Tennessee group fights to keep out (Italian) nuclear waste

[jpak]

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080503/NEWS01/805030344/1006

A push is on to try to stop a private firm from bringing waste from old Italian nuclear plants to Tennessee for processing.

EnergySolutions of Utah has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval to haul up to 20,000 tons of the material to Oak Ridge, and a Rutherford County group has joined the fight to keep it out.

"If we don't act quickly, the application will be approved for this enormous shipment, and the doors will be open for all of Europe's nuclear waste to enter the U.S.," Kathy Ferris of Murfreesboro, with Citizens to End Nuclear Dumping in Tennessee, said in an e-mail.

Company officials have said the waste would pose no threat and that the processing will allow much of the material to be recycled. Most is metals, wood, paper and plastic debris from old Italian nuclear power plants.

<more>

[pleah]

1. WTF! So America has become the new dumping ground for

the worlds nuclear waste?

[katsy]

2. Just out of curiosity..

why can't a program be developed to launch this stuff into the sun? Not that it would make it, but wouldn't it disintegrate the waste?

[madokie]

3. an example of whats wrong with using nuclear to power electrical power plants

no one has figured out what to do with the very dangerous waste.

[katsy]

6. Imagine if we directed our resources to finding

answers to complex problems and exploring our universe instead of feeding a war machine. Imagine kids reaching for the stars instead of guns...

We may have had alternative clean energy by now. Not necessarily nuclear, but clean energy. Oh well.

[NNadir]

22. Of course you are clueless about what to do with dangerous fossil fuel waste.

Oh the other hand, you couldn't care less about dangerous fossil fuel waste.

It kills people.

Neither you nor the rest of your clueless morally vapid friends can identify a single person injured by used nuclear fuel.

On the other hand, you have no program to give a rat's ass about this:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update17.htm

Maybe you feel smug being arbitrary.

Ignorance kills.

And why you were having an orgy of deliberate scientific ignorance, scientists recognized that nuclear power doesn't need to be perfect to be better than everything else. It merely needs to be better than everything else, and it is.

www.externe.info.

[NMDemDist2]

4. I've often said that myself, until someone asked what would happen

if the rocket exploded on take off

It was a good point.

[losthills]

5. Think of the amount of fossil fuel that would be expended.

[diane in sf]

7. What happens if the rocket disintegrates in our atmosphere?

[katsy]

8. I don't know.

What happens if we store nuclear waste and the containers become compromised?

I don't profess to have any answers but while both scenarios (storage on earth or space shot) fall short of being an answer, I sure wouldn't want to live near a nuclear waste storage facility.

[izquierdista]

10. Incinerating a container in orbit

There was much angst when the Voyager probes were launched because of the Pu-238 heat source contained in the probe. It is the only way to engineer a battery with a life of decades, but if it were to vaporize in the atmosphere, uh-oh. That much volatilized Pu could raise the rate of cancers by the millions.

However, NASA went ahead, there was no Challenger type accident, and the probes are now in the far reaches of the solar system. I often think that people here on DU are overly fearful of nuclear waste. The geologic solution, to put it thousands of feet down in a stable geologic formation is a pretty good one. There are naturally occurring deposits of radioactive material, even a naturally occurring nuclear reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor). The geologic solutions don't depend on the containers. It is assumed that the container will be crushed and breached in a few years after the repository is closed. Then the formation is what contains the radioactive material until it decays to stable elements.

[katsy]

12. Thanks - interesting read!

[losthills]

15. How can you be "overly fearful" of radioactive waste?

When there is NO safe level of radiation....

[Nihil]

16. Apparently very easily ...

... seeing how many people around here prefer to do the headless chicken act
instead of thinking rationally ...

I think that "overly fearful" is a *very* polite way of putting it.

:shrug:

[madokie]

17. I would much rather we deal with climate change due to excess co2

as to deal with radiation poisoning due to hundreds more of nuclear power plants. CO2 can be cleaned up in a relatively short time as compared to radiation poisoning whereas if we continue on the path the nukies want us on with nuclear we'd already be fucked big time.
The thing with this anti-nuke is I've been hearing this same shit since way back in the sixties. it was mostly a lie back then and its still a lie today.
No one knows what to do with the waste, waiting until its figured out is not the way to go, once it has been shown that there is a plan then I, today, will be ready for nuclear energy powering my life, same as I would have been back then. Coal is bad there is no doubt about it but I'll take my chances with it while we work on alternate forms of producing power.

[izquierdista]

20. Reactors underground

The real, workable solution is to locate any new reactors half a mile underground, in old coal, potash, or salt mines. When the reactor becomes too old or unreliable, then there is no "problem" with disposing of all the waste, as it is already in its final resting place. Just cut the cord to the surface, backfill the shafts and tunnels and leave it there.

Of course, the suitable geology will have to be found in the first place to avoid leaching problems like with some abandoned gold mines in Colorado. However, those problems are surface mines that have ground water running through them, and deep mines are located under ground water, under an impermeable layer.

Just to let you know, coal plants produce quite a bit of radioactivity themselves. When a nuke plant is downwind of a coal-fired power plant, they can always tell when there is a temperature inversion; all the radiation monitors start going off.

[izquierdista]

18. Then the whole planet is unsafe

Radiation has been around forever; plants and animals have adapted to this background rate.

Take a look at the following article: http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/inthorm.html

The real problem with radioactive wastes is that given enough time, mankind could add significantly to this background radiation. The man-made component would then outweigh the natural component, leading to an imbalance in nature. Kind of like what has already happened with the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.

[izquierdista]

9. Only during the daytime

For such a long flight, they lack the precision to time the arrival. If they landed at night, the whole space shot would have been for naught.

[diane in sf]

21. Why even build nukes when conservation and wind are so much faster and cheaper?

[phantom power]

11. In a sentence: $5000 per pound to low earth orbit...

To say nothing of the cost of pushing it out of earth's gravity well altogether, and then killing off earth's orbital velocity, so that the package could drop into the sun instead of orbiting.

Putting mass into space is really really expensive.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. Not necessary

The Earth itself contains a large amount of radioactive material; seawater averages 8-15 ppb of uranium and thorium, and there is about a thousand times that in soil.

The source of elemental phosphorus used in agriculture comes mainly from "mining" phosphate flats. They are loaded with U and Th. These phosphates can be, and have been, used as source material for nuclear fuel. You could probably burn it in a CANDU reactor.

Not only is nuclear waste recycling technology improving, new approaches are being developed to "denature" radioactive material, or to quickly render it non-radioactive.

Whether we develop a nuclear energy infrastructure is a big decision, but phobias about radiation should not influence our decisions. We make and use many deadly substances without causing mass death -- your computer has probably already caused its own little toxic deposit, even using http://www.rohs.gov.uk/">RoHS-approved components. Ramping up our production of solar PV technology by a factor of 1000 or more would involve using proportionally larger amounts of cadmium, mercury, and arsenic, but the advantages from the wide use of solar energy would far outweigh the costs of keeping things safe.

The same cautions apply to nuclear technology.

We ought to keep the "waste" here, store it safely, keep close watch over it, and reuse it or neutralize it when our technology improves. We can put our efforts into deciding the best use of it.

--p!

[losthills]

14. Translation: Blatant Nuclear Industry Propaganda

[Dogmudgeon]

19. Keep raving, losthills. You're really convincing people.

The more mindless, enraged harangues you post, the quicker people will get over what remains of once-trendy nuclear phobia.

Then we can get to work on solving our energy problems with a complete set of solutions, not just corporate photo-ops of children playing under windmills.

--p!

[losthills]

23. Anyone can see that this is propaganda:

"Not only is nuclear waste recycling technology improving, new approaches are being developed to "denature" radioactive material, or to quickly render it non-radioactive. "

Those are your words.

That is some looney-toon shit.

That is propaganda, and a person who dispenses propaganda is a "Propagandist."

"Not only is nuclear waste recycling technology improving, new approaches are being developed to "denature" radioactive material, or to quickly render it non-radioactive. "

Wow, man.... that is so unreal, I'm going to copy it out again, just to see if I read it correctly.

"Not only is nuclear waste recycling technology improving, new approaches are being developed to "denature" radioactive material, or to quickly render it non-radioactive. "

Yep-- it's propaganda.

[Dogmudgeon]

24. Bullshit. You just won't look up a word or two.

You don't know what the word "denature" means?

You could http://dictionary.reference.com/">look it up.

Here are abstracts from three papers, all using the word in its proper context in the field of nuclear technology. I chose them at random from a Google search on the key words "radioactive" and "denature". You can use the dictionary link to look up the other words you don't know, as well.

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=10193673">Comparison of options for plutonium disposal reactors

Subject - 12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES; 22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS; 98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION; PLUTONIUM; RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING; REACTORS; COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; NUCLEAR WEAPONS; STOCKPILES; ACTINIDE BURNER REACTORS; DENATURED FUEL; RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL; WATER COOLED REACTORS; LIQUID METAL COOLED REACTORS; HTGR TYPE REACTORS; TRANSMUTATION

Description/Abstract - The end of the Cold War has resulted in an excess of plutonium in the weapons stockpiles of the United States and other nations. A number of mostly reactor-based systems have been proposed to denature this plutonium, as opposed to storing and guarding it indefinitely. A Department of Energy task force has been set up to consider this problem, and the National Academy of Sciences is evaluating it as well. In this report, three major reactor types -- the Advanced Light Water Reactor (ALWR), the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR), and the Modular High-Temperature Gas Reactor (MHTGR) -- are considered in terms of various qualities applicable to plutonium denaturing. These qualities include safety, management experience, waste disposal, economics, public acceptance, and others. On the basis of these considerations, it appears that the ALWR ranks at or near the top in most categories. This reactor type deserves closer consideration in terms of plutonium denaturing and disposition.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V2P-4D98V1P-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=be04c3aecf2476db3d0a623ba31dee04">Neutronic analysis of denaturing plutonium in a thorium fusion breeder and power flattening (See original page for correct text formatting.)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to denature nuclear weapon grade quality plutonium in a thorium fusion breeder. Ten fuel rods containing the mixture of ThO2 and PuO2 are placed in a radial direction in the fissile zone where ThO2 is mixed with variable amounts of PuO2 to obtain a quasi-constant nuclear heat production density. The plutonium composition volume fractions in the fuel rods are gradually increased from 0.1% to 1% by 0.1% increments. The fissile fuel zone is cooled with four various coolants with a volume fraction ratio of 1 (Vcoolant/Vfuel = 1). These coolants are helium gas, flibe “Li2BeF4”, natural lithium and eutectic lithium “Li17Pb83”. Nuclear weapon grade quality 239Pu in the fuel composition is denatured due to the accumulation of the 240Pu isotope in the fissile zone after 18 months of plant operations. Under a first wall fusion neutron current load of 2.222 × 1014 (14.1 MeV n/cm2 s), which corresponds to 5 MW/m2, by a plant factor of 100%, at the end of the plant operation, the fissile fuel enrichment quality between 6.0% and 10% is obtained depending on the coolant types. During the plant operation, the tritium breeding ratio (TBR) should be at least 1.05. In the selected blanket, only the flibe coolant is already self sustaining at start up. The TBR increases steadily due to the higher neutron multiplication rate during the plant operation period. The highest TBR is obtained for the eutectic lithium coolant 1.4035, followed by the flibe coolant 1.3095, helium gas coolant 1.2172 and natural lithium coolant 1.0553 at the end of the operation period of 48 months. The energy multiplication factor M changed between 2.1731 and 6.6241 depending on coolant type during the operation period. The peak to average fission power density ratio Γ in the blanket decreases by not, vert, similar15%, which allows a more uniform power generation in the fissile zone. The isotopic percentage of 240Pu reaches higher than 5% in all coolant types. This is very important for international safety.

http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/tayu/ACT95E/frame0803.html">Persistent Quest-Research Activities 1995 - 8.3 Rock-like Plutonium Fuels

The Japanese long-term program for nuclear energy development and utilization states that no excess plutonium shall be stored. In this context, a once-through burning process for plutonium has been proposed as one of the processes for plutonium annihilation. In this process, rock-like fuels having multiphases are fabricated based on conventional MOX fuel technologies. They are irradiated in light water reactors (LWRs) to generate electricity. As the resulting spent fuels are geologically stable, it is possible to dispose of them as high-level waste (HLW) after 30 ~ 50 years of cooling without further processing. Accordingly, this process is expected to meet the triple objectives of denaturing the plutonium (nonproliferation), generating electricity (economy), and forming stable HLW (environmental safety).

...

Fig. 8-3 shows the plutonium transmutation characteristics estimated by the 2-dimensional core calculation. As much as 83% of the total plutonium and 98% of the 239Pu are transmuted by about 1,400 days of burnup. The quality of plutonium becomes very poor in the spent fuels. A total of 0.87 tonne of plutonium would be denatured every year assuming the use of a 1 GWe PWR operating at 80% availability.

Who needs a snappy comeback when the critic is so ignorant?

--p!

[losthills]

25. Bullshit is right......

All your shit is funny, dude, but that is the funniest crap you've ever put out.

"new approaches are being developed to "denature" radioactive material, or to quickly render it non-radioactive."

You need to be honest about what you are doing here. This shit is too far over the top....

[Nihil]

26. Did you *read* the post you just replied to?

> All your shit is funny, dude, but that is the funniest crap you've
> ever put out.
>
>> "new approaches are being developed to "denature" radioactive material,
>> or to quickly render it non-radioactive."

If you'd actually READ the content of the post (not even having to follow
any links) you should have understood what Pigwidgeon was saying and realised
that maybe it isn't "funny crap" but is actual *science* ...

> You need to be honest about what you are doing here. This shit is too
> far over the top....

You are falling into the trap of describing your own posts here ...

:shrug:

[kristopher]

27. Did you read the clips? Losthills is right.

"The end of the Cold War has resulted in an excess of plutonium in the weapons stockpiles of the United States and other nations. A number of mostly reactor-based systems have been proposed to denature this plutonium, as opposed to storing and guarding it indefinitely. A Department of Energy task force has been set up to consider this problem, and the National Academy of Sciences is evaluating it as well."

and

"In this process, rock-like fuels having multiphases are fabricated based on conventional MOX fuel technologies. They are irradiated in light water reactors (LWRs) to generate electricity. As the resulting spent fuels are geologically stable, it is possible to dispose of them as high-level waste (HLW) after 30 ~ 50 years of cooling without further processing. Accordingly, this process is expected to meet the triple objectives of denaturing the plutonium (nonproliferation), generating electricity (economy), and forming stable HLW (environmental safety)."

This is a process for taking "nuclear weapons grade quality 239Pu" and rendering it into high level waste that must still be handled as all other high level nuclear waste is handled. It isn't, according to this selection of snips, a way of dealing with the scale of waste that would be produced by turning to nuclear to meet climate change concerns.

The claims made earlier for the value of this technology as a way of dealing with said wastes undoubtedly constitutes dissemination of propaganda.

[Dead_Parrot]

28. I think pid had a brain-fart

I suspect he's thinking about transmutation - either photon bombardment (take ²³⁹Pu -Half life 24 kyr, knock out some neutrons by bunging an x-ray through it, and wind up with ²³⁷Pu -Half life 46 days) or neutron capture (Stick in in an IFR and stuff neutrons into it until turns into Americium, or undergoes fission and turns into Uranium)

Google awaits you. :) I picked Pu since it in the thread, but the tricks should work with any waste: For Pu, I think it's more sane to use it as a fuel source. Should mix nicely with Thorium, IIRC

[Dogmudgeon]

29. No brain fart here. Transmutation is used as a denaturing process.

I've posted on the topic in the past and I did call it "transmutation". While reading up on the subject, I found that the word "denaturing" was used to describe transmutation as a way to render used nuclear fuel un-radioactive.

If I have erred in any of the details, I will be happy to read the correct information. But losthills was posting ridicule over my use of a word that he did not understand and could not be bothered to look up. I figured that posting the word in use would be more effective than insulting him in kind.

For some of the "details" ...

IIRC, Thorium actually can be used as a denaturant simply by mixing it with plutonium. The product is still radioactive, but it is extremely difficult to use it to make a nuclear bomb. Developing thorium-cycle nuclear reactors would remove civil nuclear energy production from weapons making, and most of the proposed methods are at much lower risk of meltdown or other disastrous failures.

There appear to be many ways to denature nuclear waste, some using the primary energy-producing cycle of a rector, resulting in a very-low-cost process.

"To denature" simply means to make it very difficult or impossible to use the denatured substance -- like putting phenolphthalein in grain alcohol (ethanol) so people can't drink it. But I expect that ideologically-driven anti-nuclearists will oppose denaturing nuclear material for similar reasons that the church opposed birth control -- because it reduces the risks in nuclear technology.

Again, corrections are welcome. Ridicule is not.

--p!

[Dead_Parrot]

30. Ahh, I misunderstood

I thought you were referring to complete elimination. Turning Pu into fuel (as MOX or a Pu/Th mix) is far a more sensible use, although Pu->Pb transmutation (probably over a couple of stages) is possible.

Hey ho. We can sit back and wait for the foaming to start.

(Anyway, who says you can't drink phenolphthalein? )
:hurts:

[Dogmudgeon]

32. Complete elimination

With a nice animated icon to go along with it.

:evilgrin:

If you drink phenolphthalein, you'll achieve a complete and rapid elimination of human bioreactor waste. In an intelligently managed system of nitrogen recycling, we could reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum-source nitrogen by this Saturday. On the other hand, it will involve a lot of cellulosic material in the form of soft tissue paper -- the brand preferred 2-to-1 by cute babies and cartoon bears.

Corn is just not cost-effective. The PROPI is too low.

--p!
My shrink at least will be entertained.

[losthills]

36. More like a massive aneurism...

"Quickly render radioactive waste non-radioactive!"

He's become the Rumplestiltskin of nuclear physics....

[Dogmudgeon]

31. One clip you didn't like = "undoubtedly"?

Read losthills' screed again. His was no nuanced analysis of the state of the art in nuclear engineering. He tripped over my use of the word "denature".

You chose one clip on which to hang an accusation of propaganda -- out of the three clips I posted to prove the existence of a word and a field of technology. Even that cite is from a study of a method which greatly improves the safety of nuclear waste.

If you want to be able to completely neutralize all reactor waste, an entire industry will be required, but developing more efficient reactors and better recycling would probably be more worthwhile. The lack of an infrastructure does not argue against a technology. But if that's how you define "propaganda", there's a whole forum of propaganda right here, including some of your own posts.

I must admit, yours is a more sophisticated form of invective than laughing yourself hoarse because you won't look up a word.

--p!

[losthills]

33. You are still propagandizing.

You said that denaturing quickly and easily renders
radioactive waste non-radioactive.
That is a false statement.

These are your words: [B]"new approaches are being
developed to "denature" radioactive material, or to
quickly render it non-radioactive."[/B]

Your little links do not support that statement. It's just
more disinformation, and disinformation and [B]Propaganda[/B]
are al you ever post here.

[Dogmudgeon]

34. You've got to be joking

:wtf:

What I wrote can be easily understood by any adult with passable skills in English. You're language lawyering. It's the way a child argues, with a few bigger words (like "disinformation" and "propaganda") thrown in.

I don't demand that anyone agree with me, but your personal attacks and pointless rants set a new low in anti-nuclear activism. If you can't discuss nuclear energy issues like an adult, take it elsewhere.

--p!

[losthills]

35. Your links don't support the false statements you made.

They do not say what you are claiming that they say.

You post false information in this forum on a regular basis. If you don't like being called on it, then take a hike.