Since President Donald Trump took office, some members of Congress have shown renewed interested in the mothballed Yucca Mountain project in Nevada as a long-term solution. But the industry has shown support for temporary storage as part of the storage equation because of the amount of time it would take to license a facility at Yucca Mountain.
Thorium reactors – NOT a solution to nuclear waste problem
Dispelling Claim 5: Thorium decreases the waste problem
Thorium ‒ a better fuel for nuclear technology? Nuclear Monitor, by Dr. Rainer Moormann 1 March 2018
Thorium use delivers virtually the same fission products
as classical uranium use. That is also true for those
isotopes that are important in issues around long-term
disposal. Those mobile long-lived fission products
(I-129, Tc-99, etc.) determine the risk of a deep geological
disposal when water intrusion is the main triggering event
for accidents. Thorium therefore does not deliver an
improvement for final disposal.
Proponents of thorium argue that thorium use does not
produce minor actinides (MA)5, nor plutonium. They argue
that these nuclides are highly toxic (which is correct) and
they compare only the pure toxicity by intake into the body
for thorium and uranium use, without taking into account
that these actinides are hardly mobile in final disposal
even in accidents.
Nevada residents urged to renew the fight against Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump plan
Nevada, keep up the fight against nuclear waste: RGJ Editorial Board (includes poll – currently 45% opposed) http://www.rgj.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/03/01/nevada-keep-up-fight-against-nuclear-waste-rgj-editorial-board/387365002/
A new proposal to store nuclear waste in New Mexico
Proposal advances to store nuclear waste in New Mexico, https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/proposal-advances-store-nuclear-waste-mexico-53456176
A new proposal to store nuclear waste underground in southern New Mexico — this time from nuclear reactors across the country — has cleared an initial regulatory hurdle and can now be vetted for detailed safety, security and environmental concerns, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday.
Federal nuclear regulators said the proposal from Holtec International to temporarily store spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico is sufficiently complete to begin the technical review process that eventually involves expert testimony and public comment.
Holtec is seeking an initial 40-year license for an underground storage facility that could accept radioactive used fuel piling up at reactors across the United States.
Southern New Mexico already is the site of the nation’s only underground nuclear waste repository that handles radioactive material from decades of bomb-making nuclear research. A 2014 radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project caused by an inappropriately packed container of waste forced the closer of that facility for three years, with extended repairs estimated to cost more than half a billion dollars.
For the proposed spent nuclear fuel storage facility, safety advocates have warned of transportation risks associated with moving massive casks of used fuel thousands of miles to New Mexico, and urged the public to speak up about the proposal.
“Up to now, it’s been Holtec talking to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the last 11 months,” said Don Hancock, nuclear programs director for the Southwest Research and Information Center, an Albuquerque-based environmental protection group. “Now the public is going to be able to get involved.”
Many local residents and politicians including New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinezhave voiced support for Holtec’s plans.
In a written notice to Holtec, federal nuclear regulators outlined a series of reviews that could be completed by July 2020 — or be delayed and suspended, based on responses from the company and safety determinations.
Federal officials have long acknowledged that the future of nuclear energy in the U.S. depends on the ability to manage used fuel and high-level radioactive waste.
Britain’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) wasted tax-payers’money bigtime , in its failed contract with Cavendish Fluor
Nucnet 1st March 2018, The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) completely failed in both the procurement and management of a contract to clean up the UK’s Magnox
nuclear reactor and research sites, a report by the Public Accounts
Committee says.
The report, released on 28 February 2018, says this
disrupted an important component of vital nuclear decommissioning work and
cost the taxpayer upwards of £122m (€137m, $167m). The £6.2bn contract
— one of the largest awarded by the UK government — was to dismantle 12
first-generation Magnox nuclear sites.
It was awarded to Cavendish Fluor Partnership, a joint venture between UK-based Babcock International and
Fluor of the US. The committee, which oversees government expenditure,
said: “The NDA ran an overly complex procurement process, resulting in it
awarding the contract to the wrong bidder, and subsequently settling legal
claims from a losing consortium to the tune of nearly £100m.”
The committee also said the NDA, a public body established in 2004 to oversee
the clean-up of the UK’s nuclear legacy, “drastically
under-estimated” the scale of the work needed to decommission the sites
at the time it let the contract – a failure which ultimately led to the
termination of the Magnox contract nine years early.
The NDA did not have sufficient capability to manage the procurement or the complex process of
resolving differences between what the contractor was told to expect on the
sites and what it actually found, the committee concluded.
The NDA will now have to spend even more effort and money to find a suitable way of managing
these sites after the contract comes to an official end in September 2019,
the committee said. The NDA may have further wasted taxpayers’ money by
paying its previous contractor for work that was not done. The NDA cannot
fully account for £500m of the £2.2bn increase in the cost of the
contract between September 2014 and March 2017. In particular, it does not
know whether the £500m cost increase was due to its incorrect assumptions
about the state of the sites when it let the contract or underperformance
by the previous contractor.
https://www.nucnet.org/all-the-news/2018/03/01/accounts-committee-says-nda-completely-failed-with-6-2-billion-uk-magnox-contract
Politicians promote nuclear power – as the radioactive wastes pile up for future generations
Nuclear waste mountains just go on growing http://www.eco-business.com/news/nuclear-waste-mountains-just-go-on-growing/ Some politicians still claim atomic energy is the answer to climate 
change while leaving the problem of nuclear waste to our descendants.
Nuclear waste has been an intractable problem since nuclear power was invented more than 50 years ago, and for many countries it is becoming an ever more expensive and politically embarrassing issue.
Not that politicians would admit this: many still argue that nuclear power is an answer to climate change, forgetting that they are passing the waste buck to future generations.
To those in power the solution to the waste problem is always just around the corner, conveniently just beyond their term of office. But the history of the industry over the last four decades, across the globe, is of dozens of failed schemes.
Currently the United States, France and the UK are yet again wrestling with the problem of repeated failed attempts to find a solution, as scientists warn that continued neglect of the issue is placing citizens in increasing danger.
The situation in China and Russia is not known, apart from the fact that in Russia there have recently been mysterious atmospheric leaks of radiation detected as far away as Switzerland.
Getting an honest overall situation report from the Russian government or from China seems unlikely, since many of their nuclear sites remain closed territories.
Long-lived radioactivity
The problem is that civil nuclear industries, especially when they are combined with a weapons programme, produce plutonium and other by-products in spent fuel that take as long as 100,000 years to decay.
Identifying somewhere to put these wastes where they could be safe for that length of time requires stable geological formations that are very hard to find anywhere. Since international law requires the state that produced the waste to dispose of it within its own boundaries, this is even more difficult.
If democracy is added into the mix, and people are given the right to object to a deep depository being built in their backyard, then in some countries the problem appears to be insoluble.
Two countries are close to solving the issue of their waste mountains, Swedenand Finland, although there are still regulatory hurdles to overcome.
Both are building deep depositories for their biggest problem, spent nuclear fuel. Fortunately spent fuel is less complex than the waste generated by the UK, France or the US, because it has no highly dangerous detritus remaining from nuclear weapon manufacturing.
For these three states, which have all reprocessed spent fuel to extract weapons grade plutonium, the situation is far more difficult. Despite this, all three countries are continuing to build nuclear power stations, potentially making the problem even worse for future generations.
The prime example is the UK, which wants to build a new generation of ten nuclear stations, but has just started its sixth search for a nuclear waste dump site in 42 years.
Various governments have gone through many proposals, some of them surviving through years of public consultations, planning inquiries and geological investigations, only to be finally rejected.
One favoured site, at Sellafield in Cumbria, next to the country’s two vast reprocessing facilities, was rejected on geological grounds – the rock it was to be built into has too many cracks to keep the waste from leaching into the water supply.
The latest scheme launched by the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy involves finding a community somewhere in Britain willing to take the waste in return for a very large bribe in the form of cash to develop schools, roads, industries and anything else that takes their fancy—as long as they host the nation’s nuclear waste for the next 100,000 years. It remains to be seen whether there are any takers.
Pledge ignored
The problem for the government is that it has frequently pledged not to build any more nuclear power stations until it has solved the problem of the waste, something it has patently failed to do. Meanwhile ever larger quantities of waste are being stored, much of it in unsatisfactory and sometimes dangerous conditions. Just keeping it safe costs £3bn (US$4.2bn) a year.
In the US, where the situation is as bad or worse, President Trump has re-opened the long-running saga of Yucca Mountain nuclear depository. This is a scheme that has been fought over for decades and abandoned because of local opposition.
The problem is that the waste stored in numerous US nuclear facilities is dangerous and urgently needs to be packaged and found a final resting place.
One of the most critical places is Hanford, once a place for making nuclear weapons that now has stores of unstable waste. The tanks full of liquid waste alone will cost an estimated $111bn to package and make safe. Trump’s reaction to this has been to slash Hanford’s budget by 10 per cent.
Meanwhile the answer from Nevada state officials to Trump’s proposal to re-open the Yucca Mountain depository scheme was to approve a $5.1mn legal contract to fight the proposal. It seems unlikely the situation will be resolved soon.
Eviction criticised
In north-eastern France hundreds of riot police were employed this month to evict 15 protestors living in tree houses to protect a zone in the forest of Lejuc, near Meuse.
The use of 500 armed gendarmes to evict 15 people has been strongly criticised, not least because the government has not yet finally agreed that this is the right site to bury 85,000 cubic metres of waste that will remain dangerous for 100,000 years.
The problem for these three governments—and others in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and many other states that built nuclear power stations in the last century—is the growing urgency of finding a solution.
In Britain, France and the US there are “swimming pool-size tanks” of high-level waste which are unstable and need work without delay.
With one third of Europe’s operating nuclear power stations due to be shut down by 2025, and European utilities short of €118bn (US$145bn) in decommissioning and waste management funds to pay for the work, it looks as though taxpayers will be left to foot this enormous bill.
Knowing this, companies are queuing up to get into the nuclear waste business, confident that governments will sooner or later be forced to step in and provide the money to keep their citizens safe.
Plan to seal off South end of USA’s Nuclear Waste Isolation Pilot Project
South end of WIPP to be sealed. But how? March 1, 2018 Officials are hoping to seal off the south end of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s underground salt mine, where radiation was accidentally released in 2014, to allay safety concerns and ensure workers have clean air and stable ground in the future.
India’s State-owned nuclear power corporation plans new nuclear units, without nuclear waste facilities set up
NPCIL’s stand on spent fuel riles environmentalists The Hindu, , FEBRUARY
27, 2018
Delay in transporting spent nuclear fuel from Japan’s closed Fugen reactor
Mainichi 26th Feb 2018, The transportation of spent nuclear fuel from the site of the Fugen
prototype advanced converter reactor in central Japan will be postponed by
nine years to fiscal 2026 as a reprocessing facility has yet to be
determined, its operator said Monday.
Japan Atomic Energy Agency President Toshio Kodama announced the delay in a meeting with Fukui Gov. Issei
Nishikawa. The state-backed agency had initially aimed to complete
transportation of the fuel from the reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture,
by next month. It was originally planned that the reprocessing facility in
Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, would receive the fuel, but the agency
decided in 2014 to scrap the plant due to the difficulty of satisfying
tighter safety regulations adopted following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear
crisis.
The agency had been looking to transport the fuel overseas for
reprocessing but discussions have not gone smoothly, sources close to the
matter said. The Fugen reactor is currently undergoing decommissioning
after being shut down in March 2003 without the prospect of being put to
commercial use, as a project to build a next-stage experimental reactor was
scrapped due to its high cost. Operation of the reactor started in 1979.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180226/p2g/00m/0dm/071000c
YUCCA MOUNTAIN NRC sets meeting on licensing issues despite lack of funding
Australia’s extreme right wing Senator promises $445 billions to South Australia, if it takes in the world’s radioactive trash
Cory Bernardi says a nuclear power dump could make us the ‘Saudi Arabia of the south’, news.com.au 26 Feb 18 CORY Bernardi is pushing to reignite a controversial development in South Australia, saying it could make the state the “Saudi Arabia of the south”.
LEADER of the Australian Conservatives party Cori Bernardi is pushing for a nuclear waste dump in South Australia, which he says will transform the state into the economic “Saudi Arabia of the south”.
Speaking at the party’s election launch in South Australia on Sunday, founder and federal Senator Cory Bernardi said he wanted to reopen the debate on an outback nuclear dump.
He called for changes to the law to allow for “all forms of energy production”, including nuclear power, urging authorities to “complete a full rigorous analysis” of the idea.
According to The Advertiser, he claimed the dump would generate up to $6.7 billion in gross state product, allow for $3 billion in annual taxes to be scrapped, and see the state reaping in $445 billion over the next century.
“Imagine that legacy for our children … to draw on in developing this state,” he said. “We would be an economic powerhouse. We would be the strongest state in the Commonwealth.”
Upper House candidate Robert Brokenshire said the party is “committed to looking at all types of energy production including nuclear energy to find the cheapest and most reliable form of energy”.
Labor Premier Jay Weatherill was quick to rule out the suggestion.
“That’s dead,” he said on Sunday. “Labor Party policy has been opposed to a nuclear waste facility in the past and there’s no prospect of changing that in the future.”
Mr Weatherill did not rule out pursuing a High Court case against the Turnbull government if a national nuclear waste dump was to be approved in South Australia, The Australian reported last month.
……..Earlier this month, the Australian Conservatives announced it will field 33 Lower House and two Upper House candidates at the state election on March 17. http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/cory-bernardi-says-a-nuclear-power-dump-could-make-us-the-saudi-arabia-of-the-south/news-story/eb3f1ada5ed978646f53a2911f0e1c3d
Removal of spent fuel from Fukui’s defunct Fugen reactor delayed by nine years
Seriously flawed legislation as California struggles with the toxic legacy of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Station
A pact with the devil, https://www.newtimesslo.com/sanluisobispo/a-pact-with-the-devil/Content?oid=4329619, BY AMY HEWES , 22 Feb 18
Diablo Canyon Power Plant is due to shut down in 2025, maybe earlier, but the radioactive waste it has generated will threaten our lives for another 200,000 years.
Society owns this Pandora’s box—but we haven’t owned up to the responsibility.
“For 30 years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has kept its head in the sands,” U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) said.
To his credit, Carbajal understands the urgency of the nuclear waste problem and has co-signed a bipartisan bill, HR 3035, that he hopes will provide a temporary solution.
Unfortunately, that legislation is seriously flawed. Without amendments or follow-up legislation, the bill threatens huge population centers in the event of likely unavoidable transportation accidents. It also establishes unsafe consolidated waste dumps without mandating a permanent, geological repository.
Having lived in the shadow of Diablo Canyon since 1985, most of us on the Central Coast have become inured to the dangers that lurk there. But even after decades of decay, it takes just a few minutes of exposure for spent fuel rods to deliver a killing dose of radioactivity. According to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), “Certain radioactive elements (such as plutonium-239) in ‘spent’ fuel will remain hazardous to humans and other living 
beings for hundreds of thousands of years. Other radioisotopes will remain hazardous for millions of years. Thus, these wastes must be shielded for centuries and isolated from the living environment for hundreds of millenia.”
“Today, there are 100 reactors operating at 59 sites in the U.S., and 35 permanently shut-down reactors at 25 additional sites,” noted Tim Judson, NIRS executive director.
How many tons of highly dangerous waste has accumulated at these sites? “The last reliable estimate was 74,000 tons in 2015—more than the 70,000-ton mandated capacity limit for Yucca Mountain [the stalled U.S. geologic repository located in Nevada],” said Judson.
On average, the industry generates about 2,000 tons of additional irradiated fuel each year, bringing the total tonnage to 80,000 tons.
Just over the hill from San Luis Obispo, approximately 2,200 metric tons of toxic waste is stored onsite at Diablo Canyon. By the time the plant closes, we’ll face a 2,690-metric-ton, 200,000-year-long local problem.
No wonder Carbajal has embraced HR 3035, which would authorize mass transportation of waste to parking lot dumps, supposedly “interim” consolidated storage sites—now proposed in Texas and New Mexico. Under the bill, our mountain of waste would become someone else’s problem.
Or would it? Why does NIRS, the Union of Concerned Scientists, San Onofre Saftey, Beyond Nuclear, and SLO-based Mothers for Peace, among others, oppose the bill?
First, consider transportation of the world’s deadliest waste. Shipments would travel through 45 states, exposing millions of people to murderous radiation in an accident.
And accidents do happen. Amtrak’s latest derailment in December sent train cars plummeting onto the interstate in DuPont, Washington. Meanwhile, in 1999, the American Petroleum Institute reported that heavy truck accidents occur approximately six times per million miles. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in 2015 alone there were 57,313 fatal and injury crashes involving large trucks on our highways. Of those accidents, at least 154 resulted in the release of hazardous material.
Imagine if that hazardous material was radioactive.
OK, but aren’t the shipment casks built to withstand accidents?
Nope. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) allows U.S. nuclear plants to store or transport spent fuel waste in thin walled welded stainless steel canisters designed to withstand a crash at 30 miles per hour. Do you want to bet lives that they would hold up in a calamity at 80 miles per hour?
Before HR 3053 is approved—and before any more thin-walled canisters are stored at earthquake-prone Diablo Canyon—there needs to be legislation mandating upgraded, thick-walled casks such as those used in Europe and Japan. We should also demand continuous, long-term monitoring and inspection of all transportation containers and/or dry storage casks, whether they’re stacked at Diablo Canyon or at consolidated the “interim” sites envisioned in HR 3053.
And let’s be honest: The Nuclear Waste Policy Act currently disallows “interim” nuclear waste storage at consolidated sites unless a permanent U.S. geologic repository is built. HR 3053, however, does away with that mandate. Without that leverage—and in light of the enormous political and scientific challenges to establishing a permanent repository—in all likelihood, “interim” will de facto become “permanent.”
What to do? Carbajal and his congressional colleagues should listen to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which has testified that “spent fuel can be managed safely at reactor sites for decades, but only if … the security of dry cask storage is enhanced.” UCS told a House committeee last year that interim facilities should not be allowed unless a permanent repository is established. And, finally, the science-based group has called for Congress to fully support the technical work needed to build a safe and secure permanent repository.
Carbajal agrees that HR 3053 is only a temporary fix and that Mothers for Peace and other opponents have legitimate concerns. But we cannot let what he terms a “Sophie’s choice” bill to become a pact with the devil.
Carbajal and Congress must address the problems before this legislation goes forward. Because, as Mothers for Peace spokesperson Linda Seeley said, “Diablo Canyon is our baby—a horrible, poisonous monster—but we have to take care of it. It’s morally wrong to do otherwise.” Δ
Amy Hewes is actively involved in grassroots political action. Send comments through the editor at clanham@newtimesslo.com.
Swedish Environmental Court’s very thorough study on copper canisters for storing spent nuclear fuel rods
MKG 20th Feb 2018, Translation into English of the Swedish Environmental Court’s opinion on
the final repository for spent nuclear fuel – as well as some comments onthe decision and the further process. The court said no to the application because it considered that there were problems with the copper canister that had to be resolved now and not later.
The translation shows the court’s judicial argumentation and why it decided not to accept the regulator
SSM’s opinion that the problems with the integrity of the copper canister were not serious and could likely be solved at a later stage in the decision-making process.
The main difference between the court’s and the regulator’s decision-making was that the court decided to rely on a multitude of scientific sources and information and not only on the material provided by SKB.
It had also been uncovered that the main corrosion expert at SSM did not want to say yes to the application at this time that may have influenced the court’s decision-making. In fact there appear to have been many dissenting voices in the regulator despite the regulator’s claim in the court that a united SSM stood behind its opinion.
http://www.mkg.se/en/translation-into-english-of-the-swedish-environmental-court-s-opinion-on-the-final-repository-for-sp
Health Effects of Plutonium
Here is a 1997 article by a nuclear fission expert on the health effects of the deadly substance.
Plutonium pellet
By Dr Arjun Makhijani
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
December 1997
Plutonium-239 is a very hazardous carcinogen which can also be used to make nuclear weapons. This combination of properties makes it one of the most dangerous substances. Plutonium-239, while present in only trace quantities in nature, has been made in large quantities in both military and commercial programs in the last 50 years. Other more radioactive carcinogens do exist, like radium-226, but unlike plutonium-239 cannot be used to make nuclear weapons, or are not available in quantity. Highly enriched uranium (HEU) can also be used to make nuclear weapons, but it is roughly one thousand times less radioactive than plutonium-239. The danger is aggravated by the fact that plutonium-239 is relatively difficult to detect once it is outside of secure, well-instrumented facilities, or once it has been incorporated into the body. This is because its gamma ray emissions, which provide the easiest method of detection of radionuclides, are relatively weak.
The main carcinogenic property of plutonium-239 arises from the energetic alpha radiation it emits. Alpha particles, being heavy, transfer their energy to other atoms and molecules within fewer collisions than the far lighter electrons which are the primary means of radiation damage for both gamma and beta radiation.1 Alpha particles travel only a short distance within living tissue, repeatedly bombarding the cells and tissue nearby. This results in far more biological damage for the same amount of energy deposited in living tissue. The relative effectiveness of various kinds of radiation in causing biological damage is known as “relative biological effectiveness” (RBE). This varies according to the type of radiation, its energy, and the organ of the body being irradiated. A simple factor, called quality factor, is used to indicate the relative danger of alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiation for regulatory purposes. The International Commission on Radiation Protection currently recommends the use of a quality factor of 20 for alpha radiation relative to gamma radiation.2
Once in the body, plutonium-239 is preferentially deposited in soft tissues, notably the liver, on bone surfaces, in bone marrow and other non-calcified areas of the bone, as well as those areas of the bone that do not contain cartilage. Deposition in bone marrow can have an especially harmful effect on the blood formation which takes place there. By contrast, radium-226, another alpha emitter, is chemically akin to calcium and so becomes deposited in the calcified areas of bones.
When it is outside the body, plutonium-239 is less dangerous than gamma-radiation sources. Since alpha particles transfer their energy within a short distance, plutonium-239 near the body deposits essentially all of its energy in the outer dead layer of the skin, where it does not cause biological damage.
The gamma rays emitted due to plutonium-239 decay penetrate into the body, but as these are relatively few and weak, a considerable quantity of plutonium-239 would be necessary to yield substantial doses from gamma radiation. Thus, plutonium-239 can be transported with minimal shielding, with no danger of immediate serious radiological effects. The greatest health danger from plutonium-239 is from inhalation, especially when it is in the common form of insoluble plutonium-239 oxide. Another danger is absorption of plutonium into the blood stream through cuts and abrasions. The risk from absorption into the body via ingestion is generally much lower than that from inhalation, because plutonium is not easily absorbed by the intestinal walls, and so most of it will be excreted.
The kind of damage that plutonium-239 inflicts and the likelihood with which it produces that damage depend on the mode of incorporation of plutonium into the body, the chemical form of the plutonium and the particle size. The usual modes of incorporation for members of the public are inhalation or ingestion. Plutonium may be ingested by accidental ingestion of plutonium-containing soil, or through eating and drinking contaminated food and water. Incorporation via cuts is a hazard mainly for workers and (in former times) for personnel participating in the atmospheric nuclear testing program.
In general, plutonium in the form of large particles produces a smaller amount of biological damage, and therefore poses a smaller risk of disease, than the same amount of plutonium divided up into smaller particles. When large particles are inhaled, they tend to be trapped in the nasal hair; this prevents their passage into the lungs. Smaller particles get into the bronchial tubes and into the lungs, where they can become lodged, irradiating the surrounding tissue.
Other plutonium isotopes that emit alpha radiation, like plutonium-238, have similar health effects as plutonium-239, when considered per unit of radioactivity. But the radioactivity per unit weight varies according to the isotope. For instance, plutonium-238 is about 270 times more radioactive than plutonium-239 per unit of weight.
Experimental data
The health effects of plutonium have been studied primarily by experiments done on laboratory animals. Some analyses have also been done on workers and non-worker populations exposed to plutonium contamination. Measurements of burdens of plutonium using lung counters or whole-body counters, together with follow-up of exposed individuals, have provided information which is complementary to experimental data and analysis. Experiments injecting human beings with plutonium were also done in the United States. Between 1945 and 1947, 18 people were injected with plutonium in experiments used to get data on plutonium metabolism. They were done without informed consent and have been the object of considerable criticism since information about them became widely known in 1993.
Experiments on beagles have shown that a very small amount of plutonium in insoluble form will produce lung cancer with near-one-hundred-percent probability. When this data is extrapolated to humans, the figure for lethal lung burden of plutonium comes out to about 27 micrograms. Such an extrapolation from animals, of course, has some uncertainties. However, it is safe to assume that several tens of micrograms of plutonium-239 in the lung would greatly increase the risk of lung cancer. Larger quantities of plutonium will produce health problems in the short-term as well.
The precise quantitative effects of considerably lower quantities of plutonium are as yet not well known. This is due to several factors such as: the difficulty of measuring plutonium in the body; uncertainties regarding excretion rates and functions due to the large variation in such rates from one human being to the next (so that the same body burden of plutonium would produce considerably different doses); complicating factors such as smoking; uncertainties in the data (as, for instance, about the time of ingestion or inhalation); differing and largely unknown exposure to other sources of carcinogens (both radioactive and non-radioactive) over the long periods over which studies are conducted; failure to study and follow-up on the health of workers who worked with plutonium in the nuclear weapons industry to the extent possible.
One of the few attempts to analyze the effects of microgram quantities of plutonium on exposed human subjects was a long-term study of 26 “white male subjects” from the Manhattan Project exposed to plutonium at Los Alamos in 1944 and 1945, where the first nuclear weapons were made. These subjects have been followed for a long period of time, with the health status of the subjects periodically published. The most recent results were published in a study in 1991.3
The amounts of plutonium deposited in the bodies of the subjects were estimated to range from “a low of 110 Bq (3 nCi) …up to 6960 Bq (188 nCi),”4 corresponding to a weight range of 0.043 micrograms to 3 micrograms. However, weaknesses in the study resulted in considerable uncertainties about the amount and solubility of plutonium actually incorporated at the time of exposure.5
Of the seven deaths by 1990, one was due to a bone cance (bone sarcoma).6 Bone cancer is rare in humans. The chances of it normally being observed in a group of 26 men over a 40-year timeframe is on the order one in 100. Thus, its existence in a plutonium-exposed man (who received a plutonium dose below that of current radiation protection guidelines) is significant. 7 There are data for plutonium exposure in other countries, notably in Russia. These are still in the process of being evaluated. Collaborative US-Russian studies are now beginning under the Joint Coordinating Committee on Radiation Effects Research (JCCRER) to assess the health effects of the Mayak plant to both workers and neighbors of the facility.
Endnotes
1. Gamma rays consist of high energy photons, which are “packets” or quanta of electromagnetic energy.
2. The energy deposited in a medium (per unit of mass) is measured in units of grays or rads (1 gray = 100 rads), while the biological damage is measured in sieverts or rems (1 sievert = 100 rems).
3. G.L.Voelz and J.N.P. Lawrence, “A 42-year medical follow-up of Manhattan project plutonium workers.” Health Physics, Vol. 37, 1991, pp. 445-485.
4. Ibid., p. 186.
5. These aspects of the study are discussed in some detail in Gofman 1981, pp. 510-520 (based on the status of the Manhattan Project workers study as published in Voelz 1979). See J.W. Gofman, Radiation and Human Health, (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991), p. 516.
6. Three of these deaths were due to lung cancer. It is difficult to assess the significance of this large percentage, since all three were smokers.
7. Voelz, p. 189.
Arjun Makhijani, President of IEER, holds a Ph.D. in engineering (specialization: nuclear fusion) from the University of California at Berkeley. He has produced many studies and articles on nuclear fuel cycle related issues, including weapons production, testing, and nuclear waste, over the past twenty years. He is the principal author of the first study ever done (completed in 1971) on energy conservation potential in the U.S. economy. Most recently, Dr. Makhijani has authored Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (RDR Books and IEER Press, 2007), the first analysis of a transition to a U.S. economy based completely on renewable energy, without any use of fossil fuels or nuclear power. He is the principal editor of Nuclear Wastelands and the principal author of Mending the Ozone Hole, both published by MIT Press.
Also see: Radioactive iodine releases from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors may exceed those of Three Mile Island by over 100,000 times, March 25, 2011.
UK’s plans for nuclear waste canisters – face the same problems as Sweden’s
Sweden’s problem is also our problem https://cumbriatrust.wordpress.com/2018/02/21/swedens-problem-is-also-our-problem/ February 21, 2018
Last month Cumbria Trust reported that the Swedish Environmental Court had blocked a licence application to construct a GDF for spent nuclear fuel after serious concerns were raised over the corrosion of the copper canisters used in the KBS-3 method. The same containment method is intended to be used in the UK. This court ruling was a success for MKG, the Swedish environmental organisation which receives government funding to act as a critical friend, scrutinising Sweden’s plan to bury nuclear waste.
MKG have now released some further details which show that the corrosion concerns are shared by experts within the Swedish regulator, SSM. While the nuclear industry, including the UK’s Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) seem keen to minimise the significance of this court ruling, by describing it as a delay and a request for more information, it appears the problem may be more fundamental, and could lead to this method of KBS-3 copper encapsulation being abandoned. This would damage the UK’s search process.
A key assumption with the KBS-3 method is that copper does not corrode in anoxic conditions, that is without the presence of oxygen. While there will be oxygen present at first, once the canisters are placed within the bentonite clay, bacteria and chemical processes consume the oxygen, creating the desired anoxic environment. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that even without oxygen, the copper begins to corrode by pitting. The heat generated by the spent fuel appears to be a significant factor in accelerating this pitting process. These capsules were intended to remain intact for a million years, but tests have suggested that they may well fail much sooner.
The significance of the problem goes well beyond this encapsulation method. There are lessons that should be learned, but the question is whether the nuclear industry will be open enough to do so. One key lesson is that funding a critical friend NGO such as MKG, can help to identify problems and reduce the impact of groupthink which leads to irrational decision-making. Another appears to be that we are prone to over-confidence in engineering. Isolating nuclear waste from the surface for a million years, particularly waste types which produce a great deal of heat, is complex. While we can test potential containment methods for around a generation, we need to be confident that these methods will continue to work for 30,000 generations.
“There is only one form of containment for liquids and gases which has been demonstrated to work for millions of years, even under great pressure, and that is geological formations. We have a vast quantity of evidence from the oil and gas industry of rock formations which have isolated hydrocarbons from the surface for many millions of years. So while Cumbria Trust continues to support the principle of geological disposal, as potentially the least bad solution to an existing problem, the key to its success must be the geology in which it is constructed.”
Any search process for a GDF site must begin with suitable geology and the failed attempts in Cumbria have concluded that the search should move to an area of simple geology and low groundwater flow. Cumbria Trust fears that the selective blindness which has led to the previous failures of the search process, will result in another attempt to target Cumbria despite its complex geology.
1 This Month
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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