Nuclear waste STILL the big problem - what has changed?

[aztc]

Found this article from 2002...what has changed?

Nuclear power plants running out of storage space

By Doug Abrahms
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
6/3/2002 10:33 pm

WASHINGTON � From New York to Arizona, nuclear power plants are running out of room in the spent-fuel pool.

By 2004, about 30 power plants across the nation will run out of storage space in the ponds used to cool and store used nuclear fuel, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. And the vast majority of the nation�s 104 commercial atomic reactors will hit this same problem by 2010 � the earliest date that the proposed nuclear waste facility could open at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas.

�We begin running out of space at the end in 2003,� said Sheri Foote, a spokeswoman for Arizona Public Service Co. The company owns the Palo Verde nuclear plant about 45 miles outside of Phoenix. �Our hope is the government will ultimately be taking this stuff from us.�

Until then, U.S. power plants are busy planning and building above-ground storage sites next to their nuclear plants to keep radioactive material for decades. Workers at the Palo Verde plant are pouring concrete for the first of possibly several pads that will house spent nuclear rods for more than a decade, Foote said.

Today, most of the 50,000 tons of used nuclear fuel rods nationwide is in ponds next to power plants, with water cooling the uranium before the material eventually gets carted away. Nuclear waste is safer in the cooling ponds than it would be transporting it to Yucca Mountain but would ultimately be the safest in the long-term repository.

http://www.rgj.com/news/printstory.php?id=15935

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Nothing's changed...

The nuclear waste is still contained, the hydrocarbon waste is still added to the air we breathe... :)

[philb]

3. ask the utilities where the nuclear waste is "contained" what they

think about the current status; with the huge and increasing expenses they face to "contain" it since 9/11

[good intentions]

27. Utilities are building ISFSIs (is-fah-sees)

Nearly every nuclear plant is getting an interim Spent Fuel storage facility. It's typically a bunch of really heavy concrete/steel cylinders about 18 feet tall and 8 foot diameter standing out in a field. The main security mechanism is that the power plant workers can see them everyday, and it would take massive, slow-moving machinery to pick one up, or time-consuming drilling to open one up. These things are typically designed to 200 years, but the expectation is that they can last a lot longer than that. The cost is several million dollars to build and license an ISFSI, but maintenance costs are virtually nothing (a typical nuke plant might earn a million dollars a day). Utilities are viewing waste as a "solved" problem for our lifetimes, so several are moving forward pursuing new nuclear plants for the first time since the 1970s. (The new plants will be safer and cheaper to run; we've learned a lot in the last 40 years.)

[aztc]

30. Safer, cheaper, but still only 200 year waste storage

Utilities are viewing waste as a "solved" problem for our lifetimes, so several are moving forward pursuing new nuclear plants..

I love the last line best,

The new plants will be safer and cheaper to run..

Of course they will! How else can they sell this faulty technology that has never been profitable?

In fact, I bet the new energy will be "too cheap to meter" right? :sarcasm:

Bah - who cares, let those people 200 years from now deal with it! We need 'lectric cars and stuff!!!

[unhappycamper]

2. We've been getting rid of that stuff for a while.

Gulf War I: 340 tons
Afghanistan: 800 ~ 1000 tons
Gulf War II (aka the Oil War): estimated 2200 tons

Here's a really good read on the subject:
Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War

[Massacure]

4. DU is very dense, and is also used as a counterweight.

It's often times used on airplanes.

[Odin2005]

5. Not more ignorant, Anti-Nuclear BS.

*moans*

[Dogmudgeon]

6. I'm not so sure about that

I'm pro-nuclear-energy, but depleted uranium often isn't as depleted as it's made out to be. In addition, while it might not be as radioactive as the anti-nuke activists say, it's being used so promiscuously in the middle east that there will be a huge volume of low-grade radioactive dust wafting through the region for years.

There has also been very little work done documenting the safety or risk of this pollution except for the quickie surveys that are done to make American industry and some of the top brass look good.

There are several moans to be moaned. Anti-nuclear BS is certainly present, but when the talk turns to depleted uranium munitions, the BS just never ends.

From all sides of the debate, we need to end the BS. We need to know exactly what is going on.

It would also be a good idea if someone decided to wage peace in the middle east.

--p!

[Odin2005]

7. Uranium and Plutonium are dangerous mostly because they are heavy metals.

They have long half lives and so arn't that radioactive. We shouldn't use DepUr for the same reason we don't want mercury in our tapwater, because they are chemically poisonous not because of radioactivity. The glow-in-the-dark stuff with radium oxide paint is far more dangerous radioactivity-wise than a chunk of uranium (radium has a half-lifew of only a few thousand years, uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years).

URANIUM IS DANGEROUS CHEMICALLY, NOT BECAUSR OF RADIOACTIVITY!

[Dogmudgeon]

8. That doesn't sound right, though

I'm not picking a fight -- I have some real questions about the use of depleted uranium in munitions.

I'm with you on the chemical toxicity issue, but the idea that there is no risk of radiation-caused illness does not seem tenable in the absence of studies on the matter. Other than the usual "don't worry, everything is under control," I have seen NO credible study on the use of DU in the mid-east that answers the question. The few credible studies I have seen appeared to be very limited in scope, or were pilot studies.

The radiation problem with DU as dust is that there is so much of it over there. Even low levels of exposure could accumulate to produce illness -- but we don't have accurate figures on how much is over there, and what kind of public health problems are being caused.

Uranium emits ionizing radiation -- at least that was what I learned. It may not be as bad as radium or different radioisotopes, but it's still active. Even a small amount can produce damage, although at low levels, the body can repair that damage.

I don't fear uranium or any radioisotope "just because" -- I fear contamination I'm not told about For My Own Damn Good. Which has been S.O.P. by industry and government, and has given nuclear technology a black eye.

The "bottom line" of my concern is that we are largely in the dark about the DU over there. Do you (or anyone else) know of any current, accurate information? It would go a long way toward easing the concerns of many, or conversely, inciting some needed activism.

--p!

[Massacure]

9. DU is mainly an alpha emitter, I don't think it has too much ionizing.

The skin will block alpha particles, and so you have to inhale the fine dust in order to get affect a person radiologically. The dust usually doesn't hang around in the air for too long, but the possability of inhaling it does exist.

[Dogmudgeon]

10. I think that's the issue

Breathing the dust. It falls out of the air pretty fast, but in an arid country (or any country during a dry spell), it can be kicked up pretty easily, too.

There's also the possibility of ingesting it, but I am not up on how effective alpha radiation is in different tissues, nor how effective DU is in the alimentary canal.

Once again, this isn't necessarily going to produce glow-in-the-dark zombies, but there's little accurate information on it, and some hundred odd thousand American military people have been exposed to it, not to mention a million or more Iraqis. And I think a lot of people develop unnecessary fear from information being unnecessarily withheld.

--p!

[aztc]

12. D-I-R-T-Y B-O-M-B

Ok, say the desperate one rents a Ryder truck and uses it to visit several nursery centers, loading a few hundred pounds of fertilizer at each one. Next, the desperate one selects one of over 100 facilities and suicidally drives this truck at high speed into the "containment" dome covering a pond of a few thousand pounds of this stuff and detonates a hand grenade or body bomb at the same time.

Say he manges to beat the odds and has success, there is an explosion and the containment dome is breached. Not a nuclear explosion, just the truckload of fertilizer.

How about one of you nuke lovers tell us all what the result of such an incident will be?

[NickB79]

13. Like you said, first he has to beat the odds and breach the dome

Anyone here know just what it takes to breach one of them? I recall that after 9/11 they had engineers on the news talking about how even crashing a hijacked 747 into one would not have been able to penetrate. But that was the true containment dome around the reactor itself. Do they reinforce the spent fuel rod holding ponds as well?

If someone pulled a McVeigh-style attack on a holding pond of nuclear waste, the results wouldn't be nearly as bad as you imply. Nuclear material would probably be scattered for quite a few hundred yards by the blast itself, but there would be no long-range release of radioactive material. Chernobyl was able to put up a radioactive plume across much of Europe because radioactive material burned and was released into the atmosphere. You can't burn up spent fuel rods with a fertilizer bomb when the rods are stored underwater, can you?

Unless that nuclear reactor is within a half-mile of residential housing, I don't think many people would come in contact with radioactive material thrown up by the explosion. Like you said, no nuclear explosion, just a truckload of fertilizer.

[One_Life_To_Give]

15. Not Much I suspect

If you are talking about breaching the outer containment dome on the reactor. Not much would happen other than the shutdown of the reactor as a preventative measure. To really make a dirty bomb work you would need to place the bomb in the middle of the nuclear reactors fuel rods. And even then the results will be more psychological than any actual disruption caused while the cleanup takes place.

I can think of many better and simpler ways to kill lots of people and screw up infrastructure.

[Dead_Parrot]

17. Well, he'd lose his deposit on the truck.

I can't see a dome being breached with homemade explosives. Given the strength of those things a coat of paint would probably fix it: Even if they did breach the dome, it wouldn't affect the reactor: It could conceivably damage one of the cooling circuits, which would force a shutdown while they repaired it - although the'd do that anyway while everything was tested.

The repair/repainting contract would be given to Haliburton, and cost $90 million.

There would also be a big overhaul of security, that would probably make it illegal to buy fertiliser unless you also buy seed from Monsanto.

New laws would also make it illegal to hire a truck without submitting to a DHS lie-detector and anal probe.

Gas would go up 40c at the pump. Hey, any excuse.

Y'know, maybe you're right to be worried about it... :)

[aztc]

11. No, more ignorant pro-nuke advocates with no answer to The Waste Problem

I am not ignorant and that is what pisses you nuke lovers off so much.

I will not be bullied into accepting nuclear energy without a RESPONSIBLE ANSWER from the industry to the simple question about what to do with waste and this has people calling me names and ignoring entire discussion threads.

Look, it IS a problem and loudly demanding I join in YOUR ignorance and gluttony is not moving us toward any solutions.

Once again: What shall we do with the growing piles of radioactive waste accumulating at over 100 facilities nationwide right NOW? Stop telling me what France does, or what we can do in the future - this industry has had decades and billions to solve this, and has not. Just stop building them until this is solved.

[dcfirefighter]

14. Your ignorance doesn't piss me off

it's your failure to accept any answer other than the one you've already accepted.

[aztc]

20. Recycle it is not an answer because we are NOT recycling it

Instead, it is being stored in 100+ 'temporary' facilities at this time. Do we also deny this reality in favor of the notion that we 'can' recycle it and therefore it isn't really a problem?

Whew, those folks in Nevada opposing Yucca mountain as a 'permanent' storage site will be so relieved! Folks, relax - we can recycle it! No, we aren't doing that after decades of research and boatloads of money, but we CAN, so relax, there is no problem, turn on the TV, watch this nature show, don't worry, capitalists love the environment too. Go back to sleep and the professionals take care of this, absolutely nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, og worng....

[dcfirefighter]

24. By that logic: Reduce consumption, replace with renewables aren't answers

either.

[aztc]

29. Which is why we are at war for world resources

That has been my point since I started posting here - it is not 'Green' to fly on jet aircraft and to race from red light to red light during a 60 mile daily commute.

Reduce consumption has been my #1 message since 9/11 - in fact that message replaced my efforts to build an ethanol plant in the West using hemp or kenaf biomass (see http://fuelandfiber.com), even though I am a strong proponent of biofuel, hell I made bio diesel on the steps of the California State Capitol just weeks before 9/11 (see http://www.fuelandfiber.com/Archive/News/Legalize/BioDemo/biodemo.html )

My point is that gluttony is the REAL problem, and simply switching from one substance to another will solve nothing.

Do you obey speed limits and never exceed 55 MPH? If not, you could be saving 20% to 50% right now, with no sacrifice in quality of life, while reducing our dependence on imported fuel and lessening your impact on the environment.

Have you made a decision to stop flying in the most energy intensive, polluting form of transportation available, commercial jets? If not, you are much more a part of the problem than the solution.

And now you want more nuclear plants before anyone has RESPONSIBLY ANSWERED the question of what to do with the waste. Stop saying we CAN recycle it, because we CAN send it to space, or bury it in YOUR backyard, but that is NOT what is happening today. It is being stored in overflowing 'temporary' facilities at over 100 more or less secure sites in the USA.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. But we have

We've explained repeatedly that the 'waste' can be used in new reactors, you just don't seems to be listening.

What pisses me off, though, is that you've never come up with any alternative that can be put into place in the next decade or so. Or what to do about the hundreds of thousands who die each years from particulates. Or how to get the damn CO2 out of the air. These are the critical problems the planet is facing. 'Critical' as in, 'We've only got a few years to get this fixed or we're all fucked'. The people of Tuvalu don't give a shit how to get to downtown Sacramento on a sunny day. They're wondering where their children are going to live when their country disappears under the rising tides.

If you have a reason not to use nuclear power other than "Ooh, it's scary", I'd like to hear it. If you have an real alternative, I'd love to hear it.

[aztc]

19. Faulty premise

First off, I disagree with the premise that 'We've only got a few years to get this fixed or we're all fucked' - again this is all or nothing black or white thinking. It presumes the edge of a cliff is near, but even Hubert's curve sees at least something of a slope on the backside of the decline. Plus, we are an ingenious people and capitalists will get more at any cost as long as there are hoards of gluttons lined up at the pump/ticket counter to buy it. In fact, we will NEVER RUN OUT OF OIL.

As to rising tides and global climate change, wars over resources (like uranium), etc., I too am concerned, and I do offer much more than rhetoric, I do offer REAL SOLUTIONS:

http://Drive55.org & http://PeaceTraintoDC.com

http://fuelandfiber.com

http://fuelandfiber.com/Athena

and the new Solar Train

http://timcastleman.com/sst/

[Dead_Parrot]

22. You misunderstand

I'm not talking about oil. Every drop of oil on the planet could vanish in a puff of smoke tomorrow and I wouldn't give a flying fuck. Once the initial panic was over I'd be quite happy, so long as I'm not downwind of a city.

I'm talking about the irreparable damage we've done to our planet.
I'm talking about million-year old ice cores that are now all that's left of the floes they were taken from, because the rest has melted.
I'm talking about the millions who will be without water when the glaciers feeding their rivers are gone.
I'm talking about the desertification of vast areas of arable land and the resulting starvation.
I'm talking about the species we've wiped out without even giving them a name.
I'm talking about billions of tons of frozen methane on the brink of flooding the atmosphere. Because yes, there is a fucking big cliff and yes, we are right on top of it.

No matter how slowly you drive, we're still choking the whole planet in carbon. It may already be too late, but only time will tell.

And every day we sit with our thumbs up our arses dreaming about solar power is another 15 million tons worth of damage. Fine, drive at 55 and trim it down to 14.8 million, but excuse me if I don't jump for joy.

We have one alternative. It's called "nuclear power". If there's another one, lets hear it.

[aztc]

25. Let's agree to disagree then

I just don't see it the way you do, and nuclear is not an answer in my view. It is not just my opinion that the atmosphere does have a capacity for some emissions without catastrophe. We do agree on the one pending if we continue the current gluttonous level of consumption no one seems very willing to address in a real way, it would just be too damned inconvenient to drive 55. This is the REAL problem, in my view of things.

[Dead_Parrot]

28. Hey ho

Yeah, we do agree we're pissing the stuff away. :) And I'm not knocking things like the solar train, which I actually quite like the sound of: But I'm intrigued by "It is not just my opinion that the atmosphere does have a capacity for some emissions without catastrophe". Can you quantify that, or through some links my way?

[Dogmudgeon]

18. Yo, aztc

Cool it with the personal screeds. The angry, arrogant envirowarrior act is getting old.

You're allowed and even encouraged to oppose nuclear energy, but name calling and righteous indignation isn't going to get you any slack. Nobody here (at least the "nuke lovers") thinks that they're above learning something new. Calling people fat (your frequent use of the word "gluttony") isn't any more useful than calling us "ignorant" while ignoring what we're saying.

For the record, some of us "nuke lovers" have been criticizing the way nuclear waste is handled -- some for more than 20 years. The nuclear issue can't be reduced to a single dumb-ass proposal by Bush cronies.

And DON'T blame it on us. We think Bush is an idiot, too.

--p!

[aztc]

21. Review the thread pleez

To find out who un holstered the descriptive word 'ignorant' first, please review this thread. I merely reflected it back.

As to my consistent use of the word 'gluttony' to describe typical American behavior regarding energy consumption, have you a better one? Do you deny it? Besides that, this thread is once again asking a question none of these pro-nuke people have answered, so why attack me for pointing that out?

[phantom power]

32. Your definition of "not answered" doesn't scan.

You start with the very reasonable question "tell me what you think we should do with the waste." Several of us have explained what to do with it: (a) leave it where it is, and (b) recycle it when it becomes economical to do so.

You respond by saying "but that isn't an answer because (b) isn't happening."

This reasoning makes no sense for two reasons. The first is that it ignores part (a) of our answer, which is being done. The second reason is that (as was just pointed out) none of your proposed solutions have been implemented yet, either.

Your criteria for "valid solution" exclude your own proposals. It doesn't leave you a leg to stand on.

If you think that nuke waste isn't safe where it is, you're obviously entitled to your opinion. If you think that recycling will never work, that's an opinion too.

But it's vacuous to continue claiming that we "haven't" answered your question. It's the equivalent of holding your hands over your ears and singing "LaLaLa I can't hear you!"

[aztc]

34. I give up

As I said in another thread, we will have to agree to disagree on this issue. I vote no more nukes until the waste problem is solved. In my opinion this means not just what CAN be done, but what IS being done.

Building 200 year containment structures on-site may satisfy you, but not me.

Spending even more to get rid of waste we shouldn't even have in the first place is as stupid as shitting in your drinking water supply...

[hunter]

23. Nuclear waste is not a big problem, nothing has changed.

There you go, hows that for an answer?

Nuclear waste is a problem to some people, mostly because it just sits there doing nothing. People would rather make money off it by making it do something, or make political hay out of it by screaming about how dangerous it is.

But the cooling ponds the used fuel rods are first put into are boring. The dry casks they next put these used fuel rods in are boring too.

Here's some dry casks:



It's hard to imagine what a terrorist might do with them. Any firepower that could damage those would have much greater terrorist effect elsewhere.

Unlike nuclear waste, coal waste is a big problem. Here's a satellite image of a coal mine feeding a power plant west of Farmington New Mexico. It's a big scar on the land. The roads are dark from spilled coal. You can follow the roads up to the neighboring coal mines.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=farmington+%22New+Mexico%22&ll=36.801863,-108.414974&spn=0.089446,0.206131&t=h&hl=en

I remember the sky in New Mexico was mostly clear but now it's mostly not. A blue haze hangs over things, and you can smell it.

By the way, a lot of the toxic waste from coal has a half-life of forever.

It is entirely disingenuous to complain about nuclear power if you are not screaming bloody murder about coal.

The Bush Administration is all about making maximum profits from coal and oil. They probably consider nuclear power an "alternative energy" which means they won't really support it until they've squeezed the greatest profit out of oil and coal they can.

[aztc]

26. BLOODY MURDER ABOUT COAL

I AM SCREAMING, about GLUTTONY - that is the REAL issue, consumption greater than the carrying capacity of the land.

[aztc]

31. Interim Spent Fuel storage facility

The more I think about this, the more it proves my point. Nuke advocates, is this really your RESPONSIBLE ANSWER?

Nearly every nuclear plant is getting an interim Spent Fuel storage facility. It's typically a bunch of really heavy concrete/steel cylinders about 18 feet tall and 8 foot diameter standing out in a field. The main security mechanism is that the power plant workers can see them everyday, and it would take massive, slow-moving machinery to pick one up, or time-consuming drilling to open one up. These things are typically designed to 200 years, but the expectation is that they can last a lot longer than that. The cost is several million dollars to build and license an ISFSI, but maintenance costs are virtually nothing (a typical nuke plant might earn a million dollars a day). Utilities are viewing waste as a "solved" problem for our lifetimes, so several are moving forward pursuing new nuclear plants for the first time since the 1970s. (The new plants will be safer and cheaper to run; we've learned a lot in the last 40 years.)

Um, what about 200 years from now? Will they be so impregnable then? Hmmmm? Nice legacy for the grandkids - it will keep them busy.

[mainegreen]

33. Scientific American has a great article this month about fuel recycling

Explains clearly enough for even the dopiest person how it works, why its better, and why we can do it now and couldn't do it before (both the political and some technical reasons).

Recommended for the confused.

[aztc]

35. Dopey, confused, ignorant

Wow - I have had enough. Having no defense, just like the bush administration, folks just keep resorting to insults. You win - build your nukes, fund the MIC, just leave me out of it, ok?

[mainegreen]

36. Wow, super flame mode!

First off, I never called anyone ignorant. Secondly, my statement clearly does not call anyone dopey. It was meant to indicate the clarity of the article. Third, it is recommended for the confused. I actually bought the magazine myself just so I could get a little insight into the flame fests that go on in this forum, which apparently any little innocuous post will get you flamed here. It is a very good article. I stand by my statement that it would help clear up some things for people who might be reading these threads who might want more information.

My statement was not directed at anyone in particular. While slightly ambiguous grammatically in some sense, it was not even meant to take a stand on the issue, either for or against. The 'why its better' comment is referring to why it is better than current nuclear power methods, not why its better than coal/oil/solar/wind/tidal/gerbil power.

[Oerdin]

37. I read it.

Great article which cuts right through the BS and shows the pure science and economics. There is a compelling case for nuclear energy dispite the shouts of a few raving fanatics.