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Author Topic: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard  (Read 21685 times)

Offline thorfourwinds

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Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« on: September 16, 2012, 07:33:22 am »



Fukushima
fuel pool number 4
is, indeed,
the top short-term threat
facing humanity.


Anti-nuclear physician Dr. Helen Caldicott says that if fuel pool 4 collapses, she will evacuate her family from Boston and move them to the Southern Hemisphere. This is an especially dramatic statement given that the West Coast is much more directly in the path of Fukushima radiation than the East Coast.

23 March 2011
Fukushima Now 72,000 Times Hiroshima Radiation

Quote
Dr. Chris Busby, world famous physicist, said tests conducted at the respected Harwell Radiation Laboratory in England demonstrate that airborne radiation in Japan is 1,000 times higher than radioactive “fallout” at the peak in 1963 of H-Bomb detonations by nuclear powers.

We have now all had time to evaluate what we believe is the truth behind the Japanese Nuclear Incident (or should I say disaster) and it has become clear that we have all been deceived by the Japanese Authorities, their nuclear establishment, the IAEA, the international pro nuclear groups and more importantly the so called experts that are invited onto the mainstream media channels to blast us with nothing more than total spin.


They all keep playing down this disaster without themselves fully understanding the implications on human health and the antiquated testing methods used in the assessment of potential victims.

In March, Busby had estimated that Fukushima radiation to be 72,000 times greater than what the United States released at Hiroshima.



“Let’s wipe the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the General Electric officials and policy makers off the face of the Earth, as they manifestly deserve,”

And this sage advice from Busby was from eighteen (18) months ago - just two (2) weeks into this crisis!


We were warned:




8 June 2011

Fukushima fuel rods melt-though worse than melt-down

source

Quote
According to a new but not publicly released government Fukushima nuclear disaster report to the International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear fuel from the fuel rods has possibly melted through pressure vessels, creating the possibility of the radiation threat being even greater than in a core melt-down.

A 'melt-through' is "when melted nuclear fuel leaks from the bottom of damaged reactor pressure vessels into containment vessels--is far worse than a core meltdown and is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident."

Quote
...when melted nuclear fuel leaks from the bottom of damaged reactor pressure vessels into containment vessels...


WTF?      >:(


So, we went to Wiki to see what was there, and were astounded to find that “the fix” was sadly, already solidly in place, Dear Reader.

Check this out against what we know to be the truth...



Nuclear Meltdown

Quote
...TEPCO has announced the steps that will be needed for long-term core fuel removal although admits that

new technologies may have to be invented to accomplish the many steps of the plan...

Quote
...In the second step the primary containment vessels will be inspected and the water leakage paths will be identified and sealed.

Once the containment vessels are air and water tight again, the next step calls for the containment vessels and pressure vessels to be be filled with water and a more permanent cooling system utilizing heat exchangers and water circulation will be installed.

The final step calls for the containment vessel and pressure vessels to be opened from the top (as is done during normal refueling) and for special robotic arms to descend and remove the melted fuel from the bottom of the pressure vessels as well as any fuel that leaked to the floor of the outer containment vessels.


But they admitted that the corium may be 18-60 meters below containment...

Quote
Once the fuel has been removed the reactors can be demolished and the plant grounds can be fully decontaminated.

TEPCO admits that the plan goes far into "uncharted territory" and that new technologies and methods will need to be invented to accomplish these steps and that this may involve multiple decades of work.

In the more immediate future TEPCO hopes to begin removal of all fuels located in the spent fuel pools of Units 1 to 4 and transfer the damaged rods to the common spent fuel pool....

So the CSFP is undamaged and ready to accept these “damaged rods?”

Quote
During Fukushima incident emergency cooling system has also been manually shut down several minutes after it started.[7]
...

From the way the description is worded, we suspect TEPCO/JAPGOV’s hand in this erroneous listing.

Is there/does there exist a way to view this information pre-3/11-Fukushima?

Can the information uploaded since 3/11 be identified as to the source up-loader?

By their (TEPCO) own estimates, the corium left the building (and all ‘containment’ vessels) with Elvis and is ‘about’ 18-30 meters below such containment!

And then we have the added problem that nuclear power plants represent the most likely and most devastating targets in war scenarios.

That means the harsh reality is any country with a nuclear power plant is hosting a nuclear bomb to which an enemy country just needs to add a fuse, and there are presently 104 nuclear power plants operating today in America - not that we have to worry about this type of thing in the United States, according to government officials.

Is there a way to address this insanity from a uniquely different viewpoint than has been tried - and apparently with little success - in the past?


Or, it could be just as simple as following the money and then shutting off that supply line?


For your consideration:




Government would pay interim spent fuel facility hosts handsomely

1 July 1989

Quote
Communities that agree to host an interim storage facility for the country’s spent nuclear fuel would have a lot to gain financially under the Nuclear Fuel Storage Improvement Act, a bill introduced July 1 by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mary Landrieu (D-La) that received support from industry this week.

The bill would consolidate U.S. spent nuclear fuel waste in two federal interim storage repositories until a permanent storage solution is found.


And here we were under the impression that all radioactive waste was to be stored on-site at all nuclear power facilities until a “permanent” solution/site is found.

Yeah, right ... another Yucca Mountain boondoggle. We wonder what community is willing to bite the bullet - for a lot of money - of course?

Speaking of Yucca, just how much is the fund now and just exactly where is this money today?

Can we see it, touch it, feel it, please?

How about a simple copy of the ledger where the deposited funds are listed?


Quote
Around $7 billion was spent and much progress made, but Yucca was cut off from funding in May 2009 by President Barack Obama and energy secretary Stephen Chu.


Where, oh where is the radioactive waste going now?

Is any of it being trucked around the country to a location different from the nuclear facility where the waste was generated?




Quote
Having submitted an 8,600-page application to build Yucca Mountain under President George Bush and his energy secretary Sam Bodman, the DOE under direction from Chu and Obama moved to withdraw it in May.

Spending on Yucca is now set at the absolute minimum level, while the $24 billion balance of the fund remains with the US Treasury earning substantial compound interest of over $1 billion per year.


Let's see...that's a few billion more...so there should be about $30 billion available.

How does one actually verify that this is a correct and true amount and where is the entry on the ledger?

Is it really there?

Can we touch it?

Here is where Obama made sure the process is still in process with no real movement regarding the safe disposal of radioactive waste.



Why are the power companies
still allowed to utilize this
"too cheap to meter" power source?
 




"Completing the work" at Yucca Mountain means what?

Does that imply that the money is conveniently tied up by legalize and not available to whatever entity is charged with the work?

Three U.S. federal agencies are charged with long-term stewardship of contaminants and contaminated areas.


Department of Energy (DOE)
DOE manages about 24 million cubic meters of waste containing about

900 million curies

from the production of nuclear weapons.

Starting in the 1940s, DOE generated wastes and contaminated media from practices related to the production of nuclear weapons. Contaminants entered the environment through a number of pathways, including direct disposal into the groundwater through injection wells, disposal pits and settling ponds; through accidental spills and leaks from storage tanks; and from atmospheric releases.

DOE’s Office of Long-Term Stewardship, established in 1999, was the first federal office devoted to protecting human health and the environment after the cleanup or stabilization of radioactive waste. Although most nuclear-weapon production has ceased, a large volume of groundwater, soil, sediment and bedrock contamination exists at more than 100 DOE waste sites across the country, and DOE has determined that long-term stewardship programs will need to begin at these sites within the next 70 years.  :P



Hanford, WA, nuclear waste tank farm.


Department of Defense (DOD)
Since the early 1900s, the military has stored weapons and conducted military exercises at its installations, which have left contaminated soil and groundwater at more than 1,700 sites.

DOD practices long-term stewardship within its Office of Environmental Cleanup, which focuses on reducing risk to human health and the environment at active, formerly used and closing bases from pollutants due to past practices.

DOD operates cleanup activities at about 9,000 locations identified as Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) and at active military installations. FUDS include sites containing industrial waste, such as fuels and solvents in groundwater or ordnance and explosive waste. FUDS are also sites that require building demolition and debris removal.

DOD estimates that more than 2,500 FUDS require some further action to remove this waste or reduce the risk from residual waste.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
EPA administers the Superfund program, established by Congress in 1980 to locate, investigate and clean up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites that are abandoned or uncontrolled.

After a site is identified by various sources, including state agencies or citizens, EPA evaluates the potential for a release of a hazardous substance from the site. It then decides whether to place the site on the National Priority List (NPL), a roster that identifies the most serious sites in need of long-term cleanup. As of 2000, more than 1,500 hazardous sites were on the NPL, including some large DOE and DOD sites.

After remedial actions are completed at a site, EPA practices long-term stewardship through a program that includes groundwater sampling and monitoring to ensure that all actions are effective and operating properly. EPA and state environmental agencies have joint responsibility to regulate cleanup, monitoring and long-term stewardship of the NPL sites.


Quote
Data generated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) shows that the site is so porous that the mountain itself contributes almost nothing to waste isolation.

Instead, DOE relies almost completely on a system of engineering fixes, the most outlandish of which are waste disposal containers that must last for at least one million years combined with approximately sixty miles of tunnels lined with thousands of titanium drip shields that DOE does not plan to install for 100 to 300 years or more.





   1.   Canisters of waste, sealed in special casks, are shipped to the site by truck or train.

   2.   Shipping casks are removed, and the inner tube with the waste is placed in a steel, multilayered storage container.

   3.   An automated system sends storage containers underground to the tunnels.

   4.   Containers are stored along the tunnels, on their side.




This is exactly the bravo sierra that portrays what is wrong in America.

What moron wrote that proposal, had somebody sign off on one million year containers and actually got it in print as something that DOE proposes?

And how much money has been spent already on Yucca?


Quote
Nevada and independent scientists who have studied the composition of the proposed containers have shown they will corrode in a few hundred years or less.

Like I said, morons - or much worse.

Consider this: most of the fuel storage in the United States is done with vertical fuel casks. Yucca mountain was designed for horizontal fuel casks. Over half of the fuel would have to be re-canned.
  :P


Quote
In addition to the fundamental deficiencies of the site itself, Yucca Mountain is located thousands of miles from most of the accumulating waste, a factor which presents great risks to communities over the thousands of miles the waste would travel during the forty to fifty years such transportation would be required. Source


In short, Yucca Mountain cannot perform the function for which it is intended.


"Indeed, the project is fraught with a host of insurmountable technical, safety, environmental, and institutional problems that simply cannot be engineered around or ignored."


Stick a fork in it and declare Victory!


Oh, wait a minute.

One might think that from the mountain (pun) of evidence presented, the Yucca Mountain debate is officially dead.

Just exactly where are these Interim Storage Repositories and what egregious amounts of our taxpayer 'contributions' to the Federal Government are being squandered in this ill-fated fiasco
?





We have postulated many times in the past that perhaps a way to slow or completely stop the insanity of nuclear power is to demand a solution to the waste problem and have the nuclear utilities provide proper public indemnification (insurance) in case of utility mishap (accident) that endangers we, the people.

These two points would considerably forestall future consideration and construction of new nuclear power plants.


Just look at the insurance angle, for example
:

Quote
The potential costs resulting from a nuclear accident (including one caused by a terrorist attack or a natural disaster) are so great that no nuclear power plant would be built if the owner had to pay for liability insurance that fully covered these costs.

The liability of owners of nuclear power plants in the U.S. is currently limited under the Price-Anderson Act (PAA). The Price-Anderson Act, introduced in 1957, was

"an implicit admission that nuclear power provided risks that producers were unwilling to assume without federal backing".

Quote
The Price-Anderson Act "shields nuclear utilities, vendors and suppliers against liability claims in the event of a catastrophic accident by imposing an upper limit on private sector liability."

Without such protection, private companies were unwilling to be involved.

No other technology in the history of American industry has enjoyed such continuing blanket protection. source


Follow the money!

Quote
In case of a nuclear accident, should claims exceed this primary liability, the PAA requires all licensees to additionally provide a maximum of $95.8 million into the accident pool - totaling roughly $10 billion if all reactors were required to pay the maximum.



This is still not sufficient in the case of a serious accident, as the cost of damages could exceed $10 billion - perhaps bby billions, if one looks at the Fukushima fiasco as a reference.   >:(


Quote
According to the PAA, should the costs of accident damages exceed the $10 billion pool, the remainder of the costs would be fully covered by the U.S. Government. In 1982, a Sandia National Laboratories study concluded that depending on the reactor size and 'unfavorable conditions' a serious nuclear accident could lead to property damages as high as $314 billion while fatalities could reach 50,000.

A recent study found that if only this one relatively ignored indirect subsidy for nuclear power was converted to a direct subsidy and diverted to photovoltaic manufacturing, it would result in more installed power and more energy produced by mid-century compared to the nuclear case.


This is of special interest:

"The world's nuclear fleet creates about 10,000 metric tons of high-level spent nuclear fuel each year."


And how much high-level spent nuclear fuel is generated by the nation's 104 commercial reactors?

Listen up, people.

The figures released (pun) by the USGOV/DOD/DOE do not add up.


Quote
High-level radioactive waste management concerns management and disposal of highly radioactive materials created during production of nuclear power.


"The technical issues in accomplishing this are daunting, due to the extremely long periods radioactive wastes remain deadly to living organisms."




Spent nuclear fuel stored underwater and uncapped at the Hanford site in Washington, USA.


Quote
"Of particular concern are two long-lived fission products, Technetium-99 (half-life 220,000 years) and Iodine-129 (half-life 15.7 million years), which dominate spent nuclear fuel radioactivity after a few thousand years.

The most troublesome transuranic elements in spent fuel are Neptunium-237 (half-life two million years) and Plutonium-239 (half-life 24,000 years).


Consequently, high-level radioactive waste requires sophisticated treatment and management to successfully isolate it from the biosphere.

This usually necessitates treatment, followed by a long-term management strategy involving permanent storage, disposal or transformation of the waste into a non-toxic form."

However, after 60 years of dilly-dallying around the problem, there is still no solution to this urgent, deadly situation.


"Governments around the world are considering a range of waste management and disposal options, usually involving deep-geologic placement, although

there has been limited progress toward implementing long-term waste management solutions."


This is partly because the timeframes in question when dealing with radioactive waste range from 10,000 to millions of years,

according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.




Disposal of nuclear waste
is often said to be
the Achilles' heel of
the nuclear industry.


Quote
Presently, waste is mainly stored at individual reactor sites and there are over 430 locations around the world where radioactive material continues to accumulate.

Experts agree that centralized underground repositories which are well-managed, guarded, and monitored, would be a vast improvement.

Really?:P

Quote
There is an international consensus on the advisability of storing nuclear waste in deep underground repositories, but no country in the world has yet opened such a site.


Wonder why?


Quote
It also would authorize a tiered payment incentive for communities to agree to host an interim storage facility: any city, county, or other local government would be paid $6 million for agreeing to host the facility, and in the time between agreeing to host the facility and the first receipt of a SNF waste shipment, would receive $10 million each year.

After operations at the facility begin, the host government would receive $15 million annually, and $15,000 per metric ton of used fuel received with a maximum of $25 million.

Finally, the local community would receive $20 million upon closure of the facility.

The first three communities that offer to host the facility will receive $1 million.


So, just how much money is on the table here?

$6 million on Agreement, $10 million per year ‘interim payment’, $15 million per year during operation, $15 million per metric ton of used fuel received (max. $25 million, which is 1.66 tons), $20 million upon closure of facility.

Ball-park estimate of $60-100 million.


Quote
"The bill “addresses one of the most glaring failures of our national nuclear policy: what to do with the used nuclear fuel currently that is currently being stored at over 100 sites across the country,” Murkowski said in a statement.

“This legislation makes good on the federal government’s promise to provide a solution to the storage question.”

Landrieu added,


“To advance nuclear technology,
we must get serious
about establishing a permanent
nuclear waste repository.


Quote
Unfortunately, this effort has been delayed.

While we continue to work to find a permanent location for spent nuclear fuel, we need to make sure that we have an interim and safe storage option available.”
more


“...over 100 sites across the country ...”

This could prove to be rather interesting.


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tfw   

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« Last Edit: March 25, 2017, 07:13:18 pm by thorfourwinds »
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Offline Littleenki

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2012, 08:09:31 am »
Well done, Thor..putting the facts out there for all to see.

Will the Southern Hemisphere be the place for the new world order to set up shop, and the Northern just an afterthought?

Seems that we suffer once again from apathy as a world and especially as a nation. Only this time itll come back to bite us on the ass.

Kinda gives new meaning to "I am death, destroyer of worlds" eh? Just 67 years later....

What a sick ass backwards society of elitists we live under oppression of..the only good thing about this all is that thsoe elititsts wont have a way to escape the radiation unless they leave the planet.

Shooting themselves in the collective foot I guess.

So sad that mankind is headed for their next cataclysm, and it aint gonna be a flood I surmise.

How many shots will the planet give us to get our sh!t together?

Le
Hermetically sealed, for your protection

Offline thorfourwinds

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2012, 09:06:16 am »


Nuclear Waste and the States

1 August 2012

The electric ratepayers in dozens of states have been charged billions to build a site to store nuclear waste. As waste continues to be generated and stored on-site at power plants, the President's Blue Ribbon Panel on America's Nuclear Future has suggested new strategies to manage spent fuel and create sites for interim storage for waste.

In 1982 Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which directed the Department of Energy to initiate development and construction of a permanent repository to store the nation’s nuclear waste. The legislation established a one-tenth of one-cent per kilowatt hour fee on electricity produced from nuclear power that would be deposited into a Nuclear Waste Fund to help pay for the construction of a repository.

Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act again in 1987 and selected Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the permanent storage site. It established a timetable for shipments of nuclear waste to begin arriving in 1998—a timetable that has clearly lapsed, generating lawsuits from states and utilities because of the delay.
 
The politically charged debate surrounding Yucca Mountain, intense opposition from the state of Nevada, and the complex issues surrounding the transportation, storage and disposal of nuclear waste at the site culminated in the Obama administration’s decision to formally withdraw the license application for the repository in 2009.



 
The Nuclear Waste Fund and Implications for States

   •   The cancelation of Yucca Mountain has left states with two conundrums: They are still storing nearly 70,000 tons of nuclear waste in cooling pools or dry cask storage—essentially huge, steel reinforced concrete tubes—on site at power plants, and their residents are still being charged for a repository that likely will not be built.

   •   Since 1983, ratepayers in 36 states with nuclear power plants have contributed more than $17 billion to the Nuclear Waste Fund for the construction of a permanent national repository.

   •   To date, approximately $24 billion remains from the more than $35 billion that has been collected in fees and interest over the life of the fund.

   •   In 2010, South Carolina and Washington, which have large amounts of both civilian and high-level Department of Defense waste and have collectively contributed more than $1.4 billion to the Nuclear Waste Fund, sued the Department of Energy in federal court arguing that the decision to remove the license application for Yucca Mountain was improper without a formal safety decision from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The litigation is ongoing as a federal appeals court heard arguments by the states in May 2012 after the initial suit was rejected by the District of Columbia Circuit Court.




Blue Ribbon Commission and its Recommendations

   •   President Obama in 2011 created the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, comprised of a bipartisan group of public servants, policy experts and academics, to chart a new strategy for managing the nation’s nuclear waste.

   •   The commission devised eight general strategies for policymakers, but states should pay particular interest to the following recommendations that will require action by the federal government:

   •   Develop a new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste management facilities;

   •   Create a new organization outside the scope of the Department of Energy dedicated solely to implementing the nuclear waste management program and empower it with the authority and resources to succeed;

   •   Give the newly created organization access to the funds that nuclear utility ratepayers are providing for the purpose of waste management;

   •   Begin efforts to develop one or more underground disposal facilities for nuclear waste, as well as one or more consolidated surface storage facilities that would move waste away from reactors; and

   •   Prepare for the eventual large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to consolidated storage and disposal facilities when such facilities become available.


Interim and Consolidated Storage

   •   Total volumes of civilian and defense nuclear waste already exceed the statutory cap of 70,000 tons that could have been sent to Yucca Mountain under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Further complicating matters for states, the Department of Energy expects that a future disposal facility may need a capacity of up to 130,000 tons just to store commercial spent fuel.

   •   Prior to the Obama administration’s 2009 decision to cancel Yucca Mountain, the Department of Energy determined that there would be a need for interim storage capability through 2056 due to limits on transportation and continued generation of spent fuel.

   •   Fifty-three facilities are licensed for dry storage of spent fuel, and in 2010 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that waste could be safely stored onsite 60 years after a reactor was decommissioned. Assuming that a reactor received a 60-year operating license, the waste could be stored on site for up to 120 years.6 A June 2012 decision by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals struck down this decision and found that the commission did an inadequate environmental review.

   •   Federal law governing nuclear waste allows for the construction of one consolidated storage facility, but only after a permanent repository has been licensed. Thus, Congress must pass legislation authorizing changes to the statute.

   •   The Senate’s Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bill includes language that has bipartisan support for the Department of Energy to conduct a pilot program to license, construct and operate one or more consolidated storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.

References:
“Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (PL 97-425), Section 302.”

Steve Tetreault. “Judges Troubled by Yucca Shutdown, Uncertain on Recourse.”  Las Vegas Review-Journal.
May 2, 2012.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. “Report to the Secretary
of Energy.”

January 2012, p.vii.
 
U.S. Department of Energy. “Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
for Yucca Mountain.”
DOE/EIS-0250F-S1D.
October 2007. p. S-47.
 
Christopher Kouts, Principal Deputy Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management. “Status Update on Yucca Mountain.” Presentation Before the National
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
July 22, 2008.
 
Mark Holt. “Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal.” Congressional Research Service.
August 30, 2011, p. 12.
 


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« Last Edit: August 30, 2015, 03:01:44 pm by thorfourwinds »
EARTH AID is dedicated to the creation of an interactive multimedia worldwide event to raise awareness about the challenges and solutions of nuclear energy.

Offline thorfourwinds

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2012, 09:37:03 am »


Congress Goes Nuclear - Forbes

28 April 2012

So much for the notion that Congress can’t do anything right. 

The thoughtful and smart actions of Senators Murkowski and Landrieu, working with Senators Feinstein, Alexander and Bingaman, produced a bill out of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee last Tuesday, approved Thursday by the full Committee, that took the first step to solving our nation’s nuclear waste problem. I’ve been waiting my entire career for this to happen.

In fact, this first step is so significant that I’m having trouble catching my breath!

If you remember, the Yucca Mountain Project, the nation’s first selected nuclear disposal site, was recently scrapped for being not workable and the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future was appointed to find another path forward.

After reviewing the last 60 years of frustrated science and policy, in February the BRC released a number of very good recommendations addressing nuclear in general, but three specific ones were critical to actually dealing with high-level nuclear waste and managing spent nuclear fuel for the next hundred years. They were:

1) executing interim storage for spent nuclear fuel,

2) resuming the site selection process for a second repository (Yucca being the first, the massive salts being the best), and

3) forming a quasi-government entity, or FedCorp, to execute the program and take control of the Nuclear Waste Fund in order to do so.


The first recommendation separates fuel from real waste, allowing storage of still-usable spent nuclear fuel from reactor sites either to be used in future reactors or eventually disposed, without needing to retrieve it from deep in the earth as is presently the Law.

The second recommendation allows us to choose the best geology for the permanent disposal of actual high-level waste that has no value since it is the waste from reprocessing old fuel. This real waste needs to be disposed of promptly, not just looked at for another few decades. It has cost billions to manage this waste in places that were always meant to be temporary.

The third recommendation controls cost and administration, because, duh, we’re broke.




Dry cask storage behind a security fence. The safest, easiest method for putting spent fuel aside
until used, burned as new fuel or eventually disposed of in a deep geologic repository.


Tuesday’s bill starts the ball rolling by implementing the first recommendation, authorizing

“the Secretary of Energy to site, construct, and operate consolidated storage facilities to provide storage as needed for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.”

 – IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES—112th Cong., 2d Sess.

The short version is this bill is consent-based,

meaning the Feds can’t just pick a site and force it down a State’s throat,

but have to wait for someone to bid for it and requires approval of the Governor, any affected Tribes, and the local representatives of that State. Plus, it authorizes the Nuclear Waste Fund to be used for what it always was intended.

And DOE has only 120 days from passage to begin accepting proposals so it won’t languish for years.

This bill breaks the nuclear waste log jam.

It’s simple, it’s the right thing to do, it will save lots of money, it’s the best thing for the environment, and it’s a win-win, so how did the Senate do this? And so fast!

Now it’s up to the House to maintain the do-nothing image of Congress, kill this bill, and let us get back to wasting billions of dollars looking at the problem for 30 more years.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2017, 07:22:14 pm by thorfourwinds »
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Offline thorfourwinds

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2012, 10:29:11 am »



NRC suspends nuclear plant licensing for lack of nuclear waste disposal


8 August 2012

Following a petition filed by 24 environmental groups on June 18 2012, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) suspended, yesterday, decisions on at least 19 nuclear reactor licensing decisions. The halt affects nine construction & operating licenses (COLS), eight license renewals, one operating license, and one early site permit. The decision came in response to the landmark Waste Confidence Rule decision of June 8th by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

The June 18th petition urged the NRC to respond to the court ruling by freezing final licensing decisions until completing a rule-making action on the environmental impacts of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

On June 8, the Court threw out an NRC rule permitting licensing and re-licensing of nuclear reactors based on the supposition that (a) the NRC will find a way to dispose of spent reactor fuel to be generated by reactors


at some time in the future
when it becomes "necessary"


and (b) in the mean time, spent fuel can be stored safely at reactor sites.

One thing last years nuclear disaster in Japan demonstrated is that spent fuel stored at reactor sites is very dangerous.

The court noted that decades of failure to develop a nuclear waste repository, including the now-abandoned project at Yucca Mountain, meant 


"the NRC has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository."


Therefore, no alternative currently exists but to store spent nuclear fuel on site, despite the huge risk of doing so.

The court rejected the NRC's contention of minimal risks of of leaks or fires from spent fuel stored in reactor pools, because the NRC has not demonstrated future impacts would be insignificant. Again, last years nuclear disaster in Japan demonstrated the impact of storing spent fuel inside the reactor can be catastrophic.

The court found that past experience with pool leaks was not a good prediction of the future, and that the NRC had not shown that catastrophic fires in spent fuel pools were so unlikely that their risks could be ignored.

What the NRC has done is suspended making a decision, not put a halt to licensing. Licensing reviews and proceedings will continue to move forward, the NRC said.

The NRC staff is expected to provide options to the commission on waste disposal methods.

The groups hailed the NRC action saying that most of the U.S. reactor projects were already essentially sidetracked by the huge problems facing the nuclear industry, including runaway costs and the fact that other energy alternatives are less expensive.




Diane Curran, an attorney representing some of the groups in the Court of Appeals case, said: "This Commission decision halts all final licensing decisions -- but not the licensing proceedings themselves -- until NRC completes a thorough study of the environmental impacts of storing and disposing of spent nuclear fuel.


That study should have been done years ago, but NRC just kept kicking the can down the road.


When the Federal Appeals Court ordered NRC to stop and

consider the impacts
of generating spent nuclear fuel
for which it has found no
safe means of disposal,


the agency could choose to appeal the decision by August 22nd or choose to do the serious work of analyzing the environmental impacts over the next few years. With today's Commission decision, we are hopeful that the agency will undertake the serious work."




Lou Zeller, executive director of Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, another petitioner to the Court, said: said: "It appears that the Commissioners have, at least initially, grasped the magnitude of the Court's ruling and we are optimistic that it will set up a fundamentally transparent, fair process under the National Environmental Policy Act to examine the serious environmental impacts of spent nuclear fuel storage and disposal prior to licensing or re-licensing nuclear reactors."

Former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford said: "It is important to recognize that the reactors awaiting construction licenses weren't going to be built anytime soon even without the Court decision or today's NRC action.


Falling demand, cheaper alternatives and runaway nuclear costs had doomed their near-term prospects well before the recent Court decision.


Important though the Court decision is in modifying the NRC's historic push-the-power-plants-but-postpone-the-problems approach to generic safety and environmental issues, it cannot be blamed for ongoing descent into fiasco of the bubble once known as 'the nuclear renaissance'."


The 24 petitioning groups include: Beyond Nuclear, Inc., Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Inc., Citizens Allied for Safe Energy, Inc., Citizens Environmental Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Inc., Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Don't Waste Michigan, Inc., Ecology Party of Florida, Eric Epstein, Friends of the Earth, Inc., Friends of the Coast, Inc., Green Party of Ohio, Dan Kipnis, National Parks Conservation Association, Inc., Mark Oncavage, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Inc., New England Coalition, Inc., North Carolina Waste Reduction and Awareness Network, Inc., Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Inc., Public Citizen, Inc., San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Inc., Sierra Club, Inc., Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Inc., Southern Maryland CARES, Inc., and Sustainable Energy and Economic Development ("SEED") Coalition, Inc.


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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #5 on: September 16, 2012, 11:42:56 am »

22 July 2012

Tennessee Awaits Tons Of German Nuclear Waste
      
What has happened to the old NPR?

The NPR that, when faced with a story like this would have asked in more than passing fashion - can you ask a company town if it likes what the company is doing and expect an honest answer?

One who would have suggested that, as the cold war sites seek to re-invent themselves in a world increasingly doubtful about the safety and expense of the nuclear weapons program, rather than superior knowledge of radiation (which they may have) it is complacency and self-interest which makes them scoff at the idea of danger.

Oakridge may want the world's radioactive waste, but are they capable of handling it, and is incineration truly being conducted safely?

More than money, and the jockeying for position post-Fukushima should be taken into account.

As NFS is finding out in Erwin, another age old TN nuclear town,

claiming that everything is fine in a community that has air monitors on every other corner,

shipping containers of radioactive dirt stacked next to buildings,

a river so polluted that dogs have died from swimming in it,

and radiation warning signs posted in backyards next to swing sets where children play, may not be enough.

Residents who, despite assurances that all will be well, are dying of cancers, have leveled a class action suit asking for damages, and answers.





The nuclear industry is clinging to its old ways and false promises of cheap, safe, inexpensive energy while the cost in human health and to the environment rises, and the economic price tag goes off the charts.


The nuclear giants invest in renewable energy companies, but not in themselves, or their own need to find a safe way to store the waste they have been producing for decades.

What does that say about nuclear?

The industry lacks the confidence to take responsibility for the mess they have made in the entire fuel cycle, passing it all off to taxpayers.

Why should we feel any more confidence than they do?

We should, as they are, invest our dollars, and hopes in renewable energy. We should practice efficiency and demand that others do also. We need to say we are ready to change - as the nuclear reactor fleet around the world is aging.

If we do not want Fukushima to become the norm, rather than the awful exception, we need to act soon.
 



NPR l MATT SHAFER POWELL

22 July, 2011
The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., is anticipating the arrival of nearly 1,000 tons of nuclear waste from Germany. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a plan in June for an American company to import and burn low-level nuclear waste from Germany.

Radioactive residue left over from the process will be sent back to Germany for disposal, but opponents have voiced concerns that the U.S. will become the world's radioactive waste processor.

But, very little of that opposition is coming from Oak Ridge.

When it was first founded in 1942 to help build the atomic bomb, Oak Ridge, Tenn. was a military reservation. Now, the city is a world-renowned center for nuclear research and the destination for tons of German nuclear waste.

Located just outside Knoxville, Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 1942 to help build the atomic bomb. The city is home to a 59,000-acre military area and two giant plants where the bomb was produced.

A post-war newsreel calls Oak Ridge "a city where 75,000 people worked in absolute secrecy on history's most sensational secret."

In the years since that newsreel was produced, the city has become a world-renowned center for nuclear research. But, operations here also generate a great deal of radioactive waste.

Some of that waste ends up at EnergySolutions' Bear Creek incinerator plant in Oak Ridge. On an asphalt lot between fences topped with razor wire, trucks rumble in and out of the plant, leaving behind giant dumpster-sized boxes full of low-level nuclear waste.




"This is definitely typical," EnergySolutions' Greg Lawson says. "It's in and out all day long. I don't know the average number of shipments in and out, but there's a lot going on every day."

Lawson says the plant has been safely burning low-level waste from Oak Ridge and other parts of the country for 20 years now. They've even imported waste from Canada and the United Kingdom before.


But, a recent deal with a German company to burn up to two million pounds of their waste got the attention of environmental and watchdog groups. One is the Local Oversight Committee in Oak Ridge, a collection of experts and residents who monitor nuclear activity in the area.

The committee hasn't decided whether it will oppose the plan, but director Susan Gawarecki says the fact that the waste is foreign raises some questions.

"When you're starting to talk about managing the rest of the world's waste, the German waste looks like the beginning of what could be a large flood of material from other countries," she says.

Don Safer of the Tennessee Environmental Council worries about the same thing. After the Fukushima disaster in Japan, he's not ready to accept any of EnergySolutions' guarantees that the process is safe.


"There's a lot of controversy
in burning regular garbage,
let alone radioactive garbage,"


Safer says.

Tennessee is the only state that allows commercial burning of radioactive waste, licensing six incinerators. The state already receives 75 percent of the nation’s low-level radioactive waste — about 41 million pounds per year, according to state records.

According to the NRC regulatory guide, breathing is the most common way radioactive material is ingested. When radioactive materials do get ingested, they most often pass through several organs and are excreted within a few days.

Irradiated material passing through a person’s body can permanently change cells, sometimes causing cancer in the host or genetic birth defects in an exposed person’s child. [...]


“It’s rare anymore to burn radioactive waste materials. How rare is indicated by the Germans wanting to ship the stuff over here to burn it,”

[Safer] said. “It’s pretty telling that …. it even makes economic sense to do it.” [...]

What is most baffling to Safer is the fact that Tennesseans don't seem too bothered by it — especially in Oak Ridge.

"I think first and foremost, Oak Ridge has been a company town for a long time and there's just a great reluctance — and almost a social convention — that you don't attack the company that feeds us all," he says.

Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson prefers to look at it from a different perspective. He says there are a lot of scientists and workers living in Oak Ridge who deal with radiation every day. As a result, they have a pretty sophisticated familiarity with it.

"There's a fear factor that may be missing from the folks who live here because we understand it a little bit better," Watson says. "And I think that we see some advantages for us as a community to be able to process that."

EnergySolutions officials say they don't know when the first shipments of German waste will arrive in Oak Ridge, but it could be as early as this year.

If opponents are hoping to derail the plan, they may not have much time.
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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #6 on: September 16, 2012, 02:13:42 pm »


Sellafield reprocessing plant. Credit: Robert Brook/Science Photo Library


Sellafield reprocessing plant at night. Sellafield (formerly Windscale) is a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Cumbria, UK. Sellafield comprises several reactors and reprocessing units of different ages. The dome at centre is the inoperative prototype Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR). At centre left are the chimneys of the Windscale Piles. These were the first two reactors to be used at Sellafield, and were part of a secret nuclear weapons programme. At far left are the cooling towers of Calder Hall, the UK's first commercial nuclear reactor. The buildings at right house the magnox fuel reprocessing plant. Sellafield opened in 1951.


UK Plan to Turn 60,000 Tons of Nuclear Waste into Electricity


A plan by the nuclear industry to build a £1bn fuel processing plant at Sellafield is being backed by the government's chief scientist. The plant would turn the UK's 60,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste into reactor fuel that will provide 60 per cent of this country's electricity until 2060, it is claimed.]'We can bury our reactor waste or we can treat it and then use it as free fuel for life,'[/color] said the cabinet's chief science adviser, Sir David King. 'It's a no-brainer.'

But the plan is controversial. A report by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which operates the Cumbrian plant and backs the plan, acknowledges the move could have 'downside' economic costs, although it also stresses it has many benefits. In addition, green groups say the move would lead to the creation of 'a plutonium economy' in Britain that would see large quantities of nuclear fuel being transported across the country.

The Sellafield reprocessing plan would cost several billion pounds, a price that infuriates opponents of nuclear energy.

'There is no economic justification for this plan,'

said Roger Higman, of Friends of the Earth. 'It would just be another massive subsidy for the nuclear industry. We should invest in renewables.'

But this criticism is firmly rejected by King. He has already helped persuade the government to back a new UK reactor construction programme scheduled to be approved in the new year. 'A UK citizen is responsible for emitting 11 tonnes of carbon a year on average,' he said. 'In France the figure is six tonnes - because France relies on nuclear power, which produces virtually no carbon dioxide. That is why we must replace our old nuclear reactors when they reach the end of their working lives.'

But building new reactors is controversial. Apart from their high construction costs, analysts say uranium could become scarce and expensive, with supplies from Canadian and Australian mines drying up in the next 20 years. Reactors would then have no fuel.

But this prospect is dismissed by King. 'We have a massive reserve of high-grade plutonium and uranium in Sellafield's nuclear waste,' he said. That stockpile - generated by Britain's reactors since the Fifties - contains

six tonnes of plutonium


and about 60 tonnes of uranium. However, it is mixed up with other highly radioactive reactor by-products.

To make nuclear fuel from this waste, its plutonium and uranium would have to be extracted, a task that can be achieved using Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant, though it will require a £1bn refurbishment to achieve this, said King. Alternatively, a new reprocessing plant will have to be built.

Then the plutonium and uranium will have to be turned into a fuel called mox, or mixed oxide. A plant to make mox could cost a further £1bn, or Sellafield's existing mox plant could be refurbished at a similar cost. Once these two plants - Thorp and mox - are ready, the 60,000 tonnes of nuclear waste, the leftovers of fuel production work and other highly radioactive material that has accumulated from Britain's nuclear energy programme, could be processed.

The resulting fuel rods and pellets could then be burned in nuclear reactors over the next few decades.

In turn, the waste could be burned in a new generation of power plants called fast breeder reactors.

Under this scheme, Britain would be near self-sufficient in nuclear fuel for the rest of the century. 'Studies carried out for the NDA have looked at a range of options for this material and shown that its use in a new generation of nuclear plants has potential viability,' said Bill Hamilton of the NDA. 'However any decision on such a programme is a matter for the government.'

This point was backed by King, who said

the investment would be repaid by generating electricity.


Radiological releases

Between 1950 and 2000 there have been 21 serious incidents or accidents involving some off-site radiological releases that merited a rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, one at level 5, five at level 4 and fifteen at level 3.

Additionally, during the 1950s and 1960s, there were protracted periods of

known, deliberate, discharges to the atmosphere of plutonium and irradiated uranium oxide particulates.



These frequent incidents, together with the large 2005 Thorp plant leak which was not detected for nine months, have led some to doubt the effectiveness of the managerial processes and safety culture on the site over the years.

In the effort to build an independent British nuclear weapon in the 1940s and 1950s, the Sellafield plant was constructed; diluted radioactive waste discharged by pipeline into the Irish Sea.

Some claim that the Irish Sea remains one of the most heavily contaminated seas in the world because of these discharges.

The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention) reports an estimated 200 kilograms (441 lb) of plutonium has been deposited in the marine sediments of the Irish Sea.

Cattle and fish in the area are contaminated with plutonium-239 and caesium-137 from these sediments and from other sources such as the radioactive rain that fell on the area after the Chernobyl disaster.

Most of the area's long-lived radioactive technetium comes from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel at the Sellafield facility.

Technetium-99 is a radioactive element which is produced by nuclear fuel reprocessing, and also as a by-product of medical facilities (for example Ireland is responsible for the discharge of approximately 11 grams or 6.78 gigabecquerels of technetium-99 each year despite not having a nuclear industry).

Because it is almost uniquely produced by nuclear fuel reprocessing, technetium-99 is an important element as part of the OSPAR Convention since it provides a good tracer for discharges into the sea.

In itself, the technetium discharges do not represent a significant radiological hazard, and recent studies have noted "...that in the most recently reported dose estimates for the most exposed Sellafield group of seafood consumers (FSA/SEPA 2000), the contributions from technetium-99 and actinide nuclides from Sellafield (<100 µSv) was less than that from 210Po attributable to discharges from the Whitehaven phosphate processing plant and probably less than the dose from naturally occurring background levels of 210Po."

Because of the need to comply with the OSPAR Convention, British Nuclear Group (the licensing company for Sellafield) have recently commissioned a new process in which technetium-99 is removed from the waste stream and vitrified in glass blocks.




Discharges into the sea of radioactive effluents - mainly caesium-137 - from the Magnox reprocessing plant's storage pond amounted to 9,000 TBq during the peak year, 1975.

There has been concern that the Sellafield area will become a major dumping ground for unwanted nuclear material, since there are currently no long-term facilities for storing High-Level Waste (HLW), although the UK has current contracts to reprocess spent fuel from all over the world.

However, contracts signed since 1976 between BNFL and overseas customers require that all HLW be returned to the country of origin. The UK retains low- and intermediate-level waste resulting from its reprocessing activity, and instead ships out a radiologically equivalent amount of its own HLW. This substitution policy is intended to be environmentally neutral and to speed return of overseas material by reducing the number of shipments required, since HLW is far less bulky.




1983 was the year of the "Beach Discharge Incident" in which high radioactive discharges containing ruthenium and rhodium 106, both beta-emitting isotopes, resulted in the closure of beaches along a 10-mile stretch of coast between St. Bees and Eskmeals, along with warnings against swimming in the sea.

BNFL received a fine of £10,000 for this discharge.

1983 was also the year in which Yorkshire Television produced a documentary "Windscale: The Nuclear Laundry", which claimed that the low levels of radioactivity that are associated with waste streams from nuclear plants such as Sellafield did pose a non-negligible risk.


Building B30, colloquially known as "Dirty Thirty", is a pond which was used to store spent fuel from MAGNOX power stations. The pond is 20m wide, 150m long and 6m deep. Birds can land on its surface and take small amounts of radioactive substances with them. The pond was used from 1960 until 1986. A confinement wall is scheduled to be built in the future to help it withstand earthquakes. The pool is to be emptied and dismantled in years to come.

It is impossible to determine exactly how much radioactive waste is stored in B30; algae is forming in the pool, making visual examinations difficult. British authorities have not been able to provide the Euratom inspectors with precise data. The European Commission has thus sued Great Britain in the European Court of Justice.

There are expected to be about 1.3 tons of plutonium, 400 kg of which are in mud sediments.

It is thought the pool also contains waste from the Tokai Mura plant (Japan).

Radiation around the pool can get so high that a person is not allowed to stay more than 2 minutes, seriously affecting decommissioning.

The pool is not watertight, time and weather have created cracks in the concrete, letting contaminated water leak.


Organ removal inquiry

In 2007 an inquiry was launched into the removal of tissue from a total of 65 deceased nuclear workers, some of whom worked at Sellafield.

It has been alleged that the tissue was removed without seeking permission from the relatives of the late workers.

Michael Redfern QC has been appointed to lead the investigation. At the same time The Observer revealed that official documents showed that during the 1960s volunteer workers at Sellafield had participated in secret Cold War experiments to assess the biological effect of exposure to radioactive substances, such as from ingesting caesium-134.

The inquiry final report was published in November 2010, reporting that "...body parts had been removed between 1961 and 1992. The deaths of 76 workers – 64 from Sellafield and 12 from other UK nuclear plants – were examined, although the scope of the inquiry was later significantly widened."

The person behind this scheme was Dr Geoffrey Schofield, who became BNFL’s Company Chief Medical Officer, and who died in 1985. Sellafield staff did not breach any legal obligation, did not consider their actions untoward, and published the scientific information obtained in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

It was the hospital pathologists, who were profoundly ignorant of the law, who breached the Human Tissue Act 1961 by giving Sellafield human organs, without any consents, under an informal arrangement.


Cancer risks

According to Stephanie Cooke, the British Government has been "at pains over the years to play down attempts to correlate cancers with Sellafield radioactivity, particularly when it involves individuals living near the plant but not working at it".

In 1983, the Medical Officer of West Cumbria announced that cancer fatality rates were actually lower around the nuclear plant than elsewhere in Great Britain. In the early 1990s, concern was raised in the UK about apparent clusters of leukaemia near nuclear facilities.

A 1997 Ministry of Health report stated that children living close to Sellafield had twice as much plutonium in their teeth as children living more than 100 miles (160 km) away.
 
Health Minister Melanie Johnson said the quantities were minute and "presented no risk to public health". The University of Dundee's Professor Eric Wright, a leading expert on blood disorders, challenged this claim, saying that even microscopic amounts of the man-made element might cause cancer.

Detailed studies carried out by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) in 2003 reported no evidence of raised childhood cancer in general around nuclear power plants, but did report an excess of leukaemia (cancer of the blood or bone) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) (blood cancer) near nuclear plants including Sellafield, AWE Burghfield and UKAEA Dounreay.

COMARE's opinion is that "the excesses around Sellafield and Dounreay are unlikely to be due to chance, although there is not at present a convincing explanation for them".

In earlier reports COMARE had suggested that "...no single factor could account for the excess of leukaemia and NHL but that a mechanism involving infection may be a significant factor affecting the risk of leukaemia and NHL in young people in Seascale."


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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #7 on: September 16, 2012, 04:16:29 pm »
New proposal from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would allow nuclear power plants to skip inspections and in-service testing




A new draft document released for public comment by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

would allow nuclear power plants to skip in-service testing and inspection of key safety components such as pumps, valves, welds, nozzles, vessels, and other components

due to impracticality,
hardship, unusual difficulty,
or when they would like to use
a different approach for meeting requirements.

When making a decision on a request for relief, the NRC staff assesses the limitations of the examination or testing, evaluates the susceptibility to known degradation, mechanisms or failure modes, the consequences of a failure at the location where the test or examination is impractical, and if any other inspections or tests should be implemented to compensate for the impracticality, according to the document.

The industry would also be allowed to submit alternative plans due to hardship regarding radiation exposure during an examination or test, which may offer utilities another argument for exemption if none of the other circumstances apply.  The licensee would need to communicate the radiation levels at the test or examination area in this event.

Public comments will be accepted through October 22nd, 2012.

Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Good grief, Charlie Brown!

Are we losing our collective mind?

When will the sheeple wake up and really understand the depth of deception... ???


Speechless in Rabun...



Peace Love Light

tfw   

Liberty & Equality or Revolution
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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2012, 12:20:36 am »
until somebody creates a spoon that can scoop up 6000f liquid metal ,fuku will keep on smoking.
a bomb blast that disperses the stuff into droplets ,scattered over a large area is the only way i know of.
maybe nuke bombing it is the only way.
that way its mostly consumed and the world eats a small amount of radiation instead of alot.
ive never been much for rules.
being me has its priviledges.

Dumbledore

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #9 on: October 20, 2012, 10:17:20 am »


Greetings:

For the record, we posted this on 18 March 2011 on
AboveTopSecret, one week after 3/11.

In light of recent events, we feel that this timely information will assist those seeking the truth surrounding the ongoing cover-up of the true catastrophe that Fukushima epitomizes.


We were warned.




Radioactive Salmon Discovered in Canada Linked to Fukushima Nuclear Contamination

CCTV Video News Agency
Published on Dec 22, 2016


And from our friend Alexander Higgins ...


March 16th, 2011

Quote
U.S. radiation experts try to decipher reports from Japan – Japan not releasing radiation levels making it EXTREMELY HARD to gauge danger to U.S. West Coast.

An official United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese nuclear reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

The Feds have deployed radiation detectors to the west coast to monitor the situation. A link to the radioactive nuclear fallout map is below.


Does that imply the lack of radiation detectors before the deployment?

It will be interesting to track the (admitted) number of units in service at any one time.


And from The NY TIMES...


Quote
Scientists Project Path of Radiation Plume
(...)

Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in ten days, its levels measurable but minuscule.

The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels[/b] but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.

The forecast, calculated Tuesday, is based on patterns of Pacific winds at that time and the predicted path is likely to change as weather patterns shift.

The NY Times has published an interactive nuclear radiation fallout forecast map.
Here is the current nuclear fallout predictions for March 17th, 2011.




Forecast by the United Nations Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization - New York Times


The same insanity that prevailed (still prevails) in the Japanese MSM is happening here in America. What did you expect?

We were warned.



March 21, 2011

Spike in radiation levels for West Coast?

“Abnormal” readings on 8 of 18 EPA monitors for California, Oregon, Washington —

Devices now “undergoing quality review”



"Some Radiation-Tracking Air Monitors May Not Be Working Properly,"

EPA Says, Bloomberg, March 21, 2011.

Quote
Eight of 18 air monitors in California, Oregon and Washington state that track radiation from Japan’s nuclear reactors are “undergoing quality review,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. …

“What we are seeing is not a problem,” [Ronald Fraass, director of the EPA’s National Air and Radiation Environmental Laboratory in Montgomery, Alabama] said today in a telephone interview. …

Monitors are listed as undergoing review if they report an abnormal reading, Fraass said …


May we enquire as to the "abnormal readings" in question?


Quote
An abnormality might mean that the monitor isn’t working correctly, or the device measured a spike in radiation levels attributable to an environmental change, Fraass said. …For example, higher temperatures can cause higher levels of naturally occurring radon gas, he said.

Right... :P

Sounds more like naturally occurring bovine excrement (bravo sierra for you people in Rio Vista).

USGOV NewSpeak, again.





This is starting to have that fish smell.

Quote
"A sufficient number of devices are working and can measure any changes in radiation levels from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors," continued Fraass.

OK.    ;D

How many of these devices constitute a "sufficient" number?

Will the public be warned - no, advised - of the changes in a timely manner?

What is the response mechanism to a radioactive cloud hovering over a U.S. city?

Who exactly is heading up this response mechanism?

FEMA?     :P

Why won’t any USGOV agencies answer any of the hard questions?

Probably because there are not enough people that actually give a damn and take the time to exert pressure wherever possible.




"The U.S. has 124 stationary air-radiation monitors compared with 50 in use when the reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine, exploded in 1986," said Brendan Gilfillan, an EPA spokesman, in an e-mail.

And here is where they are.




124?

!!#?%!! That is not even ONE for each of the nuclear facilities in the U.S.!

At least, in the ensuing 35 years, they have managed to add 74 monitors - a couple a year?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

"Twenty-two monitors weren’t working and were listed as out of service today," Fraass said.

Oh, that's reassuring - only about 20% of our monitors down in a nuclear emergency!


Oh, that's right... everything is OK - just elevated background radiation - no more that you might get in a flight from Los Angeles to New York, or consuming a few bananas  lol.

“If a monitor in one area is being repaired, EPA’s network will still be able to detect any fluctuation in background radiation levels,” Gilfillan said.


Let's see now. 124 total claimed radiation monitors in America.

22 down means 102 in service to provide accurate and timely information to the 'authorities' and then (hopefully) shared with we, the people.

Sure would like to see an map with the "down" monitors and the closest ones that are picking up the slack by "remote monitoring" from how many miles away?

And here it is.

Does anyone have any stats on the range abilities of the radiation monitors that the EPA is using?





And here's the real-time version to have your way with.

How far are you and your loved ones from a radiation monitoring device?


Link


Remember all the problems associated with the AREVA (Fromatome Richland, WA) nuclear facility outlined in previous posts?

Do you think their monitor is in service?

Remember when we were complaining about almost 20% of the rad monitors were down nationwide during this inundation of radioactivity?

Six out of eleven monitors are out of service in California at this time - 55%!

And the insanity goes on and on.



March 28, 2011

Radioactive Iodine-131 in Pennsylvania rainwater sample is 3300% above federal drinking water standard

Governor Corbett Says Public Water Supply Testing Finds No Risk to Public From Radioactivity Found in Rainwater

Quote
The (Iodine-131) numbers reported in the rainwater samples in Pennsylvania range from 40-100 picocuries per liter (pCi/L). Although these are levels above the background levels historically reported in these areas, they are still about 25 times below the level that would be of concern. The federal drinking water standard for Iodine-131 is three pCi/L. …

On Friday, rainwater samples were taken in Harrisburg, where levels were 41 pCi/L and at nuclear power plants at TMI and Limerick, where levels were 90 to 100 pCi/L.

Corbett emphasized that the drinking water is safe and there is no cause for health concerns.


Really?


“Rainwater is not typically directly consumed,” Corbett said.

“However, people might get alarmed by making what would be an inappropriate connection from rainwater to drinking water.

By testing the drinking water, we can assure people that the water is safe.”
enenews.com...


NewSpeak... DoubleSpeak... Gobbledegook... Your choice.

More horrific news to come... we are now behind the eight-ball and need to wake up and do something ...

Thoughts, anyone?



That was over 500 days ago.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2019, 05:13:09 pm by thorfourwinds »
EARTH AID is dedicated to the creation of an interactive multimedia worldwide event to raise awareness about the challenges and solutions of nuclear energy.

Fruitbat

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #10 on: October 20, 2012, 10:36:40 am »
PLAN OF ACTION:

1. Get off the grid, or at least reduce your personal consumption of electricity.
2, Get a gieger counter with cumulative dose readings, so as you have the hard data to back up your schpiel.
3. Infect as many other people as you can as widely as possible. With knowledge of the danger and this action plan.

This is the first time I have ever got off my backside to do activism, and I am only doing it becuse my survival depends on it, IF they haven't fouled everything up usurvivably already.
I can CLEARLY SEE taht back ground count is trending up by an alarming rate.

It's no longer the correct time to "Keep Calm and Carry On".
It's time maybe for a little "panic and disruption".
MAKE them turn the consarned things OFF. NOW.

FB.

Offline Amaterasu

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #11 on: October 20, 2012, 11:59:56 am »
My biggest question:  HOW do They decontaminate?  They talk of decontaminating the areas...so what are They doing?  Do They have a "radiation magnet" that picks up all the hot particles?

I figure if They can decontaminate - They should be able to "decontaminate" the source...

Or is that more lies?
« Last Edit: February 07, 2017, 03:19:03 pm by thorfourwinds »
"If the universe is made of mostly Dark Energy...can We use it to run Our cars?"

"If You want peace, take the profit out of war."

Fruitbat

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #12 on: October 20, 2012, 12:52:52 pm »

Substitute the phrase "collect and relocate", for "decontaminate", and you'll be closer to the truth.

As far as I can tell, sifting through the lies and bullshine. there is NO way currently to make something lees radioactive, only more. HOWEVER, if control over gravity gives us control over time, then we may be able to accelerate the radioactive "aging" process... But at the moment shutdown and containment is deemed "impossible"....

FB.

 

Offline Amaterasu

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #13 on: October 20, 2012, 01:05:49 pm »
Hmmmm.  I saw this a while back; don't know how valid it is:

http://www.nottaughtinschools.com/Yull-Brown/Free-Energy-Interview.html
"If the universe is made of mostly Dark Energy...can We use it to run Our cars?"

"If You want peace, take the profit out of war."

Offline thorfourwinds

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Re: Wasting Away - The Nukes in Your Backyard
« Reply #14 on: February 08, 2017, 04:58:14 pm »
EARTH AID is dedicated to the creation of an interactive multimedia worldwide event to raise awareness about the challenges and solutions of nuclear energy.

 


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