Dalgety Bay – 20,000 tonnes of radioactive material from the area to screen, – clean-up begins at last.
Scotsman 23rd May 2021, 30 years on, Scotland’s radioactive beach clean-up begins at last. It’s not a scene which might usually be welcome, but locals in the Fife town of Dalgety Bay have been waiting decades for this – ever since highly dangerous radioactive material was detected on the shoreline more than 30 years ago. Contamination was first identified there in 1990, but the source – luminous paint used on aircraft navigation dials – dates back to theSecond World War.
The area was once home to Donibristle military airfield,
where a large number of planes were dismantled after the end of the
conflict in 1945 and the debris burned and buried. Part of the foreshore at
Dalgety Bay has been off limits to the public since 2011 due to the health
risks posed by radioactive debris.
Radium was used to coat instrument
panels so they could be seen in the dark, but it is radioactive and toxic
to human health, with a half life of 1,600 years. Work to clean up
potentially deadly radioactive contamination has got under way at Dalgety
Bay in Fife, caused by debris from aircraft used during the Second World
War.
David Barratt, Fife councillor for Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay, has
welcomed the work finally getting started. He said: “It has taken over 30
years and significant pressure from the community to get to this point.
“I’m delighted that works are now under way and grateful to Sepa for
all their effort in ensuring it will be done right, providing a permanent
solution.
“It should send a clear message that it doesn’t matter how much
time passes, the polluter should always pay. “Time will tell if its
smooth sailing from here and whether a 2022 completion date is possible.
They have around 20,000 tonnes of material from the area to screen and the
more contamination they find, the longer it will take, but at least now we
know it will be safe, however long it takes.”
Changes to Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could hide plan to expand this nuclear waste facility.
New Mexico weighs changes to permit for nuclear waste dump CARLBAD, N.M. (AP) 23 May 21, — U.S. officials are pushing state regulators to clear the way for a new ventilation shaft to be built at the federal government’s nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico, but watchdog groups say modifying the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s permit to allow for the construction could open the door to expansion.
The state Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau held a virtual hearing over the past week to gather comments on the proposed permit change. A final decision is anticipated in mid-October.
Ventilation has been an issue since 2014, when a radiation release contaminated parts of the underground facility and forced an expensive, nearly three-year closure, delayed the federal government’s cleanup program and prompted policy changes at national laboratories and defense-related sites across the U.S.
Officials with the U.S. Energy Department have said the new shaft is needed to repair a “crippled” ventilation system, the Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper reported………
The proposal is supported by leaders from the nearby city of Carlsbad, where many of the plant’s employees live.
……………… Cynthia Weehler, a Santa Fe resident and representative of activist group Stop Forever WIPP, argued the utility shaft was indicative of the Energy Department gradually expanding the repository using individual projects rather than proposing the overall goal of altering the facility’s mission to extend its lifetime.
She said that if New Mexico approves the permit, it would seem to be “colluding” with the Energy Department “to relabel a new mission and a future expansion.”
“It will lead us to an operation we didn’t consent to,” Weehler said. https://apnews.com/article/nm-state-wire-new-mexico-nuclear-waste-business-science-171b011df1d62d4a433b78f8c03e1760
Plutonium ”hot particles” are not as stable as we assumed. Research on contaminated landscape around Maralinga in outback South Australia.
We sliced open radioactive particles from soil in South Australia and found they may be leaking plutonium https://theconversation.com/we-sliced-open-radioactive-particles-from-soil-in-south-australia-and-found-they-may-be-leaking-plutonium-161277
Barbara Etschmann, Research officer, Monash University
Joel Brugger, Professor of Synchrotron Geosciences, Monash University
Vanessa Wong, Associate Professor, Monash University
May 21, 2021 Almost 60 years after British nuclear tests ended, radioactive particles containing plutonium and uranium still contaminate the landscape around Maralinga in outback South Australia.
These “hot particles” are not as stable as we once assumed. Our research shows they are likely releasing tiny chunks of plutonium and uranium which can be easily transported in dust and water, inhaled by humans and wildlife and taken up by plants.
A British nuclear playground
After the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, other nations raced to build their own nuclear weapons. Britain was looking for locations to conduct its tests. When it approached the Australian government in the early 1950s, Australia was only too eager to agree.
Between 1952 and 1963, Britain detonated 12 nuclear bombs in Australia. There were three in the Montebello Islands off Western Australia, but most were in outback South Australia: two at Emu Field and seven at Maralinga.
Besides the full-scale nuclear detonations, there were hundreds of “subcritical” trials designed to test the performance and safety of nuclear weapons and their components. These trials usually involved blowing up nuclear devices with conventional explosives, or setting them on fire.
The subcritical tests released radioactive materials. The Vixen B trials alone (at the Taranaki test site at Maralinga) spread 22.2 kilograms of plutonium and more than 40 kilograms of uranium across the arid landscape. For comparison, the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki contained 6.4 kilograms of plutonium, while the one dropped on Hiroshima held 64 kilograms of uranium.
These tests resulted in long-lasting radioactive contamination of the environment. The full extent of the contamination was only realised in 1984, before the land was returned to its traditional owners, the Maralinga Tjarutja people.
Hot potatoes
Despite numerous cleanup efforts, residual plutonium and uranium remains at Maralinga. Most is present in the form of “hot particles”. These are tiny radioactive grains (much smaller than a millimetre) dispersed in the soil.
Plutonium is a radioactive element mostly made by humans, and the weapons-grade plutonium used in the British nuclear tests has a half life of 24,100 years. This means even 24,100 years after the Vixen B trials that ended in 1963, there will still be almost two Nagasaki bombs worth of plutonium spread around the Taranaki test site.
Plutonium emits alpha radiation that can damage DNA if it enters a body through eating, drinking or breathing.
In their original state, the plutonium and uranium particles are rather inactive. However, over time, when exposed to atmosphere, water, or microbes, they may weather and release plutonium and uranium in dust or rainstorms.
Until recently, we knew little about the internal makeup of these hot particles. This makes it very hard to accurately assess the environmental and health risks they pose.
Monash PhD student Megan Cook (the lead author on our new paper) took on this challenge. Her research aimed to identify how plutonium was deposited as it was carried by atmospheric currents following the nuclear tests (some of it travelled as far as Queensland!), the characteristics of the plutonium hot particles when they landed, and potential movement within the soil.
Nanotechnology to the rescue
Previous studies used the super intense X-rays generated by synchrotron light sources to map the distribution and oxidation state of plutonium inside the hot particles at the micrometre scale.
To get more detail, we used X-rays from the Diamond synchrotron near Oxford in the UK, a huge machine more than half a kilometre in circumference that produces light ten billion times brighter than the Sun in a particle accelerator.
Studying how the particles absorbed X-rays revealed they contained plutonium and uranium in several different states of oxidation – which affects how reactive and toxic they are. However, when we looked at the shadows the particles cast in X-ray light (or “X-ray diffraction”), we couldn’t interpret the results without knowing more about the different chemicals inside the particles.
To find out more, we used a machine at Monash University that can slice open tiny samples with a nanometre-wide beam of high-energy ions, then analyse the elements inside and make images of the interior. This is a bit like using a lightsaber to cut a rock, only at the tiniest of scales. This revealed in exquisite detail the complex array of materials and textures inside the particles.
Much of the plutonium and uranium is distributed in tiny particles sized between a few micrometres and a few nanometres, or dissolved in iron-aluminium alloys. We also discovered a plutonium-uranium-carbon compound that would be destroyed quickly in the presence of air, but which was held stable by the metallic alloy.
This complex physical and chemical structure of the particles suggests the particles formed by the cooling of droplets of molten metal from the explosion cloud.
In the end, it took a multidisciplinary team across three continents — including soil scientists, mineralogists, physicists, mineral engineers, synchrotron scientists, microscopists, and radiochemists — to reveal the nature of the Maralinga hot particles.
From fire to dust
Our results suggest natural chemical and physical processes in the outback environment may cause the slow release of plutonium from the hot particles over the long term. This release of plutonium is likely to be contributing to ongoing uptake of plutonium by wildlife at Maralinga.
Even under the semi-arid conditions of Maralinga, the hot particles slowly break down, liberating their deadly cargo. The lessons from the Maralinga particles are not limited to outback Australia. They are also useful in understanding particles generated from dirty bombs or released during subcritical nuclear incidents.
There have been a few documented instances of such incidents. These include the B-52 accidents that resulted in the conventional detonation of thermonuclear weapons near Palomares in Spain in 1966, and Thule in Greenland in 1968, and the explosion of an armed nuclear missile and subsequent fire at the McGuire Air Force Base in the USA in 1960.
Thousands of active nuclear weapons are still held by nations around the world today. The Maralinga legacy shows the world can ill afford incidents involving nuclear particles.
China building uneconomic closed fuel cycle nuclear breeder reactors – for plutonium for nuclear weapons?
the kind of plutonium breeder reactors being built on Changbiao, they are among the least cost-effective ways to derive energy from nuclear power.
That raises the question of why China is developing these reactors for its energy use if it doesn’t make sense economically. ……. “They may be dual-purpose.”
Concerns grow over China nuclear reactors shrouded in mystery
No one outside China knows if two new nuclear reactors that are under construction and that will produce plutonium serve a dual civilian-military use. By Al Jazeera Staff, 19 May 21,
Like many of the over 5,000 small islands dotting China’s coastline, the islet of Changbiao is unremarkable in its history and geography. Jutting out from the shoreline of Fujian province like a small right-footed footprint, it has only gained recognition recently – and even then among a small handful of experts – for being home to China’s first two CFR-600 sodium-cooled fast-neutron nuclear reactors……..
The two reactors being built on Changbiao are closed fuel cycle nuclear breeder reactors. They produce plutonium. That plutonium could be reprocessed and used as a fuel source for other nuclear reactors. It could also be used to produce nuclear warheads, a lot of nuclear warheads, and produce them very quickly.
But no one outside of the Chinese officials and companies overseeing the projects knows if the intended use is purely for civilian energy, or if it serves a dual purpose for the country’s perceived nuclear deterrent needs.
That question gained even more urgency this week after a United States official accused Beijing of resisting bilateral talks with Washington on nuclear risk reduction.
The reason these breeder reactors are shrouded in mystery is that China, which had been transparent about its civilian plutonium programme until recently, stopped annual voluntary declarations to the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] on its stocks of civilian plutonium in 2017 and has not added the reactors to the agency’s database to date.
While there are occasionally reporting delays of up to a year among the nine members party to the IAEA voluntary guidelines for the management of plutonium, Frank von Hippel, a senior nuclear research physicist and co-founder of Princeton University’s Program on Science & Global Security, said China’s lack of transparency is beginning to draw concern among non-proliferation experts and governments around the world.
“This is unique at this point,” von Hippel said of the silence over China’s plutonium activities.
I’m worried’
A recent paper (PDF) co-authored by von Hippel and several other nuclear non-proliferation experts drew attention to this issue. The findings stated that China could “conservatively produce 1,270 nuclear weapons by 2030 simply by exploiting the weapons-grade plutonium this program will produce” or even increase that by a factor of two or more if China used highly enriched uranium or composite uranium-plutonium cores from the reactors in bombs and missiles.
This would feed a huge increase from the number of estimated nuclear warheads in China’s arsenal, currently thought to be around 300 to 350.
“Well, I’m worried,” von Hippel said. “They may be dual-purpose.”
While the IAEA management guidelines have been something of a failure over the years, at least they “did provide transparency”, von Hippel says. Now, everyone but China is in the dark about the plutonium programme and it is starting to draw attention……..
The China Atomic Energy Authority, the agency responsible for reporting to the IAEA, did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions about why China stopped reporting on its civilian plutonium programme. Similar requests from Al Jazeera made through China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Energy Administration and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology were likewise not acknowledged…….
The country has 50 nuclear reactors operating and 14 other conventional reactors under construction, not counting the two breeder reactors, according to IAEA data. China undershot its previous five-year target by around seven gigawatts, so appears to be making a major push to advance its nuclear power capacity over the next five to ten years.
But both Roth and von Hippel said, based on the experience of other countries that have tried the kind of plutonium breeder reactors being built on Changbiao, they are among the least cost-effective ways to derive energy from nuclear power.
“There’s a strong case, and we’ve seen this in other countries, that reprocessing [spent fuel] is not economical,” Roth said. “The reality is it’s cheaper not to reprocess your fuel than it is to reprocess. A once-through fuel cycle with low enriched uranium is a more economical approach.”
That raises the question of why China is developing these reactors for its energy use if it doesn’t make sense economically.
If the reactors are dual-use, it would, particularly from a China concerned about the adequacy of its nuclear deterrent, says von Hippel.
China’s actions, however, may spur others in the region, namely Japan and Korea, to speed up their own plutonium reactor plans.
“I think it’s in China’s best interest not to go down that path,” Roth said. “From an economic perspective, from an environmental perspective, and the impact it has regionally … they seem set on pursuing this reprocessing path, but I don’t think it is going to help them with their nuclear power goals.”
I think it’s in China’s best interest not to go down that path.
A commercial plutonium ‘timeout’?
The way forward, Roth says, is for the US to engage with China to find out why it stopped the declarations to the IAEA and pursue a path to disincentivise others in the region from pursuing plutonium reprocessing.
“I would hope that the Biden administration is choosing to engage with China on non-proliferation issues,” Roth said.
Requests made by Al Jazeera through the US Embassy in Beijing about whether the administration of US President Joe Biden was engaging with China on its halt in reporting on its civilian plutonium programme were declined.
These questions are becoming acutely important, von Hippel said, at a time of increased tension between the US and China, the potential flashpoint of Taiwan, and a growing chorus suggesting the two superpowers are engaged in a Cold War 2.0.
Whether there is interest in China discussing these matters with the US or countries in the region is unknown.
On Tuesday, the issue was thrown back into the spotlight after Robert Wood, US ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, accused Beijing of being unwilling “to engage meaningfully” with Washington on nuclear weapons talks.
“Despite China’s dramatic build-up of its nuclear arsenal, it continues to resist discussing nuclear risk reduction bilaterally with the United States – a dialogue we have with Russia,” Wood told a UN conference.
Beijing’s representative reportedly pushed back on the claim, telling the same conference that China is “ready to carry out positive dialogue and exchange with all parties”.
The increasing acrimony that characterised US-China relations under the administration of President Donald Trump didn’t exactly instil confidence in engagement on nuclear security policy, von Hippel said.
Gregory Kulacki, a senior analyst on nuclear policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists who is now based in Japan, said that the good level of engagement built up between the US and China on nuclear policy prior to the early 2000s is something of a distant memory now, with the US side bearing much of the blame for the shroud of silence from China.
“The [George W] Bush Jr administration’s decision [in 2002] to withdraw from the ABM [1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile] treaty pretty much gutted any real interest in China in pursuing arms control talks of any substance with the United States,” Kulacki said.
The Bush administration’s moves were made due to its commitments to deploy missile
defence systems in what it saw as protecting against “growing missile threats” at the time, from a potentially nuclear-armed North Korea. China saw those actions as restricting its own military capabilities in its back yard.
According to von Hippel and his co-authors, the US should work with Japan, South Korea and China on declaring a “commercial plutonium timeout” with offers to delay breeder reactors and commercial plutonium programmes if China agrees to do the same.
If all of these countries could increase the amount of transparency related to uranium holdings and related activities, it would boost confidence for all parties to scale back those programmes, he said.
The trick is figuring out who would take the first steps. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/19/concerns-grow-over-china-nuclear-reactors-shrouded-in-mystery
Small nuclear reactors – a way to get indigenous people to then accept nuclear waste?
Gordon Edwards is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and notes the Moltex SMR design involves dissolving spent nuclear fuel in molten salt, and there lies an issue, he believes.
“What happens when you dissolve the solid fuel in a liquid, in this molten salt – then all of these radioactive materials are released into the liquid,” says Edwards, “and it becomes more dangerous to contain them because a solid material is much easier to contain than a liquid or gaseous material.”
Peskotomuhkati chief unhappy about nuclear reactor testing on his traditional territory https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/peskotomuhkati-nation-nuclear-reactor-testing-new-brunswick-small-modular-reactors/—
Christopher Read cread@aptn.caMay 16, 2021,
Feds say they won’t reach zero emissions by 2050 without small nuclear reactors.
It’s a new kind of nuclear reactor that the federal government is putting up $50.5 million in development money for, but some Indigenous leaders are already speaking out against it
.Moltex Energy Canada is getting the tax-dollar investment to develop what the nuclear industry calls a “small modular reactor” or SMR – which is generally considered to be a reactor with a power output of 300 megawatts or less.The Moltex SMR design is to be developed at New Brunswick Power’s Point LePreau Nuclear Generating Station, which is on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy and in Peskotomuhkati traditional territory.
ARC Clean Energy Canada is another operation also set to develop an SMR at the Point LePreau site. It was announced in February that ARC would get $20 million from the New Brunswick government if the company can raise $30 million of its own cash.
Hugh Akagi is Chief of Peskotomuhkati Nation and has concerns about more nuclear development in the aging facility.
“Well, I don’t feel very good about it, to be honest,” says Akagi. “You paid that money if you pay tax on anything in this country, you’ve just made a donation to Moltex. If you’re not concerned about $50 million being turned over to a corporation for a technology that does not exist – I hope you heard me correctly on that.”
The federal government has taken a shine to the idea of SMRs and Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan is on the record as saying “We have not seen a model where we can get to net-zero emissions by 2050 without nuclear.”
Under the Small Modular Reactor Action Plan, the federal government is pushing for SMRs to be developed and deployed to power remote industrial operations as well as northern communities.
Three streams of government-supported SMR developments are underway at two sites in Ontario as well as at Point LePreau.
As well, the governments of New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta have all signed a memorandum of understanding pledging their support for SMR development.
Akagi says he hasn’t been formally consulted – but has been to a presentations put on by NB Power about the SMR project.
He says he is unlikely he’ll ever give it his support.
“Until I can have an assurance that the impact on the future is zero,” says Akagi, “I don’t want to 100 years, 200 years is still seven generations. I want zero impact.”
But Moltex Energy Canada CEO Rory O’Sullivan says his company’s technology will ultimately reduce environmental impact, by recycling spent nuclear fuel from full scale reactors.
“Instead of putting it in the ground where it’ll be radioactive for very long periods, we can reuse it as fuel to create more clean energy from what was waste,” says O’Sullivan. “We can’t get rid of the waste altogether. But the aim is to get rid, to get it down to about a thousandth of volume of the original long-lived radioactivity.
O’Sullivan admits to formerly seeing nuclear as too much of a problem to be a viable solution in the climate crisis.
“When I graduated as a mechanical engineer I saw that nuclear is potentially as too expensive, has the waste issue, has a potential safety issue,” says O’Sullivan. “Well, actually, with these innovative new designs, you can potentially have nuclear power that is lower cost, cheaper than fossil fuels – you can get much safer solution using innovation and you can potentially deal with the waste.”
Gordon Edwards, one of Canada’s most prominent nuclear critics, isn’t buying that argument.
Edwards is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and notes the Moltex SMR design involves dissolving spent nuclear fuel in molten salt, and there lies an issue, he believes.
“What happens when you dissolve the solid fuel in a liquid, in this molten salt – then all of these radioactive materials are released into the liquid,” says Edwards, “and it becomes more dangerous to contain them because a solid material is much easier to contain than a liquid or gaseous material.”
Edwards also works on a radioactive task force with the Anishinabek Nation and the Iroquois Caucus.
And as he sees it, small modular reactors could make it harder for Indigenous communities to say no to the deep geological repositories [DGRs] being pitched to Indigenous communities as a supposedly safe way for Canada’s nuclear industry to entomb highly radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years.
“We don’t accept the small modular reactors because we know that it’s just a way of implicating us so that we can then have less of an argument against being radioactive waste dumps,” says Edwards. “If we accept small modular reactors into our communities, how can we then turn around and say we don’t want to keep the radioactive waste? It would just put us in an impossible position.”
Edwards and other nuclear critics such as Akagi recently participated in an online webinar focused on concerns around nuclear development at Point LePreau.
And those adding their voices to the critical side of the ledger on nuclear development at Point LePreau include Jenica Atwin – the Green Party’s MP for Fredricton, and Wolastoq Grand Council Chief Ron Tremblay – who issued a Resolution calling for nuclear development to be halted.
Atwin put out a release in April calling Canadian nuclear policies “profoundly misguided.”
“My basic premise is that the government needs to be more responsible in the information that they’re sharing just in general to talk about the risks that exist alongside whatever benefits they’re kind of toting,” says Atwin. “And right now, we’re only hearing that it’s the greatest option. This is how we fight climate change. It is clean, it’s cheap energy. And I have to disagree.”
If all goes to according to the Moltex plan, its SMR could be operable by about 2030.
Chernobyl nuclear tomb will eventually collapse. Sellafield, too, will need £132 billion, at least, to decommission.
LADBible 15th May 2021, A scientist has warned that Chernobyl nuclear power plant must be dismantled in the next 100 years or else it will collapse.
Professor Neil Hyatt is the Royal Academy of Engineering and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s research chair in radioactive waste management. Speaking to LADbible about recent developments that nuclear reactions had been detected from deep within the mummified plant – 35 years after its core exploded in what is widely viewed as history’s worst nuclear disaster – he says it’s time to act.
“If we don’t take it down, it’s going to fall down,” says Professor Hyatt, who teaches at Sheffield University. “The original shelter was built as a temporary facility to stabilise a situation and the New Safe Confinement is essentially the same thing – to buy us time. [But] it only buys us around 100 years or so.
“If you think about nuclear decommissioning, which I do all the time, look at the projects that are going on around the world. “There’s the Sellafield site in the UK – that’s one hundred years to decommission the Sellafield site at a cost of £132 billion, at least. “That probably tells you it’s going to take at least 50 years, if we started today, probably at a cost of about £900 million, to decommission Chernobyl.
“These are orders of magnitude, and the reason is because we still don’t know everything we need to know to decommission it, about the material inside.” He adds: “If we don’t take it down, it’s gonna collapse eventually. If you’ve bought yourself 100 years, you really need to start cracking on with the dismantling – probably in the next 20 years.
Saugeen First Nation do not want Canada’s nuclear waste. Nuclear Waste Management Organization says the project will not be built without their consent.
Saugeen First Nation debates fate of Canada’s nuclear waste CTV News , Scott Miller CTV News London Videographer @ScottMillerCTV Contact Sunday, May 16, 2021 ”…… Last January, the Saugeen Ojibway Nation voted 85 per cent against plans to bury Ontario’s low and intermediate level nuclear waste along the shores of Lake Huron.
Saugeen members will have a similar decision to make on plans to bury Canada’s high-level nuclear waste under 1,500 acres of farmland, north of Teeswater, because the planned project also falls within their traditional territory.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization says the project will not be built without SON’s consent.
“Well it’s important now because that’s what was agreed to as part of the treaties. So there’s constitutional rights that are at play,” says NWMO’s Indigenous Knowledge and Reconciliation Section Manager, Jessica Perritt.
SON leadership have said they didn’t ask for nuclear waste to be created and temporarily stored in their territory, but now, they must be part of deciding its fate.
“We’ve got to treat our people, not like the olden days where the Indian Agent didn’t even allow us to think or make decisions. We can make decisions for ourselves,” says Roote………..
Members of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation and residents of South Bruce have until 2023 to decide if they want to permanently house Canada’s first and only underground nuclear waste storage facility. https://london.ctvnews.ca/saugeen-first-nation-debates-fate-of-canada-s-nuclear-waste-1.5430208
USA govt to delay removing plutonium nuclear waste from the decommissioned Hanford nuclear reservation
Washington State Nuclear Site to Delay Moving Waste Off-Site https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2021-05-13/washington-state-nuclear-site-to-delay-moving-waste-off-site
The U.S. Department of Energy and its regulators have proposed extending the deadline to ship waste contaminated with plutonium off the decommissioned Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.
By Associated Press|May 13, 2021, RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy and its regulators have proposed extending the deadline to ship waste contaminated with plutonium off the decommissioned Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.
The proposal moves the deadline back 20 years — from 2030 to 2050 — to ship the waste to a national repository in New Mexico for permanent disposal, the Tri-City Herald reported Wednesday.
“We realized that the existing milestone dates were unachievable,” said John Price, a manager with the state Department of Ecology, which is a regulator for the nuclear site.
The Hanford nuclear reservation produced plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War and World War II, leaving 56 million gallons (212 million litres) of radioactive waste in underground tanks. The 580-square-mile (1,500-square-kilometer) site is located in Richland, Washington about 200 miles (322 kilometers) southeast of Seattle.
Price also said there were some newly proposed deadlines that the Department of Ecology “enthusiastically” supports, including a commitment by the Department of Energy’s to start shipping some waste as early as 2028.
The federal agency and its regulators — the Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency — set waste cleanup plans and deadlines for the nuclear site.
The latest proposed deadlines cover suspected transuranic waste, or debris contaminated with plutonium, including about 11,000 containers stored at a Hanford complex.
Waste with artificially-made elements above uranium on the periodic table is also classified as transuranic.
A public meeting to discuss the latest proposed changes and answer questions was scheduled for Thursday.
Biden administration promises progress on nuclear waste
Escape From Yucca Mountain: Biden Administration Promises Progress on Nuclear Waste
Energy Department expects to announce next steps in coming months, WSJ, By Gabriel T. Rubin, May 14, 2021
THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT TAKES ON the politically radioactive issue of nuclear-waste disposal, which the past several administrations have tried and failed to resolve. The only federally designated long-term disposal site for waste from the nuclear power industry is at Yucca Mountain in Nevada (there is also a site near Carlsbad, N.M., for waste generated by the government’s nuclear weapons program). But sustained political pushback from Nevada officials has prevented the Yucca Mountain site from becoming operational. It’s a top issue for Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who Mr. Biden considered picking as his running mate and who is up for re-election next year.
Ms. Cortez Masto has extracted promises from Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm that Yucca Mountain won’t be part of the administration’s planning for nuclear-waste disposal. But Ms. Granholm seems eager to still make progress on the issue, telling a House Appropriations panel last week that she anticipated announcing the department’s next steps “in the coming months.” Former President Donald Trumptried to restart the process, but after an outcry from Nevadans he reversed himself—tweeting, “Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain”—and promised “innovative solutions” that didn’t come to fruition.
In a letter this month to Ms. Granholm, the American Nuclear Society and other industry groups urged her to establish an office to be the “focal point” of engagement on the waste issue with Congress and outside stakeholders. Congress appropriated money for such an office in its year-end funding deal in December. The office also would coordinate with the private sector on interim storage facilities.
n hopes of preventing presidents present and future from unilaterally establishing a Yucca Mountain-type plan, all the Democratic members of the Nevada congressional delegation co-sponsored legislation in March that would require the federal government to first receive permission from the governor and local officials before moving nuclear waste into a state
It’s anyone’s guess how concrete the Energy Department’s next steps might be ….(subscribers only) https://www.wsj.com/articles/escape-from-yucca-mountain-biden-administration-promises-progress-on-nuclear-waste-11620984602
UK’s Magnox nuclear reprocessing plant to close, leaving world’s largest stockpile of separated civil plutonium
Plutonium Policy, No2NuclearPower, No 132 May 2021, Update Introduction ..The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) now expects the Magnox Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield to close this year (2021) – one year later than previously planned. The newer Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) was shut in November 2018. Reprocessing, which has always been unnecessary, is the chemical separation of plutonium and unused uranium from spent nuclear waste fuel.
When reprocessing ends there will be around 140 tonnes of separated civil plutonium stored at Sellafield – the world’s largest stockpile of separated civil plutonium. (1) In 2008 the NDA launched a consultation on options (2) for dealing with this embarrassing stockpile – it is highly toxic, poses a permanent risk of proliferation, and will cost taxpayers around £73 million a year to store for the next century. (3) Today, after almost a decade and a half of dithering, the UK Government has failed to make any decisions, but still appears to favour the re-use option, which would probably involve transporting weapons useable plutonium or MoX fuel to reactor sites, such as Hinkley Point C and Sizewell B (and C if it is ever built) with an armed escort.
The NDA itself said in 2008 that deciding soon could save money by removing the need to build further plutonium stores. And the Government’s refusal to admit that using the plutonium as fuel for new reactors is not only extremely technically challenging but also probably unaffordable, means funds are being spent developing both re-use and immobilisation options thus maximising the cost of plutonium disposition at the same time maximising the cost of plutonium storage.
The story so far When reprocessing ends in 2021 there will be around 140 tonnes of separated civil plutonium stored at Sellafield. About 23 tonnes of this is foreign-owned, largely but not exclusively by Japanese utilities, and is managed under long-term contracts. (4) The UK’s stockpile of plutonium has been consolidated at Sellafield by transporting material at the former fast reactor site at Dounreay in Caithness down to Cumbria. The NDA says it has been working with the UK government to determine the right approach for putting this nuclear material beyond reach. (5) The options it is considering are all predicated on the development of a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF). Radioactive Waste Management Ltd (RWM) – a subsidiary of the NDA – is assuming that a GDF will be available to receive its first waste in the late 2040s. Then it will take around 90 years to emplace all existing waste before it can begin emplacing other materials such as immobilised plutonium or spent plutonium fuel. And there are no guarantees this timetable will be achieved. In Sweden, for example, which is perhaps one of the countries most advanced in its development of an underground repository, nuclear utilities have warned reactors may have to close early because of delays in the approval of the repository. (6)
The Options Options considered for dealing with plutonium include using it as a fuel called Mixed Oxide Fuel (MoX) in nuclear reactors (followed by storage as spent fuel pending disposal in a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF)).
Storage Problems Meanwhile plutonium will have to continue to be stored at Sellafield. The NDA’s 2008 report said “If a decision were taken today on a solution for the inventory, there could still be a requirement to provide storage for around 40 years.” (17) Continued long-term storage of civil plutonium is not as easy as it sounds nor is it cheap, and there are many technical challenges. ……………..
The NDA considers some of the older plutonium packages and facilities used in early production to be amongst the highest hazards on the Sellafield site. Therefore, it is aiming to gradually transfer all plutonium to a new store, the Sellafield Product and Residue Store (SPRS) which opened in 2010……..
A proportion of the plutonium canisters at Sellafield are decaying faster than the NDA anticipated. A leak from any package would lead to an ‘intolerable’ risk as defined by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). The NDA has therefore decided to place the canisters more at risk in extra layers of packaging until SRP is operational. ………..
In 2014, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee reported that the Government did not have a strategy in place for the plutonium stored at Sellafield. 7 years later, it has still not decided between the two options available to it: readying the plutonium stockpile for long-term storage in a geological disposal facility (that has yet to be constructed); or reusing it as fuel in new nuclear power stations. (25)
Conclusion The Government’s preferred option for the disposition of plutonium still appears to be to use the majority of the stockpile to fabricate Mixed Oxide Fuel for use in Light Water Reactors. This could mean transporting weapons-useable plutonium on our roads or rail network to Sizewell and Hinkley Point. These transports would need to be accompanied by armed police.
This is despite the fact that a plutonium immobilisation plant would be required in any case to immobilise that portion of the plutonium stockpile which is not suitable for use in MoX fuel.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority needs to continue its programme of modernising Sellafield’s plutonium storage facilities, which will involve the construction extensions to the Sellafield Product and Residue Store (SPRS) and retreating and repacking some of the existing canisters which are considered unsuitable for storage in a modern store. This will also involve construction the Sellafield (Product and Residue store) Retreatment Plant (SRP).
Had the Government decided soon after the publication of the NDA’s options report to immobilise the UK plutonium stockpile, as advised by environmentalists and proliferation specialists, it is likely that savings could have been made by removing the requirement for one or both of the plutonium store extensions. Indeed, if a decision is taken soon, it may still be possible to avoid the cost of building the second store extension. of two
In short, Government policy appears to be maximising the cost of plutonium disposition by requiring both a MoX fuel fabrication plant AND a plutonium immobilisation plant, and at the same time maximising the cost of plutonium storage. Under this policy MoX fuel containing weapons useable plutonium would have to be transported under armed guard around the country. https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nuClearNewsNo132.pdf
Sellafield’s plutonium waste has continued to circulate in the Irish Sea
Plutonium Remobilisation in the Irish Sea, No2Nuclear Power No 132 May 2021, Low-level aqueous radioactive waste has been discharged from the Sellafield site into the Irish Sea for more than 50 years. Originally it was thought that soluble radionuclides discharged from Sellafield (such as caesium and tritium) would be diluted and dispersed whereas long lived, transuranic nuclides such as Plutonium, and Americium would leach out of the liquid phase and become preferentially adsorbed to the surface of sedimentary particles in the water column, sink to the seabed and remain permanently bound and immobilised in seabed deposits and therefore isolated from human populations and the environment.
Unfortunately, it has since emerged that a proportion of such sediment associated radioactivity has, and is being actively transported around the Irish Sea while the remainder is temporarily “sequestered” in the seabed but subject to any future disturbance mechanisms such as storm, wave and seismic activity. In addition, a proportion of dissolved nuclides did not necessarily remain dissolved in liquid form in the water column, but could become incorporated into organic particles and deposited into sedimentary environments where they could be temporarily sequestered, but subsequently recycled back into the environment by dredging, trawling storm and seismic activity.
Plans by West Cumbria Mining (WCM) for an under-seabed coal mine off the coast of Cumbria near Whitehaven and the possibility of a Geological Disposal Facility, also under the seabed off the coast of Cumbria have raised concerns that transuranic radionuclides currently sequestered in Irish Sea sediments could be further remobilised as a result of these activities,
A large proportion of the Sellafield-derived radionuclides disposed to sea have become associated with the sediment at two sites close to the waste disposal pipeline: the Irish Sea Mudpatch and the Esk Estuary. The Mudpatch is a belt of fine-grained sediments located about10 km from the waste pipeline.
In 1999 Kershaw et al showed evidence that sediment-bound radionuclides over the previous decade were being redistributed. There was a decrease in the coastal zone around Sellafield and increases in Liverpool Bay and the western Irish Sea. Levels of dissolved 239/240Pu in the water column decreased only slowly since the peak discharge rates in the 1970s and much more slowly than the drop in Sellafield discharges. This suggests that material is moving from contaminated sediments and becoming dissolved in seawater where it is available for transport. Indeed, in the western Irish Sea, evidence has been found that 239/240Pu is being transported from the eastern Irish Sea. There is also evidence of the direct transport of contaminated sediment. (1)
Daisy Ray et al. highlight the fact that “once mobilised, the radionuclides can be transported elsewhere in the Irish Sea … Although waste discharges are continuing to decrease from the Sellafield site, the Mudpatch may continue to supply “historic” Sellafield-derived radionuclides to other locations. Indeed, recent data from Welsh and Scottish coastal areas suggest that the Mudpatch still acts as a source of radionuclides to UK coastal areas.” (2)
The model developed by Aldridge et al. at the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) in 2003 strongly suggest that the principal source of 239/240Pu in the Irish Sea was sediments in the eastern Irish Sea contaminated from past discharges, rather than new inputs from Sellafield. (3) Radionuclide re-distribution can occur by two principal mechanisms. Directly, by the transport of contaminated sediment, or indirectly via exchange and transport in dissolved form (dissolution). The latter process operates when tidal, wind or trawling activity re-suspends bed material allowing transfer of radionuclides to the water column. (4)
Ray el al. also suggest that bioturbation – the reworking of soils and sediments by animals or plants – at the Cumbrian Mudpatch will continue to act as a source of “historic” Sellafieldderived radioactivity to the UK Coastal Environment. If this redistribution of historical discharges of radionuclides is happening by natural processes, it can be assumed that the problem could become much more serious as a result of human mining activities under the seabed,
A recent report by Marine Consultant, Tim Deere-Jones concludes that:
It is evident that any subsidence within the WCM designated seabed mining zone will generate some form and degree of seabed morphological distortion. It is equally evident that any such seabed distortion will remobilise previously sequestered seabed sediments, and their associated pollutants, which will subsequently be transported and re-distributed through the regional marine and coastal environments. It is inevitable that such re-mobilisation and re-distribution will expose marine wildlife and human coastal populations and stakeholders to some degree of exposure doses to those pollutants via a number of mechanisms and pathways.” (5) https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/nuClearNewsNo132.pdf
Dungeness nuclear power station could be shut down earlier than planned
Kent Online 10th May 2021, A power station in Kent could start its defuelling phase seven years early
unless a number of “significant and ongoing technical challenges” are
overcome. Dungeness B power station on Romney Marsh has been off-line since
September 2018 while a multi-million pound maintenance programme was
carried out.
This work was due to be completed last year but that timeline
changed to August 2021 following a series of delays. But now EDF say the
ongoing challenges and risks “make the future both difficult and
uncertain”.
As a result, the energy company is now exploring a range of
options – including starting the procedure to shut the station down later
this year, seven years ahead of its planned defuelling phase. A statement
from EDF reads: “Dungeness B power station last generated electricity in
September 2018 and is currently forecast to return to service in August
2021.
“The station has a number of unique, significant and ongoing
technical challenges that continue to make the future both difficult and
uncertain. “Many of these issues can be explained by the fact that
Dungeness was designed in the 1960s as a prototype and suffered from very
challenging construction and commissioning delays. “We expect to have the
technical information required to make a decision in the next few months,
as it is important we bring clarity to the more than 800 people that work
at the station, and who support it from other locations, as well as to
government and all those with a stake in the station’s future.”
Cyberattacks grind Hanford nuclear energy workers’ benefit program to a halt
Cyberattacks grind Hanford nuclear energy workers’ benefit program to a halt, Seattle Times May 10, 2021 By Patrick Malone
Cyber attacks on the U.S. government have abruptly paused processing of benefit applications for workers who were sickened while working on nuclear weapons programs at Hanford and other Department of Energy sites, delaying aid to some dying workers, according to advocates.
Without warning, advocates from the Alliance of Nuclear Workers Advocacy Group received notice late last Friday that effective Monday, a vital component of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program would be offline for two to four months.
The Radiation Dose Reconstruction Program databases’ sudden hiatus could delay approval of new benefits for groups of workers who believe they’ve been exposed to workplace hazards.
Among them are more than 550 workers from Hanford, a mothballed plutonium processing site in Richland, who were potentially exposed to radiation and toxins when they were provided leaky respirators, according to a Seattle Times investigation last year.
Those workers are seeking inclusion in the federal benefits program administered by the Department of Labor. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health plays an instrumental role in determining eligibility.
Hanford, born in secrecy during World War II in a rush to develop the first atomic bomb, processed the plutonium fuel for nuclear weapons for four decades, a process that fouled the 580-square-mile site with radioactive waste and toxic vapors that sickened and killed many workers.
Washington’s U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Adam Smith, both Democrats, sponsored legislation in response to The Times investigation that would expand benefits to include the Hanford cleanup crew who were given faulty respirators and other nuclear workers across the country who aren’t yet eligible.
Others who could be affected are some 1,378 individual workers across the country currently applying for assistance, and those with recent terminal diagnoses, who normally would be eligible for benefits awarded as quickly as a day after application. Those benefits can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Terminally ill workers often do not have 2 to 4 months to live,” Terrie Barrie, ANWAG founder, wrote in a Monday, May 3, letter to NIOSH director to Dr. John Howard. “Will they no longer have the option to have their claim expedited so that they can receive the medical and financial benefits before they die?”
The source and nature of the cyberattacks are unclear, but in a May 4 letter to ANWAG, Howard said that an ongoing review of the energy workers’ compensation databases “identified very significant concerns about the cybersecurity integrity of the Program’s claimant database,” forcing an immediate and secret shutdown of the claims process……………………. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/cyberattacks-grind-hanford-nuclear-energy-workers-benefit-program-to-a-halt/
Hanford challenge demands action on leaking nuclear waste tank
Ongoing threat.’ Groups demand action on leaking Hanford nuclear waste tank, Tri City Herald,
BY ANNETTE CARY, MAY 01, 2021 RICHLAND, WA
The newly discovered leak in another of Hanford’s aging tanks storing radioactive waste does not appear to threaten the health of Washington people in the near term, said Gov. Jay Inslee.
The Washington state Department of Ecology has the legal authority under the Tri-Party Agreement to take immediate action in response to the leaking tank only if it is “necessary to abate an imminent and substantial endangerment” to people or the environment.
Instead, the agency is starting talks with federal energy officials on what to do next.
If the two agencies can’t agree, then the state could take action, such as fines, and require specific steps to deal with the underground leak.
But groups from Seattle to the Tri-Cities that follow Hanford closely spoke out after the public was told Thursday about the leak.
Demands ranged from immediately emptying the tank to building better storage tanks for waste to a pilot project that could get more waste treated soon.
DOE notified the state Thursday that the tank was leaking, after investigating that possibility since March 2019.
Estimates of the amount of waste that have leaked vary, but the Department of Ecology puts it at a rate of nearly 1,300 gallons per year with an estimated 1,700 gallons leaked into the soil since March 2019…………..
The governor believes Congress should find opportunities to pay for construction needed to prepare waste now held in underground tanks for treatment and to glassify the tank for permanent disposal, his staff said.
Transferring waste from leak-prone single shell tanks to hold them in newer double-shell tanks is only a stop-gap measure and permanent solutions are needed, he said.
Tank B-109 is the second of Hanford’s 149 single-shell tanks identified as having active leaks in recent years. In 2013 Tank T-111 was discovered to be leaking about a half gallon to a gallon a day of waste.
Hanford is left with 56 million gallons of mixed radioactive and other hazardous chemical waste from the past production of two-thirds of the nation’s plutonium for its nuclear weapons program during World War II and the Cold War.
Work is underway to empty waste from leak-prone single-shell tanks into 27 newer double-shell tanks until it can be treated for permanent disposal.
As DOE works to start turning some of the tank waste into a stable glass form for disposal at the Hanford site’s $17 billion vitrification plant by the end of 2023, space is running short in the double-shell tanks.
NEW TANKS VS CLEANUP
Hanford Challenge, based in Seattle, said Tank B-109 needs to be emptied into another tank, putting pressure on DOE to build more tanks.
It quoted a Government Accountability Office report saying that DOE said that insufficient space in double-shell tanks was the top risk to its work to empty and close its aging tanks.
Work is underway to empty waste from leak-prone single-shell tanks into 27 newer double-shell tanks until it can be treated for permanent disposal.
As DOE works to start turning some of the tank waste into a stable glass form for disposal at the Hanford site’s $17 billion vitrification plant by the end of 2023, space is running short in the double-shell tanks.
Tank B-109 has been in use since World War II and currently holds about 123,000 gallons of waste, including about 15,000 gallons of liquid waste………………. https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article251052504.html
Bribing a declining rural community – into taking in nuclear waste
Goodwill’ money from proposed nuclear waste site pours into declining Ontario farm town. What if it stops?
Colin Butler · CBC News ·May 07, 2021 A citizens’ group is accusing Canada’s nuclear industry of using its financial might to groom a declining Ontario farm community into becoming a willing host for the country’s most dangerous radioactive waste.
In a pamphlet about the proposed disposal site that was published last year, the Ontario municipality of South Bruce —which encompasses the farming communities of Teeswater, Mildmay, Formosa and Salem — says it’s “on the decline.”
The pamphlet tells of a shrinking population, where rural towns and village “downtowns are fading from what they used to be,” with vacant store windows, big infrastructure bills and few prospects for new economic growth.
Protecting Our Waterways – No Nuclear Waste, a grassroots citizens’ group, accuses the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) of taking advantage of the decline by spending millions of dollars on “goodwill” projects the community couldn’t afford on its own.
Bill Noll, a resident of Teeswater and the vice-president of Protecting Our Waterways, said the money has done a lot of good — it’s helped find small-town doctors, boosted senior care, upgraded wells, and even bought local firefighters lifesaving new safety equipment.
Money ‘divorced’ from project, group says
“Its strictly a goodwill gesture,” said Noll. “That money is not tied to anything to do with the project. It is completely divorced. Why would you spend one and a half million dollars on a community if you didn’t expect something back in return?”
The project Noll is referring to is a $23-billion nuclear disposal site where the NWMO wants to inter some three million spent nuclear fuel bundles in a sprawling network of tunnels and holes 500 metres below the ground.
South Bruce is one of two Ontario communities — the other is Ignace, about 2½ hours northwest of Thunder Bay — under consideration for what the NWMO is calling the “deep geological repository.” The NWMO says it’s working with local communities in selecting the site in 2023.
In the case of South Bruce, test drilling recently began north of the dairy town of Teeswater to see if the ancient bedrock is viable enough. But funds from the NWMO have been flowing in since 2012, when the local council volunteered to be considered as a host.
According to a March 2021 report from South Bruce Treasurer Kendra Reinhart, the community has received more than $3.2 million from the NWMO since 2012. It’s been used to pay for everything from St John Ambulance training, to offsetting extra costs of the pandemic, to the salaries of municipal employees.
The report didn’t include all the money, and noted several sources of NWMO funding were omitted. For instance, left out were requests for additional support, such as the $1.5 million the municipality is seeking from a $4-million NWMO-sponsored investment fund to help offset the cost of expanding a local sewage treatment plant.
Michelle Stein, another Teeswater resident and president of Protect Our Waterways, said the money has become so ubiquitous that on March 23, the same day the treasury report was presented to South Bruce council, NWMO appeared on the council agenda 121 times.
Mayor says community ‘foolish not to’ take money……
“Our community has really started to rely on the money from the NWMO,” said Stein.Stein and Noll said the more the municipality of South Bruce becomes intertwined financially with the NWMO, the harder it will be for the community to disentangle itself by saying no to the nuclear disposal site, lest it cut off the community’s newfound source of wealth……..
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