunner Mark Drakeford – said constituents had safety worries about dredging 300,000 tonnes of mud from Hinkley Point.
Dumping began last week. AMs were told the mud poses no risk to human health.
Campaigners have called for more tests, and are seeking an injunction.
Ms Morgan and Ms Hutt quizzed Rural Affairs Secretary Lesley Griffiths following a topical question raised by independent AM Neil McEvoy.
The project to build the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset includes dredging mud and sediment from Bristol Channel near the sites of the decommissioned Hinkley Point A and B nuclear plants, and disposing of it just over a mile out to sea from Cardiff Bay.
September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics, UK, wastes |
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Now’s the time for Utahns to comment on EnergySolutions’ dangerous exemption request, https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2018/09/20/letter-nows-time-utahns/ By Benjamin Silberman | The Public Forum
·EnergySolutions is requesting exemption from a law that prohibits the amount of depleted uranium (DU) that can come into Utah. When laws governing the disposal of nuclear waste were developed in the 1980s, byproducts like DU weren’t yet considered. So how can EnergySolutions ensure the safety of future generations from hazards like DU?
Currently, there are limits on DU concentrations and masses allowed in Utah, and any shipments above the limit require safety evaluations. EnergySolutions hopes to exceed these limits by bringing in DU munitions. While EnergySolutions insists that DU is less of a hazard in this form, advocacy groups like HEAL Utah and Utah Sierra Club have raised legitimate concerns.
Most concerning is that DU becomes “hotter” over time. While it begins as a low-level waste, its radioactivity increases for thousands of years. EnergySolutions’ Clive disposal site, just off Interstate 80, is in a particularly vulnerable area, is subject to flooding and will look vastly different in even 100 years. It’s unsettling that EnergySolutions thinks it has the power, and knowledge, to evade the law for something this capricious and uncertain.
There is a public comment period Sept. 6-Oct. 6 regarding EnergySolutions’ exemption request.
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September 21, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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Congress looking for money for cities hit by nuclear plant closures — including Diablo Canyon,The Tribune BY KAYTLYN LESLIE, kleslie@thetribunenews.com, September 17, 2018
Congress wants to find money to support communities where nuclear power plants are being decommissioned — which could mean some funding for San Luis Obispo County once Diablo Canyon starts the process itself in the coming years.
Congressman Salud Carbajal announced Monday that Congress directed the U.S. Department of Energy to study public and private funding sources available to help those communities, as part of its Fiscal Year 2019 Energy and Water, Legislative Branch and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act (HR 5895).
“With the impending Diablo Canyon Power Plant closure, I am working to secure all available federal resources to help offset the economic impact of this decommissioning,” Carbajal said in a news release. Carbajal, a Democrat, represents California’s 24th Congressional District, which spans between San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.
The Department of Energy study will focus on identifying public and private funds to support municipalities where a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, in the process of decommissioning or plans to shut down within three years of the act’s enactment, and contains nuclear waste within its boundaries, according to the news release.
The bill passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate and is set to be signed into law by President Donald Trump sometime before the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30……. https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article218563600.html
September 18, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
decommission reactor, USA |
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Army Corps of Engineers Dismantles Former Floating Nuclear Plant in Galveston https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2018/09/18/304524/corps-of-engineers-dismantles-former-floating-nuclear-plant-in-galveston/More than 1.5 million pounds of radioactive waste have been safely removed from the USS Sturgis’ nuclear reactor
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018, HE
U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS HAS ANNOUNCED THAT A FORMER FLOATING NUCLEAR PLANT IN GALVESTON HAS BEEN DISMANTLED.
More than 1.5 million pounds of radioactive waste have been safely removed from the USS Sturgis’ nuclear reactor. Additionally, more than 600,000 pounds of lead from the vessel have been recycled.
The removal process has taken three years and the Corps said decommissioning the Army’s first and only floating nuclear reactor prototype is now complete.
The World War II vessel was converted into a barge-mounted nuclear reactor in the 1960s.
The Galveston Daily News reported the ship will be towed to Brownsville later this month, where it will be scrapped.
September 18, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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The country doesn’t need “parking lot dumps for interim storage,”
“We as communities want it out of here. We want it to be in safe place where its never moved again. We think it’s lunacy to move it twice.”
Waste Control Specialists has been lobbying federal officials to establish an interim high-level waste repository
Anti-nuclear groups urge action against national waste dump https://www.recorder.com/CAN-plans-nuclear-waste-speaking-tour-20148074 By RICHIE DAVIS
Staff Writer, September 15, 2018
With closure and dismantling of the Yankee Atomic plant in Rowe and now Vermont Yankee and other New England nuclear sites pretty much a fait accompli, watchdog groups like Citizens Awareness Network are focused on the one tremendous remaining issue: the high-level nuclear waste remaining on the reactor sites.
CAN is planning a tour with a giant can — a 32-foot-long wooden mock-up of a radioactive waste cask — and an array of speakers to speak about what the organization calls “the abdication by the federal government and the nuclear industry” to deal with high-level nuclear waste “stranded” at nuclear sites around. Continue reading →
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, wastes |
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Yucca nuclear dump a threat to Nevada military bases, Rosen says By Ray Hagar, Nevada Newsmakers, Las Vegas Sun, Sept. 16, 2018
Nevada 3rd Congressional District Rep. Jacky Rosen looks at the controversy over a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain through the eyes of a member of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. The transportation and storage of nuclear waste at the site — less than 100 miles from Las Vegas — would pose a threat to national security because of the U.S. military bases that surround the area, Rosen said Thursday on Nevada Newsmakers.
“We have Nellis Air Force Base, the premier pilot-training (facility) throughout the world. We have the Nevada Test and Training Range where we do all that training — 70 percent of the Air Force’s live munitions lives there,” Rosen said.
“We have Creech Air Force Base, where we have our unmanned aerial system,” she said. “We train those Topgun naval aviators in Fallon. We have a Hawthorne Army Depot, a Nevada Test Site and Area 51.”
“Yucca Mountain sits right in the center of all that,” Rosen said. “Nevada is critical to our national security, our homeland security and safety. And anything that could compromise that, moving nuclear waste through the Nevada Test and Training Range or any of those other routes, could put us at risk.”
Storage of nuclear waste near U.S. military installations is only one problem with Yucca, Rosen said. Another is moving it there through wide swaths of the United States.
“There are 75,000 metric tons of nuclear waste. At three loads a week via trains or trucks on our freeways, going through over 44 states and 300 counties, it will take 50 years to transport it,” Rosen said. “So don’t tell me that within that 50 years, there is not going to be some kind of accident.”………https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/sep/16/yucca-nuclear-dump-a-threat-to-nevada-military-bas/
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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Nuclear waste bill that could aid Zion awaiting presidential signature , Chicago Tribune, 15 Sept 18 Legislation to help communities such as Zion with stranded nuclear waste issues has passed both houses of Congress, and now awaits President Donald Trump’s signature to become law, according to a statement released Friday by U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider.
The 10th District Democrat said the measure — included in H.R. 5895, the Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act of 2019 — would require a report by the Department of Energy on existing public and private resources and funding available for municipalities in which a nuclear power plant is decommissioned, in the process of decommissioning, or plans to shut down within three years.
“Communities like Zion have been saddled with storing our nation’s stranded nuclear waste while the federal government has failed to meet its legal obligation to find a permanent repository,” Schneider said in a statement. “They deserve compensation, and this new report is a step toward connecting these communities with critically needed federal assistance.”
In May, Schneider said, he introduced a legislative amendment requiring the Secretary of Energy to assemble a task force to work across all federal agencies to identify existing resources and funding opportunities that could assist communities with decommissioned plants where nuclear waste is being stored.
Last October, Schneider introduced the Sensible, Timely Relief for America’s Nuclear Districts’ Economic Development (STRANDED) Act with Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.
“I urge President Trump to sign (H.R. 5895) into law,” Schneider added in Friday’s statement, “and I will continue to work to build on this progress by advancing the STRANDED Act to finally compensate communities like Zion what they deserve.”
In addition to forming a task force, the STRANDED proposal would compensate communities storing waste through economic impact grants and would establish tax credits to encourage development and homeownership in affected communities.
Last year, ZionSolutions, which is part of Utah-based EnergySolutions, said it will finish deconstructing and demolishing the deactivated Zion nuclear power plant and its 20-story containment silos in 2018, according to EnergySolutions Vice-President Mark Walker, but 61 casks full of spent nuclear rods will remain on-site until a repository is found.
H.R. 5895 does not address long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel, but it does require the Department of Energy to “submit to Congress and the State of Nevada a report on the potential of locating a reprocessing or recycling facility for spent nuclear fuel near the Yucca Mountain site.”………http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/news/ct-lns-schneider-nuke-bill-st-0915-story.html
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
USA, wastes |
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Work to demolish Hanford plutonium plant could resume next week https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/hanford/work-to-demolish-hanford-plutonium-plant-could-resume-next-week/281-594811180
Demolition work on Hanford’s plutonium finishing plant could resume next week after the U.S. Department of Energy stopped work at the site last December. September 15, 2018
Work to demolish a former nuclear weapons production plant in Washington state could resume next week, nearly nine months after a spread of radioactive contamination forced a shutdown.
Demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation was halted in December after a spread of radioactive particles. In all, 42 workers were found to have inhaled or ingested small amounts of radioactive particles and workers drove contaminated cars off the nuclear site.
Also see | “It was complete chaos” says Hanford worker who inhaled plutonium
The Tri-City Herald reports that the planned restart is limited, focusing on less hazardous work.
The U.S. Department of Energy this week approved the resumption of demolition.
The plant for decades helped make plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.
September 17, 2018
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Daily Mail 15th Sept 2018 ,A unique wildlife refuge on the site of a former nuclear weapons plant in
Colorado is opening its gates on Saturday, after a confusing day when
officials first said they would not open the refuge and then said they
would.
The opening of Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, where the U.S.
government made plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs, has been in the works
for months, surviving court challenges and protests.
But the plans were upended Friday when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he would keep the
refuge closed until he could get more information about public safety.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-6170525/Former-nuclear-site-open-public-wildlife-refuge.html
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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Yucca Mountain Halted Again as GOP Aims to Retain Senate
Nevada’s Dean Heller among blockers this time, Roll Call, Jeremy Dillon, 12 Sept 18 ……….
Nevada says ‘no’
“……..Nevada has long opposed hosting the nation’s nuclear waste, especially since it does not have nuclear power plants within its borders. Opponents say the site and the movement of waste there represent significant public health and safety risks that could expose Nevadans and others to deadly radioactivity in the event of accidents or groundwater leakage.
….. Heller wasn’t the only Nevada lawmaker to oppose restarting the Yucca project. His challenger, Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, was equally eager to show Nevada voters she had what it takes to stop the project. Cortez Masto also mounted opposition on the Hill………http://admin.rollcall.com/news/policy/yucca-mountain-halted-gop-aims-retain-senate
September 17, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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America’s Oldest Operating Nuclear Power Plant to Retire on Monday OilVoice Press – OilVoice 14-Sep-2018 The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, located 50 miles east of Philadelphia in Forked River, New Jersey, is scheduled to retire on Monday, September 17. The plant first came online on December 1, 1969, making it the oldest commercially operated nuclear power plant in the United States. Oyster Creek was previously expected to retire on December 31, 2019, but its retirement was accelerated by more than a year to coincide with the plant’s fuel and maintenance cycle…………
Oyster Creek will be the sixth nuclear power plant to retire in the past five years. After Oyster Creek’s retirement, the United States will have 98 operating nuclear reactors at 59 plants. Twelve of these reactors, with a combined capacity of 11.7 gigawatts, are scheduled to retire within the next seven years.
Oyster Creek is one of four nuclear power plants—along with Palisades Power Plant, Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, and Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station—that have planned retirement dates more than a decade before their operating licenses expire. Economic factors have played a significant role in decisions to continue operating or to retire nuclear power plants, as increased competition from natural gas and renewables has made it increasingly difficult for nuclear generators to compete in electricity markets……..
According to Exelon, Oyster Creek will undergo a six-step decommissioning process. The typical decommissioning period for a nuclear power plant is about 60 years, so parts of the Oyster Creek plant structure could remain in place until 2075. …..https://oilvoice.com/Opinion/22263/Americas-Oldest-Operating-Nuclear-Power-Plant-to-Retire-on-Monday
September 14, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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U.S. needs a safer way to store nuclear waste, As Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolinas, the country is confronting a reality it normally ignores. Newsday, The Editorial Board, September 13, 2018
As Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolinas, the United States is confronting a reality it normally ignores. This nation has no permanent, safe disposal site for the 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste it has created in power and weapons plants. This waste is largely stored where it was generated, often in vulnerable above-ground tanks — at 80 sites in 35 states, including New York.
Nine of those sites, from northern Georgia to North Carolina, are in the potential path of Florence. Several were built with the same technology as the Fukushima power plant in Japan, whose reactors and waste storage were tragically compromised by a tsunami in 2011……..
September 14, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
safety, USA, wastes |
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Ken Raskin 14 Sept 18, There is no way to store nuclear waste safely. Uranium mine waste, can be diluted and reburied if it is done properly. Medical isotopes, any purified radionuclide, reactor waste, enriched uranium processing byproducts, residue from factories to make plutonium more- concentrated radionuclide waste and a large variety of the most dangerous man-manmade radionuclides. Like Hanford, WIPP, San Onofre, any casks or Used fuel rods full of Plutonium , cesium137/134, cobalt 60, strontium 90 , uranium 235 . Fuel rods Fuel storage pools around nuclear reactors, that are very vulnerable to catching fire because of their zirconium cladding.
There are more synthetic gamma and beta emitters and strong alpha emitter-radionuclides in the environment, than they want you to know about! They generate heat, from their radioactive-nature. Many are highly chemically-reactive too. They emit beta, gamma and neutrons that will change/degrade the walls of the material, they are encased in. They can generate gases. They can catalyze exothermic reactions, with substance in around, where they are stored. They can generate combustible-explosive gases like hydrogen. The nuclearists, have gone out of their way, to keep these things a secret for years. Dr Busby has gone out of his way to explain how many so radionuclides cannot be stored safely. Especially in the case of the Swedes wanting to use copper casks for nuclear waste
Some misinformants will say that radioactive elements do not do, decay heat. Some do more than others, otherwise they could not be used in radiosotope thermal generators. Heat decay was noted, to cause Hanford radioactive cesium tanks to leak.
The kitty litter in wipp did not spontaneously catch fire. The plutonium helped. Oxidized plutonium is also known to be pyrogenic.There is no safe way to store radionuclides. There was a large swath of of nuclear waste, that exploded in nevada. Two large casks exploded in idaho recently. More people, awakened to the dangerous nature of radionuclides and, how hard it is to store them. .
The Nuclear Industry and Govt, Do Not Want This Known.
I have been to Japan. I have been to Ukraine. Many peoples eyes are wide-opened, about the radionuclide apocolypse, that we are in the midst of.
WE ARE LIVING ON THE BEACH, IN THE USA. IN JAPAN IT IS MUCH WORSE! I have LIVED IN one of the worst radionuclide cancer and poison clusters, in the world. 3 generations of families wiped-out in small communities in the United States! Not just Mayak.
Burning coal and hyrocarbons pollutes the air, water, and food with megatons of radium, polonium, thorium and protractinium annually. It is one of the prime reasons, 200 million or more americans drink radioactive water.
These natural radionuclides also come from oil and chemical refineries concentrating them and dumping them into the air and rivers. Fracking does a great deal of dirty work this way too.
Humans are living in a world of self-created radiionuclide filth and sewer!
I am a trained medical toxicologist. I saw extreme radionuclide-exposures in the forms of radiopharmaceutical overdoses and severe radionuclide-industrial accidents. Accidents with exposures to things like radioactive cesium, used in radiography equipment.
Even the experts and antinuclear advocates, are reluctant to go into, how bad things really are. I have no corporate, right-wing extremist bias or government entanglements. I have been watching Fukushima since the beginning!
I wish nuclear-shills would take a basic engineering class, or a biochemistry or cellular biology class or even a modern basic biology class and be forced to rationally explain the disparities in their presentations between their rhetoric and reality. Of course they will not because, they are paid propagandists and liars.
There will be nothing left, unless the nuclear madness is stopped. Nothing left of life on earth because, in very small amounts radionuclides, destroy the capability of the biochemical reactions that give us life, to be possible. There will be no life Unless the continuance of the radionuclide tsunami is ended and radionuclides are sequestered, our end will be much sooner than later. There is no way back to the good ol days..
September 14, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, wastes |
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Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia, 14 Sept 18 This report on North Carolina reactors by the Union of Concerned Scientists –
“Today more than 3,400 metric tons of spent fuel is stored in North Carolina. Over 85% of that spent fuel is stored in large pools of water called spent fuel pools, which are equipped with systems to cool the water that surrounds the hot fuel rods.”
“While concerns about nuclear power safety often focus on the fuel in the reactor core, spent fuel stored in pools also can be a major source of radioactivity during an accident. If water drains from the pool for even a few hours or the cooling system is interrupted for several days, the spent fuel could overheat and its cladding could break open, releasing radioactive material. And because the pools are located outside the thick, concrete containment walls, it is more likely that this radioactive material would reach the environment”
The report was done back in 2011, so not sure if things have improved since then. https://www.ucsusa.org/…/nuclear-power-safety-in-north…
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September 14, 2018
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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