Cumbria County Council (CCC) have recognised the fundamental flaws within the latest process to find a location to bury the nation’s nuclear waste. The CCC response to the government consultation echos many of the points which Cumbria Trust has made. In particular the failure to address the need for secure interim storage, despite the most dangerous elements within waste being too hot to bury for well over a century. They also highlight the lack of clarity over the community’s right of withdrawal, something of particular concern to Cumbria Trust. As we have previously stated this is a process which has been designed to be very simple to enter and very difficult to leave.
Five years ago it was CCC which called a halt to the search process, and their concerns have not gone away.
The News & Star has reported this week:
A NEW search to find a community willing to host an underground nuclear waste storage bunker is based on ‘fundamentally flawed’ government policy, council officials in Cumbria have said.
The nationwide scheme to identify a location for a £12 billion geological disposal facility buried at least 200 metres below the surface was relaunched by the government in January and is expected to take 20 years to secure.
It promises incentives including £1m per year for five years for the five communities that volunteer to be on the shortlist – with £2.5m a year for the two that go forward to the testing stage, which would see deep boreholes dug underground.
But experts within Cumbria County Council have instead called for more clarity on how the high level waste – the majority of which is currently kept in storage vessels in west Cumbria – will be kept safe if a suitable location is not identified within the time frame.
They also state the right of willing communities to withdraw from the process is not clear enough within the proposal, while there is no detail about how the waste could be retrieved at a later date if new technology to dispose of it more efficiently is developed.
Whitehaven News 26th April 2018 , Search to find nuclear waste storage site is ‘flawed’, Cumbria council chiefs claim. Cash incentives are being offered to communities that step forward to host an underground waste bunker.
A NEW search to find a community willing to host an underground nuclear waste storage bunker is based on ‘fundamentally flawed’ government policy, council officials in Cumbria have said.
The nationwide scheme to identify a location for a £12 billion geological disposal facility buried at least 200 metres below the surface was relaunched by the government in January and is expected to take
20 years to secure. It promises incentives including £1m per year for five
years for the five communities that volunteer to be on the shortlist – with
£2.5m a year for the two that go forward to the testing stage, which would
see deep boreholes dug underground.
But experts within Cumbria County Council have instead called for more clarity on how the high level waste -the majority of which is currently kept in storage vessels in west Cumbria
– will be kept safe if a suitable location is not identified within the time frame.
They also state the right of willing communities to withdraw from the process is not clear enough within the proposal.
The authority’s official response, expected to be adopted by members of its cabinet
committee in Carlisle today, states: “The county council believes the
policy on which this consultation is based is fundamentally flawed.
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 24th April 2018 , During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union manufactured
enormous quantities of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. When that era
ended, the United States and the newly formed Russian Federation began to
reduce their nuclear arsenals. Both nations possessed large stockpiles of
plutonium—a problem that posed both a sustained threat to the environment
and a risk of future nuclear weapons proliferation.
In 2000, the United States and Russia pledged to dispose of their excess plutonium in order to
mitigate the security concerns, safety risks, and storage costs. They
signed the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, which requires
each country to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of weapons plutonium.
Unfortunately, the agreement failed to solve the excess plutonium problem. Eighteen years later, the United States has been unable to develop a
successful strategy to safely, affordably, and permanently dispose of
plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons, despite a high degree of
industrial capability and technical expertise. Why has the United States
been unable to either implement its obligations under the disposition
agreement or execute its own policy? And how can the Plutonium Disposition
Program finally become effective? https://thebulletin.org/what-went-wrong-us-plutonium-disposition11733
‘We’re here today to guarantee further security for Ukrainians and all Europeans to turn their attention to important projects, which we will gradually implement day by day – along with our partners. We plan to put the new safe confinement into service in December’, the president said.
The head of the state added that the mounting works on the object are almost over.
As it was reported earlier, the construction works began in Chornobyl exclusion zone in Nobvemner 2017; the nuclear waste repository will be built in the restricted area of Kyiv region. According to UNN news agency, the opening ceremony took place on November 9; Ukrainian company Energoatom will be the one supervising the construction process.
According to the Minister of Energy and Coal Production Ihor Nasalyk, by building its own nuclear waste repository, Ukraine will be able to refuse the service offered by Russia, which costs Kyiv more than 7 million dollars annually.
Kent Online 23rd April 2018 , Romney Marsh could become the country’s first nuclear waste site.
Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) has asked the Government for
more information on its Geological Disposal Facility (GDF). The proposal,
to build a radioactive waste site the size of 22 Wembley Stadiums up to
1,000m underground in the UK, is currently out to consultation with
councils. http://www.kentonline.co.uk/romney-marsh/news/kent-to-house-nuclear-waste-site-181715/
LA Times 23rd April 2018,As crews demolished a shuttered nuclear weapons plant during 2017 in
central Washington, specks of plutonium were swept up in high gusts and
blown miles across a desert plateau above the Columbia River.
The releases at the Department of Energy cleanup site spewed unknown amounts of
plutonium dust into the environment, coated private automobiles with the
toxic heavy metal and dispensed lifetime internal radioactive doses to 42
workers.
The contamination events went on for nearly 12 months, getting
progressively worse before the project was halted in mid-December. Now,
state health and environmental regulators, Department of Energy officials
and federal safety investigators are trying to figure out what went wrong
and who is responsible. http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2018/04/why_was_plutonium_dust_left_to.html
BBC 25th April 2018 , Plans to remove every scrap of radioactive waste from a former nuclear
plant are under review, it has emerged. The former Trawsfynydd site in
Gwynedd has been undergoing decommissioning since it ended generation in
1991.
Originally, the power station was due to be left in a state of “care
and repair” by 2030 and finally cleared entirely by the 2090s. But the
review could see the remaining structures continue to be removed and
low-risk waste left on site. The details were revealed in presentations to
the Snowdonia National Park Authority by the body responsible for
cleaning-up the UK’s old nuclear plants.
At the moment, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) plans to mothball the Trawsfynydd site by
about 2029, leaving any existing radioactive material there to decay
naturally over time, before clearing everything. But the park authority was
told that a case is now being developed for continuous decommissioning and
for some low-level radioactive waste to be left there permanently.
Officials said the concrete reactor buildings were decaying structurally,
and work should get underway to remove them. But a suggestion that
low-level radioactive waste might remain on site has been met with
criticism by some in the anti-nuclear lobby.
Robat Idris, from the campaign group People Against Wylfa B, told BBC Radio Cymru: “Once again, we are
seeing the nuclear industry changing what they say about this process.
“Originally, the promise was that they would clear the entire site of
radioactive material, but now it looks like they are considering keeping
some of that material there for a very long time, if indeed they will
remove it at all. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-43898737
“I’m choked up. My heart is pounding right now,” said Chief April Adams-Phillips of the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne through tears. “We give back thanks to our Mother Earth every day,” she said. But because of our disrespect and our destructive ways, she warned, Mother Earth is “going to get rid of us soon. She’s going to shake us.”
We are heading deeper into the “too late time” when it comes to climate change. “And that too late time is not far away,” said Chief Clinton Phillips of the Mohawk Nation. “Science is saying that. Animals are saying that. Animals who are living where they should not be living are saying that.”
Are we listening yet? “People are not listening,” Chief Clinton Phillips says. Global warming is upon us and yet we persist with nuclear power whose wastes poison the water, air, land, people and animals. The original guardians of those precious elements of our existence — indigenous peoples — are trying once again to be heard.
The chiefs and other indigenous and non-indigenous activists came together at the UN in New York on April 23 to hold a special event — “Radioactive Waste and Canada’s First Nations”. It took place on the same day as a press conference in Ottawa, Canada’s capital. There, the Anishinabek Nation, Ottawa Riverkeeper, the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, and Ralliement Contre la Pollution Radioactive, called on the International Atomic Energy Agency “to investigate why radioactive waste abandonment plans in Canada are proceeding despite a policy vacuum at the federal level, and with scant attention to international obligations as laid out in the UN Joint Convention on radioactive waste.”
At the UN the tone was somber. Despite Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau’s much publicized affirmation of the importance of Canada’s indigenous peoples and the necessity for “reconciliation,” First Nations feel left out, unheard and abused by Canada’s radioactive waste policy. Trudeau and his government are among those “not listening,” and they have been unresponsive to requests for hearings on radioactive waste policy with First Nations and other Canadians. You can watch their presentations here.
That policy currently includes a plan to site a five-to-seven-story high radioactive waste megadump on an Ontario hillside near marshes and swamps and above Perch Lake that empties into the Ottawa River less than one kilometer away. The river serves as the source of drinking water for millions of citizens and as the boundary between the provinces of Ontario and Québec.
The dump site is not far from the Chalk River Laboratories where the world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown took place in 1952. The debris from that accident, and a second one in 1958, was buried and remains on site. Chalk River produced plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
The dump would store “low-level” radioactive waste, a misleading term as the wastes would include radioactive uranium, plutonium, cesium, strontium, iodine, tritium and other isotopes.
“It is lunacy putting a six-story mound of nuclear waste beside the Ottawa River near Chalk River,” said Chief Patrick Madahbee of the Anishinabek Nation at the UN event which was webcast live.
A recent one-hour program in French on the Chalk River megadump produced by Découverte, a French-language science-based program from Québec, recently aired and can be viewed in the video below. [on original]
The Canadian government calls this radioactive waste scheme “disposal,” a term long-time activist and mathematics and physics professor, Dr. Gordon Edwards, takes issue with. Speaking at the UN event, Edwards said: “Disposal is not even a scientific term. They have no intention of looking after it after a certain point. That’s abandonment not disposal.”
Edwards called on the Canadian government to “listen to indigenous people who know the land far better than us” and recommended “rolling stewardship.”
A second waste “disposal” plan, the Deep Underground Dump proposed by Ontario Power Generation at Kincardine Ontario on the shores of Lake Huron, is also strongly opposed by First Nations.
“Putting this stuff underground is insanity and total stupidity,” commented Chief Madahbee at the UN meeting. He flagged the dangers of transportation as well. “Why would anyone take the risk of moving this stuff around?,” he asked. “All you need is a serious accident that could devastate millions of people. There are other answers. We have the green energy sector. Nuclear power is no longer necessary.”
And what nuclear power “is really producing is toxic radioactive waste that will last for eternity,” Edwards said.” A lot of attention is paid to producing electricity. Very little attention is paid to people, the environment and the land. Radioactivity is a form of nuclear energy that cannot be shut off.”
But while the topic of the day was clearly radioactive waste, the context was the big picture: global climate change. To persist with nuclear power and its toxic, unsolved legacy of radioactive waste, is just another lunacy when time to address global warming is so short. The UN speakers were united in their horror at the irresponsible assault on Mother Earth.
“There are world powers who say global warming is a myth. People who think that are fools,” said Chief Clinton Phillips.
Chief Troy Thompson of the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne concurred. “More than ever we need to come together and protect Mother Earth,” he said. “We need to make Canada more responsible and more respectful towards Mother Earth.”
Candace Neveau, a First Nations youth and mother representing the Bawating Water Protectors, called upon “all the warriors. The time is now to rise.” We must urgently recognize how we are “disrespecting Mother Earth and right those wrongs,” she said.
Otherwise, asked Chief April Phillips, “what’s going to happen? Imagine in 70 years what’s going to happen to your family and the next generation? What are they going to do?”
For more information, visit the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility website.
Since the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, the world has been in a state of readiness for nuclear combat. In this secretive domain, mistakes and mishaps are often hidden: This week we’re telling the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. THE WAR WAS OVER—JAPAN HAD surrendered. The third plutonium core created by the United States, which scientists at Los Alamos National Lab had been preparing for another attack, was no longer needed as a weapon. For the moment, the lab’s nuclear scientists were allowed to keep the sphere, an alloy of plutonium and gallium that would become known as the demon core.
In a nuclear explosion, a bomb’s radioactive core goes critical: A nuclear chain reaction starts and continues with no additional intervention. When nuclear material goes supercritical, that reaction speeds up. American scientists knew enough about the radioactive materials they were working with to be able to set off these reactions in a bomb, but they wanted a better understanding of the edge where subcritical material tipped into the dangerous, intensely radioactive critical state.
One way to push the core towards criticality involved turning the neutrons it shedback onto the core, to destabilize it further. The “Critical Assembly Group” at Los Alamos was working on a series of experiments in which they surrounded the core with materials that reflected neutrons and monitored the core’s state.
The first time someone died performing one of these experiments, Japan had yet to formally sign the terms of surrender. On the evening of August 21, 1945, the physicist Harry Daghlian was alone in the lab, building a shield of tungsten carbide bricks around the core. Ping-ponging neutrons back the core, the bricks had brought the plutonium close to the threshold of criticality, when Daghlian dropped a brick on top. Instantly, the core reacted, going supercritical and Daghlian was doused in a lethal dose of radiation. He died 25 days later.
His death did not dissuade his colleagues, though. Nine months later, they had developed another way to bring the core close to that critical edge, by lowering a dome of beryllium over the core. Louis Slotin, another physicist, had performed this move in many previous experiments: He would hold the dome with one hand, and with the other use a screwdriver to keep a small gap open, just barely limiting the flow of neutrons back to the bomb. On a May day in 1946, his hand slipped, and the gap closed. Again, the core went supercritical and dosed Slotin, along with seven other scientists in the room, with gamma radiation.
In each instance, when the core slipped over that threshold and started spewing radiation, a bright blue light flashed in the room—the result of highly energized particles hitting air molecules, which released that bolt of energy as streams of light.
The other scientists survived their radiation bath, but Slotin, closest to the core, died of radiation sickness nine days later. The experiments stopped. After a cooling-off period, the demon core was recast into a different weapon, eventually destroyed in a nuclear test.
An earlier US DOE funded site study of the site states that: “Mineral extraction in the area consists of underground potash mining and oil/gas extraction. Both industries support major facilities on the surface, although mining surface facilities are confined to a fairly small area…. Intrepid has rights to potash beneath the Site as shown in Appendix 2A, Map 9 and Figure 2.1.2-3. Mining has not progressed as far as Site….” https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1024/ML102440738.pdfWhile the dry salt lakes and potash mines suggest higher than normal corrosion rate for the 1/2 inch thick Holtec canisters, the location suggests sinkhole risk. The limited DOE funded study, which Holtec uses, denies the existence of karst, but this is hard to believe. Risk is exacerbated by the oil and gas wells and potash mining. The original DOE funded study states that “A producing gas and distillate well with associated tank battery is located near the communications tower…”
If “the requested CIS Facility license is issued by the NRC, Holtec subsequently anticipates requesting an amendment to the license to request authorization to possess and store an additional 500 canisters for each of 19 subsequent expansion phases to be completed over the course of years. Ultimately, Holtec anticipates that approximately 10,000 SNF canisters would be stored at the CIS Facility upon completion of all 20 phases…Phase 1 of the CIS Facility will include two HI-STORM UMAX pads that will allow storage of 500 canisters of SNF and GTCC waste from commercial nuclear reactors as well as a small quantity of spent mixed-oxide fuel..” https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/03/19/2018-05438/holtec-internationals-hi-store-consolidated-interim-storage-facility-for-interim-storage-of-spent
As explained by Donna Gilmore of San Onofre Safety:
“Holtec HI-STORM UMAX canister storage systems and all other thin-wall nuclear waste canister storage systems are vulnerable to short-term radioactive leaks and potential explosions and criticalities. Each canister has roughly as much highly radioactive Cesium-137 as was released from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
These thin-wall “Chernobyl” cans have the following design flaws:
* Vulnerable to short-term cracking and major radioactive leaks * Cannot be inspected inside or out * Cannot be repaired
HOLTEC IS PRIVATELY OWNED, APPARENTLY BY KRIS PAL SINGH, THOUGH REALLY NO ONE KNOWS. IN THE US THIS MEANS THAT IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO GET INFORMATION ON THE COMPANY. IN THE PAST, SINGH HAS REFUSED TO GIVE INFORMATION ABOUT THE SPENT FUEL CASK SYSTEMS TO THE US GOVERNMENT WHEN IT WAS NEEDED BY THEM TO ESTIMATE COSTS DURING A LAWSUIT. HOLTEC HAS BEEN FINED FOR BRIBING THE TVA. HOLTEC HAS REQUESTED AND GOTTEN WHAT SEEMS LIKE ENDLESS REQUESTS FOR EXEMPTIONS TO THE AGREED STANDARDS FOR PRODUCTION AND PACKING THE SPENT FUEL CASK SYSTEMS. AN UNKNOWN NUMBER OF THE SPENT FUEL CASKS ARE NOT EVEN CORRECTLY PACKED AND RECEIVED “EXEMPTIONS”. ON AT LEAST ONE NUCLEAR REACTOR SITE ALMOST ALL ARE IMPROPERLY PACKED. NOTE THAT HOLTEC EVEN TRIES TO CLAIM COPYRIGHT ON INFORMATION WHICH HOLTEC TOOK FROM AN EARLIER US GOVERNMENT FUNDED DOCUMENT. THIS GIVES A TINY IDEA OF WHAT JERKS THEY ARE.
Special vehicles are required to move the casks, as are specially built roads that can handle the immense weight.
“We don’t know if this highly dangerous material will be there for another 100 years or a thousand years.
if the casks are not moved in the coming decades, or even centuries, they worry about who would ultimately be responsible for protecting the nuclear waste. It’s unlikely, for example, that Entergy will still own the property, they say.
On a concrete pad about 25 feet above Plymouth Bay, eight massive steel-reinforced concrete cylinders hold the remains of the radioactive fuel that has kept the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station running since the 1970s.
When the plant begins decommissioning next year, Pilgrim officials expect to fill another 54 of the so-called dry casks, which are 18 feet tall, weigh 360,000 pounds, and emit small amounts of radiation. The concrete pad is a little more than 200 feet from the shoreline.
The problem is where to store the nuclear waste — especially since its current location won’t stay 25 feet above Plymouth Bay for long.
As sea levels rise at an accelerating rate, increasing the threat that an extreme storm surge could flood the coastal facility, Pilgrim officials are considering whether to move the spent fuel to higher ground.
Plant officials and federal regulators maintain that the current location is safe, at least for the foreseeable future, noting that the containers are designed to withstand flooding. But local activists are urging Pilgrim to take action, worried that the daunting political obstacles to moving the casks to a federal repository could force them to remain in Plymouth permanently.
“Not moving them would be irresponsible,” said Pine duBois, executive director of the Jones River Watershed Association in Kingston, which is about 8 miles from Pilgrim. “We don’t know if this highly dangerous material will be there for another 100 years or a thousand years. It has to be moved.”
Environmental advocates are calling on the state to require Entergy Corp., the Louisiana-based conglomerate that owns Pilgrim, to move the casks to its helipad or parking lot, which are three times higher than the existing storage site and set further back from the water.
Plant officials and federal regulators maintain that the current location is safe, at least for the foreseeable future, noting that the containers are designed to withstand flooding. But local activists are urging Pilgrim to take action, worried that the daunting political obstacles to moving the casks to a federal repository could force them to remain in Plymouth permanently.
“Not moving them would be irresponsible,” said Pine duBois, executive director of the Jones River Watershed Association in Kingston, which is about 8 miles from Pilgrim. “We don’t know if this highly dangerous material will be there for another 100 years or a thousand years. It has to be moved.”
Environmental advocates are calling on the state to require Entergy Corp., the Louisiana-based conglomerate that owns Pilgrim, to move the casks to its helipad or parking lot, which are three times higher than the existing storage site and set further back from the water.
Despite the concerns, plant officials say the casks are secure……….
Under recent worst-case projections, tides could rise as much as 10 feet by the end of the century and as much as 37 feet by 2200. That’s not accounting for storm surges, such as the 15-foot high tides that battered the Massachusetts coast during two nor’easters this winter, causing widespread flooding. …….
Under recent worst-case projections, tides could rise as much as 10 feet by the end of the century and as much as 37 feet by 2200. That’s not accounting for storm surges, such as the 15-foot high tides that battered the Massachusetts coast during two nor’easters this winter, causing widespread flooding………
The decision about where to store the casks comes as the 46-year-old plant faces a host of maintenance challenges. Entergy announced three years ago that it would close Pilgrim in June 2019, after a litany of economic woes and safety issues. In 2015, the NRC designated Pilgrim as one of the nation’s three least-safe reactors.
Those problems have persisted. Until Thursday, the plant had been offline for 43 days — one of its longest unplanned outages — after crews discovered a significant issue with a transformer that provides power for Pilgrim to operate. It was the second unplanned shutdown this year.
Plant officials must also weigh a range of other issues in deciding whether to move the waste, including security, radiation, and the impact on decommissioning the plant.
Cost is another factor.
Special vehicles are required to move the casks, as are specially built roads that can handle the immense weight. For example, at Vermont Yankee, which began the decommissioning process several years ago, it cost $143 million to fill and move their remaining casks to a new storage site.
Moving the casks uphill would add to the expense, and plant officials have not ruled out building a new storage pad adjacent to the existing one, which is only about 100 feet from the reactor building.
Storing nuclear waste has long been a thorny political issue, one that has become increasingly urgent as more aging plants are shuttered………
For local activists who have long raised concerns about the dangers of nuclear power, the assurances of Pilgrim and the NRC provide little comfort.
While the casks may not leak from being submerged for a brief period, they could be subject to corrosion from exposure to saltwater, which could create cracks and eventually lead to leaks, they said.
And if the casks are not moved in the coming decades, or even centuries, they worry about who would ultimately be responsible for protecting the nuclear waste. It’s unlikely, for example, that Entergy will still own the property, they say.
“We need a plan for the next 100 to 300 years,” said Mary Lampert, director of Pilgrim Watch, a civic watchdog group. “I don’t see that happening.”
Reuters 20th April 2018, In a sprawling plant near Amarillo, Texas, rows of workers perform by hand
one of the most dangerous jobs in American industry. Contract workers at
the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pantex facility gingerly remove the
plutonium cores from retired nuclear warheads. Although many safety rules
are in place, a slip of the hand could mean disaster.
AMARILLO, Texas (Reuters) – In a sprawling plant near Amarillo, Texas, rows of workers perform by hand one of the most dangerous jobs in American industry. Contract workers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pantex facility gingerly remove the plutonium cores from retired nuclear warheads.
Although many safety rules are in place, a slip of the hand could mean disaster.
In Energy Department facilities around the country, there are 54 metric tons of surplus plutonium. Pantex, the plant near Amarillo, holds so much plutonium that it has exceeded the 20,000 cores, called “pits,” regulations allow it to hold in its temporary storage facility. There are enough cores there to cause thousands of megatons of nuclear explosions. More are added each day.
The delicate, potentially deadly dismantling of nuclear warheads at Pantex, while little noticed, has grown increasingly urgent to keep the United States from exceeding a limit of 1,550 warheads permitted under a 2010 treaty with Russia. The United States wants to dismantle older warheads so that it can substitute some of them with newer, more lethal weapons. Russia, too, is building new, dangerous weapons.
The United States has a vast amount of deadly plutonium, which terrorists would love to get their hands on. Under another agreement, Washington and Moscow each are required to render unusable for weapons 34 metric tons of plutonium. The purpose is twofold: keep the material out of the hands of bad guys, and eliminate the possibility of the two countries themselves using it again for weapons. An Energy Department website says the two countries combined have 68 metric tons designated for destruction – enough to make 17,000 nuclear weapons. But the United States has no permanent plan for what to do with its share.
Plutonium must be made permanently inaccessible because it has a radioactive half-life of 24,000 years.
“A MUCH MORE DANGEROUS SITUATION”
Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy group based in Washington, says solving the problem of plutonium storage is urgent. In an increasingly unstable world, with terrorism, heightened international tensions and non-nuclear countries coveting the bomb, he says, the risk is that this metal of mass annihilation will be used again. William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told Reuters: “We are in a much more dangerous situation today than we were in the Cold War.”
Washington has not even begun to take the steps needed to acquire additional space for burying plutonium more than 2,000 feet below ground – the depth considered safe. Much of America’s plutonium currently is stored in a building at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina – like Pantex, an Energy Department site. Savannah River used to house a reactor. Local opponents of the storage, such as Tom Clements, director of SRS Watch, contend the facility was never built for holding plutonium and say there is a risk of leakage and accidents in which large amounts of radioactivity are released.
The Energy Department has a small experimental storage site underground in New Mexico. The department controls the radioactive materials – plutonium, uranium and tritium – used in America’s nuclear weapons and in the reactors of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. In a Senate hearing in June 2017, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the Energy Department has been in talks with New Mexico officials to enlarge the site. Environmental groups there have strongly opposed expansion.
Under an agreement with Russia, the United States was to convert 34 metric tons of plutonium into fuel for civilian reactors that generate electricity. The fuel is known as MOX, for “mixed oxide fuel.” Plutonium and uranium are converted into chemical compounds called oxides, and mixed together in fuel rods for civilian nuclear power plants. The two metals are converted into oxides because these can’t cause nuclear explosions. But the U.S. effort has run into severe delays and cost overruns.
The alternative method is known as dilute-and-dispose. It involves blending plutonium with an inert material and storing it in casks. The casks, however, are projected to last only 50 years before beginning to leak, and so would need to be buried permanently deep underground.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has called for 42 actions to correct safety deficits that led to a series of radioactive releases during demolition of the now-closed plutonium processing facility at the former Hanford nuclear weapons production site in Washington state.
The actions include better application of coatings and use of other technologies to control spread of radioactive contamination, broader radiation boundaries, improve air dispersion measurement and modeling, greater involvement of employees as demolition moves ahead, and better training of and communication with site workers to solicit their input.
Following the releases, site remediation halted last December. Several hundred workers were tested for radiation exposure. Test results showed that several dozen workers had inhaled or ingested detectable radiation but at levels acceptable to the department.
The shutdown only affects demolition of the plutonium facility, but that is a significant part of the $2 billion a year Hanford cleanup. Hanford, in turn, is the largest component in what is the world’s more expensive remediation program. During World War II and the Cold War, the Hanford site was one of more than 100 U.S. plants that made nuclear weapons components. All the plant sites are undergoing some level of remediation.
The radiation exposure incidents at Hanford occurred last year and DOE’s analysis of what happened was released publicly in March. Additionally, DOE recently announced an additional internal but independent review of the plutonium demolition project. That analysis will be “ongoing,” according to DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments, which will conduct the review. An official with the office would not predict when oversight will end.
The demolition and remediation will not restart until the Washington State Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which regulate Hanford cleanup activities, are satisfied the operation is safe, according to DOE and Washington state officials.
The plutonium finishing facility turned plutonium nitrate solutions into solid, hockey-puck-sized plutonium “buttons” that could be shipped to other facilities. It once was a complex of some 90 building and was shut down in the 1980s. Cleanup began in 1989; demolition began in 2016.
Last June and again in December, demolition activities contaminated workers and vehicles at the site. Small levels of radiation were found away from the plutonium facility but still within the Hanford site. No detectable amounts were found in workers’ homes, DOE says.
In the March report, DOE says 281 workers requested bioassays and were tested following the December release. The results found two doses less than 1 millirem, eight doses between 1 to 10 mrem, and one dose between 10 to 20 mrem. DOE sets the acceptable level at 100 mrem/year for nonradiological workers and members of the public and 500 mrem/year for radiological workers.
Following the June release, some 300 workers requested testing and bioassays found elevated radiation exposure for 31 workers, DOE says.
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.
nuclear-news 