From both UK and Ireland – calls for independent review into dumping Hinkley nuclear mud into the sea
Nation Cymru 29th Jan 2021, Campaigners on both sides of the Bristol Channel have called for a full independent review into proposals to dump mud from the construction of a
nuclear power plant in the sea off the coast of Cardiff, following the
announcement that a new dumping site off the Somerset coast is also being
considered.
Despite public opposition, in 2018 the Welsh Government
permitted EDF to dump large quantities of mud dredged from construction of
the new Hinkley C nuclear power plant at the Cardiff Deep Grounds inshore
disposal site. EDF insisted the site- only two miles from Cardiff Bay –
was the only suitable site available in the Bristol Channel.
Earlier this month EDF announced its intention to apply to the Marine Management
Organisation (MMO) for a license to dump at Portishead, while also making a
further application to dump at the Cardiff site. No reason has been given
by EDF for the Portishead proposal.
In a joint statement issued with Stop Hinkley and the Geiger Bay campaign, UK & Ireland Nuclear Free LocalAuthorities Steering Committee Chair, Councillor David Blackburn said:
“NFLA was surprised to hear that EDF are now seeking to look at dumping
mud from the Hinkley Point site off the Somerset coast in addition to
continuing to look to dump off the south Wales coast.
Huge legacy of radioactive trash in UK, much of it already in Cumbria
Whitehaven News 30th January 2021, CHRIS WHITESIDE County councillor for Egremont North & St Bees (Conservative) Any consideration of the issue of nuclear waste in Cumbria
must start by recognising one basic fact. No matter how much some people
might wish it were otherwise, Britain already has thousands of tons of
low-level waste material, and a substantial amount of high-level nuclear
material, as a legacy of our existing and historical nuclear programmes.
And much of it is already in Cumbria.
Imagining that the tens of thousands
of cubic metres of nuclear material which is already here at sites like
Sellafield and the LLWR will somehow magically go away if you put up
posters demanding that there should be no nuclear waste in Cumbria or,
worse, try to sabotage any attempt to get a rational discussion going about
how we can most safely manage the nuclear waste which we already have by
vilifying anyone who takes part in a conversation about it, is not just
incredibly stupid but utterly irresponsible.
https://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/19051819.whitehaven-news-letters-nuclear-waste-years/
Options for USA nuclear radioactive trash policy
Forging a Path Forward on U.S. Nuclear Waste Management: Options for Policy Makers, Columbia University, BY MATT BOWEN |JANUARY 28, 2021
“……..A new report, part of wider work on nuclear energy at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, explains how the United States reached its current stalemate over nuclear waste disposal. It then examines productive approaches in other countries and a few domestic ones that could guide U.S. policy makers through options for improving the prospects of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste disposal going forward, including the following:
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Create a new organization whose sole mission is nuclear waste management (and whose approach is consent-based). Since the 1970s, reports have noted that a single-purpose organization would have a number of advantages over a program residing within Department of Energy, which has multiple missions and competing priorities. Accordingly, Congress could pass legislation to create a separate nuclear waste management organization that has full access to needed funding and employs a consent-based approach to achieve greater support from state and local communities for the siting of facilities.
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Improve the funding structure of the U.S. nuclear waste program. The program was supposed to be self-financing, with owners of nuclear power plants paying into a Nuclear Waste Fund that would cover the costs of management and disposal. However, due in part to budget laws enacted in the 1980s and 1990s, a lack of access to needed funding has arisen. If the first option of creating a new organization is not achievable in the near-term, Congress could at least improve the waste program’s funding structure. -
Pursue disposal of U.S. defense waste first. There could be greater public acceptance for the disposal of defense-related waste over commercial waste due to the national security missions involved and patriotic sensibilities. Momentum in one area of waste management could lead to the overall program’s advancement, as a successful endeavor for defense waste disposal would inform and encourage commercial waste efforts. Nuclear waste from the defense sector also has some technical characteristics — the inventory being bounded, smaller, cooler, and with less potential for reuse — that may argue for its disposal ahead of power plant spent nuclear fuel.
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Prepare for a large-scale transportation program. To date, the transportation of nuclear waste has been very safe. However, there are additional steps the federal government could take to prepare for the eventual larger-scale transportation campaign of spent nuclear fuel to either a consolidated interim storage site or a geologic repository. Such options include amending the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to allow states to recover the full costs of planning and operations for transportation across their borders and ensuring an independent regulator has authority over the transportation regime to strengthen public confidence in the program.
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Update generic regulatory standards for future geologic repositories. There are two sets of U.S. regulatory standards for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste disposal: one for Yucca Mountain and one for all other sites. The Environmental Protection Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Department of Energy could resolve inconsistencies between regulations and ensure that new generic regulations for future disposal facilities are flexible enough to cover novel approaches (e.g., deep boreholes).
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Negotiate an agreement with Nevada on Yucca Mountain. The U.S. government could pursue, concurrent with new siting efforts, negotiating an agreement with Nevada to investigate, for example, the disposal of a more limited waste inventory at Yucca Mountain. Nye County, which is where the site is located, sees a disposal facility there as potentially safe and is interested in the associated economic development. Nevada’s long-standing concerns regarding the project would have to be addressed to gain broader public support within the state.
Read the full report here. https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2021/01/28/nuclear-waste-management-report/
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Italian government lists 61 potential sites for nuclear waste dumping
Italy begins search for national radwaste storage site, WNN, 29 January 2021A list of 67 potential sites for a radioactive waste storage facility has been published by Societa Gestione Impianti Nucleari SpA (Sogin), the Italian state-owned company responsible for dismantling the country’s nuclear power plants. The publication of the list on 5 January, announced in five national newspapers, started a period of public consultation……
The 67 potential sites are located in seven regions: Piedmont, Tuscany, Lazio, Puglia, Basilicata, Sardinia and Sicily. ……..
The planned surface-level waste store and technology park will be built in an area of about 150 hectares, of which 110 are dedicated to the repository and 40 to the park. The store will have the capacity to hold about 78,000 cubic meters of very low and low-level radioactive waste, as well as about 17,000 cubic meters of intermediate and high-level waste, pending the availability of a deep geological repository suitable for its disposal. ……..
Italy’s radioactive waste is currently stored in about 20 temporary sites, which are not suitable for final disposal. In addition to waste generated through the operation and decommissioning of its fuel cycle facilities and nuclear power plants, it includes radioactive wastes from medical, industrial and research activities………https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Italy-begins-search-for-national-radwaste-storage
EDF plans 2 new sites for dumping radioactive mud dredged from Hinkley Point
NFLA 27th Jan 2021, The UK & Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA), the ‘StopHinkley’ campaign and the ‘Geiger Bay’ campaign have been involved in
raising concerns over the dumping of large amounts of dredged materials
from the EDF site at Hinkley Point into sites between the south Wales and
the Somerset coast.
building a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point, has announced that the
Portishead marine disposal site LU070 is now a possible dumping ground for
the seabed sediment it is seeking to dredge from Bridgwater Bay in order to
sink cooling water intake and outfall tunnels for the new reactors at
Hinkley Point.
Government permitted EDF to dump large quantities of Hinkley C dredged mud
at the Cardiff Deep Grounds inshore disposal site, only 2 miles off the
Cardiff Bay sea front.
suitable site available in the Bristol Channel. However, EDF has recently
announced its intention to apply to the Marine Management Organisation
(MMO) for a license to dump at Portishead, while also making a further
application to dump at the existing Welsh site. No reason has been given by
EDF for the Portishead proposal.
So called “Improved” process for Cumbrian nuclear waste dump removes local right of veto
Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole 21st Jan 2021 Copeland “Working Group” along with Allerdale “Working Group” are ostensibly the “local support” for a Geological Disposal Facility in Cumbria. They are enthusiastically going along with the ‘new and improved’ process of steps towards Geological Disposal of Heat GeneratingNuclear wastes.
Nuclear waste: corruption in a small Australian town
Kimba’s Maree Barford new nuclear community liaison officer, Eyre Peninsula Tribune, Kathrine Catanzariti. AUGUST 24 2017
A Kimba local has been given the job of liaising between the community and government on all things nuclear.
National Radioactive Waste Management Facility Taskforce general manager Bruce McCleary announced on Thursday Maree Barford had been employed as community liaison officer – the first job created as a result of the community consulation on a potential National Radioactive Waste Management Facility at Kimba.
The announcement was made at the opening of a new project office in Kimba.
Mrs Barford moved to Kimba in December 2014 with her husband Shaun after they bought the lease for the Kimba Gateway Hotel.
Her role will be to liaise between the community and the government.
“I’ll be engaging with the community and then letting the government know what is happening in the community and their views,” Mrs Barford said.
She will start her role on Monday, working full-time from the project office.
“I think I can be the voice for the community, being the link between the town and the government.” ……
Barford would provide a permanent, local presence to help keep the community informed and involved in all activities, alongside the project team and other experts who would continue to visit Kimba……..
UK govt and Japan’s TEPCO to work together on robots to clean up Sellafield an Fukushima’s nuclear pollution
Professional Engineering, Dangerous radioactive material from Fukushima and Sellafield will be retrieved by robots thanks to a new collaboration between the UK and Japan.
The £12m LongOps project is also aimed at automating aspects of nuclear fusion energy production, alongside decommissioning goals.
The four-year research collaboration will use long-reach robotic arms to make decommissioning faster and safer at Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan and at Sellafield in the UK.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster saw a triple meltdown, three hydrogen explosions and the release of radioactive material after the loss of reactor core cooling following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The Sellafield site in Cumbria is used for nuclear fuel reprocessing and storage, as well as ongoing decommissioning of previous reactors and facilities. There were 21 serious incidents of off-site radiological releases at Sellafield between 1950 and 2000, according to a paper in the Journal of Radiological Protection.
The new project will be led by the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Remote Applications in Challenging Environments (Race) facility. It will be funded equally by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco). ….
The decommissioning of legacy nuclear facilities and fusion facilities are complex large-scale projects that are time-intensive to accomplish safely. Using robotics allows teams to keep human workers out of danger. …… https://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/uk-and-japan-tackle-legacy-of-fukushima-and-sellafield-with-robotic-collaboration
Radioactive releases from the Golfech nuclear power plant accumulate downstream
20minutes 19th Jan 2021, A study by Criirad, an independent laboratory, shows that radioactive releases from the Golfech nuclear power plant accumulate downstream in the
Garonne. The presence of tritium or carbon 14 in aquatic plants remains
below regulatory standards. For environmental protection associations, the
accumulation of this radioactive waste, whose longevity is important, poses
a problem.
We need parliamentarians to stop project, prevent Ottawa River from being permanently contaminated — Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area
January 18, 2021 Re “CNL working to accomplish responsible action in managing Canada’s nuclear research and development legacy” (The Hill Times, Letters to the Editor, December 14, 2020). This letter from Joe McBrearty, President and CEO of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) deepens my concern about the handling of Canada’s $8 billion nuclear waste liability. Mr. […]
Hill Times Letter to the Editor ~ We need parliamentarians to stop project, prevent Ottawa River from being permanently contaminated — Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area
………….Last month CNL published its final environmental impact statement listing a partial inventory of radionuclides that would go into the gigantic five-to-seven story radioactive mound (aka the “NSDF”).Twenty-five out of the 30 radionuclides listed in the inventory are long-lived, with half-lives ranging from four centuries to more than four billion years. To take just one example, the man-made radionuclide, Neptunium-237, has a half-life of 2 million years such that, after 2 million years have elapsed, half of the material will still be radioactive.
The inventory includes four isotopes of plutonium, one of the most deadly radioactive materials known, if inhaled or ingested.
It is incorrect to say that these materials “require isolation and containment for only a few hundred years.” Many of them will be dangerously radioactive for more than one hundred thousand years. The International Atomic Energy Agency states that materials like this must be stored tens of meters or more underground, not in an above-ground mound.
The CNL inventory also includes a very large quantity of cobalt-60, a material that gives off so much strong gamma radiation that lead shielding must be used by workers who handle it in order to avoid dangerous radiation exposures. The International Atomic Energy Agency considers high-activity cobalt-60 sources to be “intermediate-level waste” and specifies that they must be stored underground. Addition of high-activity cobalt-60 sources means that hundreds of tons of lead shielding would be disposed of in the mound along with other hazardous materials such as arsenic, asbestos, PCBs, dioxins and mercury.
CNL’s environmental impact statement describes several ways that radioactive materials would leak into surrounding wetlands that drain into the Ottawa River during filling of the mound and after completion. It also describes CNL’s intent to pipe water polluted with tritium and other radioactive and hazardous substances from the waste treatment facility directly into Perch Lake which drains into the Ottawa River.
I stand by my original conclusion: We need parliamentarians to step up now to stop this deeply flawed project and prevent the Ottawa River from being permanently contaminated by a gigantic, leaking radioactive landfill that would do little to reduce Canada’s $8 billion nuclear waste liability.
The horror of Russia’s nuclear submarines and nuclear trash dumped at sea
CTY Pisces – Photos of a Japanese midget submarine that was sunk off Pearl Harbor on the day of the attack. There’s a hole at the base of the conning tower where an artillery shell penetrated the hull, sinking the sub and killing the crew. Photos courtesy of Terry Kerby, Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. August 2003.
For decades, the Soviet Union used the desolate Kara Sea as their dumping grounds for nuclear waste. Thousands of tons of nuclear material, equal to nearly six and a half times the radiation released at Hiroshima, went into the ocean. The underwater nuclear junkyard includes at least 14 unwanted reactors and an entire crippled submarine that the Soviets deemed proper decommissioning too dangerous and expensive. Today, this corner-cutting haunts the Russians. A rotting submarine reactor fed by an endless supply of ocean water might re-achieve criticality, belching out a boiling cloud of radioactivity that could infect local seafood populations, spoil bountiful fishing grounds, and contaminate a local oil-exploration frontier.
“Breach of protective barriers and the detection and spread of radionuclides in seawater could lead to fishing restrictions,” says Andrey Zolotkov, director of Bellona-Murmansk, an international non-profit environmental organization based in Norway. “In addition, this could seriously damage plans for the development of the Northern Sea Route—ship owners will refuse to sail along it.”
News outlets have found more dire terms to interpret the issue. The BBC raised concerns of a “nuclear chain reaction” in 2013, while The Guardian described the situation as “an environmental disaster waiting to happen.” Nearly everyone agrees that the Kara is on the verge of an uncontrolled nuclear event, but retrieving a string of long-lost nuclear time bombs is proving to be a daunting challenge.
Nuclear submarines have a short lifespan considering their sheer expense and complexity. After roughly 20-30 years, degradation coupled with leaps in technology render old nuclear subs obsolete. First, decades of accumulated corrosion and stress limit the safe-dive depth of veteran boats. Sound-isolation mounts degrade, bearings wear down, and rotating components of machinery fall out of balance, leading to a louder noise signature that can be more easily tracked by the enemy. …….
The Soviet Union and Russia built the world’s largest nuclear-powered navy in the second half of the 20th century, crafting more atom-powered subs than all other nations combined. At its military height in the mid-1990s, Russia boasted 245 nuclear-powered subs, 180 of which were equipped with dual reactors and 91 of which sailed with a dozen or more long-range ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads………
A majority of the Soviet’s nuclear submarine classes operated from the Arctic-based Northern Fleet, headquartered in the northwestern port city of Murmansk. The Northern Fleet bases are roughly 900 kilometers west of the Kara Sea dumping grounds. A second, slightly smaller hub of Soviet submarine power was the Pacific Fleet, based in and around Vladivostok on Russia’s east coast above North Korea. Additional Soviet-era submarines sailed from bases in the Baltic and Black Seas.
…….. the disposal of these submarines posed more problems than previous conventional vessels. Before crews could chop the vessels apart, the subs’ reactors and associated radioactive materials had to be removed, and the Soviets didn’t always do this properly.
Mothballed nuclear submarines pose the potential for disaster even before scrapping begins. In October of 1995, 12 decommissioned Soviet subs awaited disposal in Murmansk, each with fuel cells, reactors, and nuclear waste still aboard. When the cash-strapped Russian military didn’t pay the base’s electric bills for months, the local power company shut off power to the base, leaving the line of submarines at risk of meltdown. Military staffers had to persuade plant workers to restore power by threatening them at gunpoint.
The scrapping process starts with extracting the vessel’s spent nuclear fuel from the reactor core. The danger is immediate: In 1985, an explosion during the defueling of a Victor class submarine killed 10 workers and spewed radioactive material into the air and sea. Specially trained teams must separate the reactor fuel rods from the sub’s reactor core, then seal the rods in steel casks for transport and storage (at least, they seal the rods when adequate transport and storage is available—the Soviets had just five rail cars capable of safely transporting radioactive cargo, and their storage locations varied widely in size and suitability). Workers at the shipyard then remove salvageable equipment from the submarine and disassemble the vessel’s conventional and nuclear weapons systems. Crews must extract and isolate the nuclear warheads from the weapons before digging deeper into the launch compartment to scrap the missiles’ fuel systems and engines.
When it is time to dispose of the vessel’s reactors, crews cut vertical slices into the hull of the submarine and chop out the single or double reactor compartment along with an additional compartment fore and aft in a single huge cylinder-shaped chunk. Once sealed, the cylinder can float on its own for several months, even years, before it is lifted onto a barge and sent to a long-term storage facility.
But during the Cold War, nuclear storage in Soviet Russia usually meant a deep-sea dump job. At least 14 reactors from bygone vessels of the Northern Fleet were discarded into the Kara Sea. Sometimes, the Soviets skipped the de-fueling step beforehand, ditching the reactors with their highly radioactive fuel rods still intact.
According to the Bellona, the Northern Fleet also jettisoned 17,000 containers of hazardous nuclear material and deliberately sunk 19 vessels packed with radioactive waste, along with 735 contaminated pieces of heavy machinery. More low-level liquid waste was poured directly into the icy waters.
But during the Cold War, nuclear storage in Soviet Russia usually meant a deep-sea dump job. At least 14 reactors from bygone vessels of the Northern Fleet were discarded into the Kara Sea. Sometimes, the Soviets skipped the de-fueling step beforehand, ditching the reactors with their highly radioactive fuel rods still intact.
According to the Bellona, the Northern Fleet also jettisoned 17,000 containers of hazardous nuclear material and deliberately sunk 19 vessels packed with radioactive waste, along with 735 contaminated pieces of heavy machinery. More low-level liquid waste was poured directly into the icy waters.
Another submarine is perhaps a bigger risk for a radioactive leak. K-159, a November class, suffered a radioactive discharge accident in 1965 but served until 1989. After languishing in storage for 14 years, a 2003 storm ripped K-159 from its pontoons during a transport operation, and the battered hulk plunged to the floor of the Barents Sea, killing nine crewmen. The wreck lies at a depth of around 250 meters, most likely with its fueled and unsealed reactors open to the elements.
Russia has announced plans to raise the K-27, the K-159, and four other dangerous reactor compartments discarded in the Arctic. As of March 2020, Russian authorities estimate the cost of the recovery effort will be approximately $330 million.
The first target is K-159. But lifting the sunken sub back to the surface will take a specially built recovery vessel, one that does not yet exist. Design and construction of that ship is slated to begin in 2021, to be finished by the end of 2026. Now, in order to avoid an underwater Chernobyl, the Russians are beginning a terrifying race against the relentless progression of decay. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a34976195/russias-nuclear-submarine-graveyard/
While European organisations discuss nuclear wastes, UK unveils plan for Cumbria waste burial
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David Lowry’s Blog 15th Jan 2021, I have spent the past few days engaged in an excellent webinar on nuclear waste and information disclosure, titled: Aarhus convention and nuclear (acn) round table on radioactive waste management (rwm), online 13-15 January 2021 The promotional blurb reads “The European Commission (DG ENER) and Nuclear Transparency Watch (NTW) have organized an “Aarhus Convention and Nuclear” Roundtable [with] the objective to gather concerned stakeholders by Radioactive Waste Management (operators, regulators and institutional representatives, experts and researchers, NGOs, civil society representatives) in order to discuss concrete implementation of the Aarhus Convention principles (public information and participation)”
As this three day forum was underway across the European a digital airwaves, the UK nuclear waste management implementer- Radioactive Waste Management Limited and Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) unveiled a new atomic aspirant to bury nuclear waste under their land in Cumbria, near Sellafield.
http://drdavidlowry.blogspot.com/2021/01/why-truth-matters-including-on-nuclear.html |
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New consultations in Ignace, Ontario, over nuclear waste site
New consultations in Ignace over nuclear waste site, Residents asked to fill out survey from Nuclear Waste Management Organization between Jan. 18 and Feb. 26 By: IGNACE, Ont. – Residents in Ignace, one of two remaining candidates to serve as a repository for Canada’s nuclear’s waste, are being asked to weigh in as the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s site selection process continues.
Beginning Monday, residents can fill out a short survey created by the NWMO and the Township of Ignace that will help guide how the agency engages the public as it conducts numerous studies in the area in early 2021.
The agency narrowed its list of candidate sites to two – Ignace and South Bruce – in January of 2020. Final site selection was scheduled for 2023, with construction of a nuclear waste repository expected to take another 10 years to complete.
……….. Some experts and civil society groups have raised serious concerns over “deficient” federal nuclear waste policies, calling for an overhaul before moving forward.https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/new-consultations-in-ignace-over-nuclear-waste-site-3268753
Big doubts on small nuclear reactors – on economics, on waste problems
Former U.S. regulator questions small nuclear reactor technology, Business case for small reactors ‘doesn’t fly,’ says expert on nuclear waste, Jacques Poitras · CBC News Jan 15, 2021 A former head of the United States’ nuclear regulator is raising questions about the molten-salt technology that would be used in one model of proposed New Brunswick-made nuclear reactors.
The technology pitched by Saint John’s Moltex Energy is key to its business case because, the company argues, it would reuse some of the nuclear waste from Point Lepreau and lower the long-term cost and radioactivity of storing the remainder.
But Allison Macfarlane, the former chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a specialist in the storage of nuclear waste, said no one has yet proven that it’s possible or viable to reprocess nuclear waste and lower the cost and risks of storage.
“Nobody knows what the numbers are, and anybody who gives you numbers is selling you a bridge to nowhere because they don’t know,” said Macfarlane, now the director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia.
“Nobody’s really doing this right now. … Nobody has ever set up a molten salt reactor and used it to produce electricity.”
Macfarlane said she couldn’t comment specifically on Moltex, calling information about the company’s technology “very vague.”
But she said the general selling point for molten-salt technology is dubious.
“Nobody’s been able to answer my questions yet on what all these wastes are and how much of them there are, and how heat-producing they are and what their compositions are,” she said.
“My sense is that all of these reactor folks have not really paid a lot of attention to the back end of these fuel cycles,” she said, referring to the long-term risks and costs of securely storing nuclear waste.
Moltex is one of two Saint John-based companies pitching small nuclear reactors as the next step for nuclear power in the province and as a non-carbon-dioxide emitting alternative to fossil fuel electricity generation.
Moltex North America CEO Rory O’Sullivan said the company’s technology will allow it to affordably extract the most radioactive parts of the existing nuclear waste from the Point Lepreau Generating Station.
The waste is now stored in pellet form in silos near the plant and is inspected regularly.
The process would remove less than one per cent of the material to fuel the Moltex reactor and O’Sullivan said that would make the remainder less radioactive for a much shorter amount of time.
Existing plans for nuclear waste in Canada are to store it in an eventual permanent repository deep underground, where it would be secure for the hundreds of thousands of years it remained radioactive………..
Shorter-term radioactivity complicates storage
Macfarlane said a shorter-term radioactivity life for waste would actually complicate its storage underground because it might lead to a facility that has to be funded and secured rather than sealed up and abandoned.
“That means that you believe that the institutions that exist to keep monitoring that … will exist for hundreds of years, and I think that is a ridiculous assumption,” she said.
“I’m looking at the United States, I’m seeing institutions crumbling in a matter of a few years. I have no faith that institutions can last that long and that there will be streams of money to maintain the safety and security of these facilities. That’s why you will need a deep geologic repository for this material.”
And she said that’s assuming the technology will successfully extract all of the most radioactive material.
“They are assuming that they remove one hundred per cent of the difficult, radionuclides, the difficult isotopes, that complicate the waste,” she said.
“My response is: prove it. Because if you leave five per cent, you have high-level waste that you’re going to be dealing with. If you leave one per cent, you’re going to have high-level waste that you’re going to be dealing with. So sorry, that one doesn’t fly with me.”
Macfarlane, a geologist by training, raised doubts about molten-salt technology and waste issues in a 2018 paper she co-authored for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists………. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nuclear-waste-reactors-new-brunswick-allison-macfarlane-moltex-arc-1.5873542
Property developer volunteers Allerdale, Cumbria for UK’s nuclear waste
anyone to volunteer anywhere, even an individual who doesn’t live in the area, or a company can volunteer it.
of the local population.
mirrored by the ease of withdrawing. There the government have chosen a highly prescriptive system.
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