Containing Wide-Spread Nuclear Waste

It's the fear of death, that governments use against us to strip us of our freedom.

You'll notice that the death count from the earthquake and resulting tsunami is around 19,000. The death count from radiation poisoning remains at zero.

http://earthquake-report.com/2012/03/10/japan-366-days-after-the-quake-19000-lives-lost-1-2-million-buildings-damaged-574-billion/

No doubt it's a mess, but you are unlikely to die from radiated US soil. A nice big cup, may not be a bad idea. Whiskey works for me...and try not to worry so much; we're all going to die.

The problem with radiation poisoning is that it takes time and is not or most often not one of those direct casualty counts. For example the Fukashima (sic) disaster released a level of Strontium-90 more than 100 times background levels. Strontium is so close to calcium that it will be taken up biologically and enter the food chain. When human ingest it, strontium can become part of our bone structure. The strontium stays with the person for a long time and can then be released slowly to cause a future cancer. Not a good outcome if enters fields where cattle graze and produce milk we drink for its calcium. Our youngest children are most susceptible. There is no cut and dry good that can come from a statistical review that is flawed.

As far as water goes, yes, yes, yes got that one.

Radiation is only harmful in concentrated doses....by the time you get a few thousand feet away from a leaking source, it is too diluted to be dangerous....We and others have set off thousands of nuclear bombs over the years, the effects of radiation being introduced into the environment are well known....There is no reason to be concerned...

That's a load of bullsh!t!!!

Using that theory, getting a CT scan would be "harmful".

Time, distance, and shielding (TDS) in accordance with the ALARA principal (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) mandated by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission are only basic controls that must be observed. Other national agencies use standards in line with the NRC.

If a person were exposed to levels of radiation at a specified distance over long periods of time, they will receive the same dosage which a person exposed for a short period of time would at a shorter specified distance under TDS measurements.

Activity levels, isotopes; whether alpha, beta, gamma, neutron, etc. also play a huge part.

Abatement through dispersion and dilution is not a good practice. Just ask anybody who uses groundwater by, or is downstream of, Hanford, Washington.

Please, don't play the part of the government agent "here to help". It's tired and worn out. Stop misrepresenting facts.

Here is some good reading about people who lived more than "a few thousand feet" from sources:

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/intheworkplace/cancer-among-military-personnel-exposed-to-nuclear-weapons

Some quotes from your link:

" Some issues, however, are not as clear, such as the amount of exposure required, and the types of cancer that radiation can cause."

"Although the rate of leukemia was higher than expected, rates for all cancers combined were actually lower than expected, making the results difficult to interpret. Some cancers are known to have a long latency period - that is, they do not appear until decades after the exposure. The reason for the high leukemia rates of the "Smokey" test remains unexplained."

"To date, follow-up of troops present at other tests have not shown an overall increased number of deaths from cancer."

"Studies of British troops present at similar tests have not found that they have higher cancer rates or death rates overall, although these studies have also suggested that leukemia rates might be higher."

"With the possible exception of an increased risk of thyroid cancer, studies of people who worked at nuclear weapons plant sites have generally yielded similar unclear results, as have studies of people living near areas where the weapons were tested."

Is that really your proof?

You have better references than the National Institutes of Health, the Nuclear Regulatory Commision, or the Mayo clinic?

Have at it...go nuke yourself!

The only one to sign in and out. Yhe only one. Go F youself

I don't see any problem around Hanford, Wash,,,,,the rest of your statement is belligerent and without merit....

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/nwp/faq.htm

As for CT scans....

"According to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine last year, CT scans alone will cause nearly 30,,000 unnecessary cancer cases (about 2 percent of cancer cases), which will lead to about 14,500 deaths.

But wait, there's more bad news.

While 30,000 cancer cases is a large number, a New England Journal of Medicine study from 2007 estimated that overuse of diagnostic CT scans may cause up to 3 million excess cancers over the next 20 to 30 years."

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/25/high-ct-scan-radiation-is-deadly.aspx

You don't see....!!! Maybe you ought to come for a visit. Issues around Hanford were all over the daily news here from Seattle, Spokane, and Portland last year when the cracks in storage bunkers and leaks were being found, assessed, and tallied on a daily basis. Sparging wells are turning up more problems which are kept as hush-hush as possible.

Thanks for noticing the belligerence, which is a foul retort for the content you ignored.

You make my point with the CT reference, thanks for that!

If it has no merit, don't bother replying. RTFQ, WTFA.

Talk is cheap, where's the proof...? Show us some links to back up your claims....sure we all know the newspapers use inflammatory issues to sell papers, is that your proof..?

Aha! I already provided links! Clicking on a link that someone else already did the leg work for is even cheaper!

I am going to pull the Certified, Qualified and Licensed card here...

I am a certified Radiation Safety Officer for the US Government.

I am not going to spill my head of knowledge...my hands would go numb.

This isn't a homework question bank site, do your own research instead of resorting to retorting!

I'll just cherry pick some lame statements (without merit) from that wonderful link you provided, then I'll be done using the plaintiff's own material:

"The public does not have access to Hanford groundwater, and there are currently no potable water supplies on Site. However, there were 11 public water systems on Hanford that are still monitored as part of the Hanford Site Annual Environmental Report."

Can't have it both ways...either they do not have access or there were 11 public water systems. If they "were" in existence and "are" defunct, then why? Oh, we know why. They "are" contaminated".

"What is being done to monitor contaminated groundwater plumes heading toward the Columbia River?"

Yup, there they are...groundwater plumes heading towards the Columbia.

Did you even READ any of that page? Their references are even worse.

RTFQ, RTFA!!!

a little graphic from your link:

If you need help with your reading glasses, you can buy new ones at Wal-Mart for about $10.

RTFQ, RTFA...sheesh.

Where are all of the sick and dying?

My irrational fear of Radon turned me into a binge drinker.

Part of me wishes that you people that want to eliminate all nuclear and fossil fuels, would get your wish. We can all live in a perpetual hell until we die, and call it utopia.

Ok what more would you have them do....?

Clean it up...

If you do the crime you gotta do the time!

In the future, don't be so dumb as to put a nuclear dumping ground right next to North America's second largest river basin.

Of course, that may be exactly what they were thinking and trying to do when the site was opened.

Damn Engineers!

I've agreed with a lot of what you have posted. You're off the mark here. The history of the Hanford nuclear site shows that it goes back to the work done to make the first nuclear bombs of WWII. At the time nobody was sure if the US would survive the war. Getting the US to survive seventy years was the point, not worrying about cleanup in seventy years. The proximity of the Columbia river was considered an advantage in 1943 for cooling purposes, long before we understood the ecological problems of dumping heat into a river, let alone any radiological contamination concerns. Once these facilities existed incremental changes during the cold war got things eventually to the way they are today. Knowing what we know now, I doubt that anyone today would select that plot of land as a preferred site for the work that was done there.

I think my sarcasm made my point obfuscated.

You state the point I was trying to get across. Basically, if we only knew then what we know now.

Besides from dumping heat, the engineers at Hanford didn't see an issue with dispersing the radioactive by-products by pumping the waste away...dilution.

We still use these methods today with sewage outalls and sanitary sewers. As long as the fecal coliform doesn't exceed "acceptable" levels, we keep dispersing the hazardous waste.

This goes back to my initial (bullheaded) statement. We can apply TDS standards to just about any type of HAZMAT.

Please elaborate, specify.

Who? About what? The comment you are replying to is a vague question. Your request is therefore even more vague.

Water, yeah, yeah,yeah that's what I'm talking about. Got that one, thank god for that right. Yes and it is nasty, nasty crud.

I'm like a bad dream you can't shake

More "proof" for you non-believers...

Check out pages 491 and 492 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014. The government seems to be spending a lot of money cleaning up what some people say isn't an issue.

River corridor and other cleanup operations, central plateau remediation, Richland community and regulatory support...$921,785,000 for Defense Environmental Cleanup of Hanford, with another $69,078,000 spent for Safeguards and Security for Hanford during cleanup.

That totals over One Billion dollars...for Hanford alone! ($1,005,858,000). This isn't operations money here...this is just cleanup money...for this year!

That's a lot of cabbage for a non-existent issue!

_{^{And Solar Eagle doesn't "see any problem"!!!}}

As long as you realize it is a 'dream', then I don't have any problem whether you rate your assertions as 'bad' or 'good' or whatever.

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The two big problems that come out immediately in your post are:

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1. Lack of clarity about exactly what disputed claim for which your links supposedly provide 'proof'.

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2. Trying to work around the first problem, although it is not at all clear or specific I'm going to go on the assumption that you are claiming this evidence that nuclear power is expensive an environmentally polluting. If that is indeed what you are claiming, the main mistake you have made is that you are conflating nuclear power plants used for production of electricity with nuclear reactors and processing devoted to production of plutonium (the very first such reactor devoted to plutonium production). The fear and perceived urgency of the cold war combined with insufficient knowledge of the problems that were coming, made Hanaford a disaster.

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The thing is we should be striving to learn from things like Hanaford and not attempt to emulate the mistakes there as you seem to be doing by arguing against nuclear power generation using fear and ignorance of the distinction between power production and plutonium production.

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If you aren't trying to make a case against producing electricity with nuclear power, but are instead arguing against building more plutonium production plants, what threat exactly are you railing against?

I'm not disputing that there are problems at Hanford, but I've found that just because the government is throwing lots of money at something, it doesn't mean that anything is actually being done, or if a real problem even exists.

The federal government lost $100 billion last year...which means the money was spent and went away, but nobody knows where. It's just gone.

Not responding to your post; adding to it.

Got it

I could see it becoming a never ending, pork barrel project.

I think Hanford serves as proof that our government shouldn't be running anything, or as little as possible.

Around here, it's the military bases. The groundwater and soil contamination is a huge problem...to the point that people have been getting sick for decades.

Unfortunately, our government has been the single grossest polluter that this country has ever seen, and they have the ability to both cover up what they do, and continue it as long as they want. Places like Hanford eventually come to light, but look at the damage done.

As quick as they are to jump down the throats of priivate companies for the slightest infraction, we'll never be allowed to know the full extent of the messes that the government has made, and continues to make. They operate with impunity.

If you don't understand what I am talking about, re-read the thread. Use your scroll bar and start at the beginning of my in-thread convo...

I re-read prior to posting that message and again just now. It isn't that the things you have said aren't intelligible. To the contrary, you are clearly knowledgeable on the subject.

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What isn't clear is what exactly you are railing against, in the sense that good criticism must provide some alternative option. The price of the damage of Hanniford and clean up and storage seems to be something you are trying to pin on nuclear power.

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It would be difficult to dispute that nuclear weapons production and the armed forces did a poor job handling high level radioactive waste. There are 55 gallon drums of high level waste that the military just simply too a file or two off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico and all up the Atlantic coast line. I consider that criminally negligent.

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The problem arises in the failure to distinguish between those nuclear activities and nuclear powered generation of electricity, and make that distinction clear. People are already very poorly informed, so it is vital that erroneous associations are not encouraged.

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The reality of power generation is that actions that reduce nuclear power work to increase coal power and that is not a beneficial trade. That trade is such a bad one, it would be worth making the important distinction clear.

Well...a lot of the waste at Hanford can be directly "pinned" on nuclear power. There is some very good documentation on where each barrel, skid, container, etc. came from. We know what it is and who made it.

Without nuclear power, it wouldn't exist. I am not saying it's good or bad...I rely on it (nuclear-based electricity). I am saying that there it is...it came from there and now it needs cleaned up.

It is easy to dispute the alleged connection to "the Military", since the Federal Government...not "The Military"...the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and their contractors actually run the site operations (blame GE for the initial mess). The military turns items, if any, over for disposal at Hanford and don't have a hand it the disposal methods...pretty much like all of the labs in the country.

"The Military" didn't/doesn't run the on-site reactor, either.

Blame someone else. Start with the DoE...

Whether it is assigned to the DOE or even if it had been handled by a private contractor, the overriding purpose of the facility was to produce weapons grade plutonium. The purveyors of such weapons are exclusively the military.

Nuclear power, as in electric power fueled by operation of a nuclear reactor, does not consume nuclear weapons. and inside the US doesn't consume an appreciable amount of plutonium.

The problems at Haniford are the result of programs to meet military demand, not civilian power demands. The shell game of which branch of the government was assigned oversight doesn't really change that dynamic.

Absolutely correct tinac. As I said and cited earlier, Hanford came into existence to make bombs. That should not be disputed.

Came into existence, yes...but that's not where all of the waste came from. The Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor was the largest of Hanford's experimental reactors used to develop and test alternative fuels for the commercial nuclear power industry.

That is decidedly not a military function.

The point of my splinter post is that the military is not responsible for creating or disposing of the waste...nor any of the mismanagement which was/is involved. The military does not create weapons...they just use them. The military does not create the need for weapons...the government does. The military doesn't set forth a scenario which creates a need...the government does.

The Pentagon doesn't run Congress or the Executive Branch regardless of what Clancy, Coonts, or their kind write about.

The military never ran a plutonium reclycer or test reactor. The military is not in charge of recycling all of the old weapons and mismanaging that crap and spreading it all over the Columbia basin and poisoning everything along the way. The military signs those weapons over to government contractors and bye-bye...not their problem any longer. It's up to the contractors to take proper care under the ultimate guidance of the DoE.

My whole purpose, if you look back, was to point out that Hanford is a huge fucking mess, and that cannot be disputed. And, now, I say that it sure as Hell wasn't the miltary who fucked it up.

I'm pissed about the whole thing. Partially because I live in Washington State, and partially because the military is being blamed...but mostly because of Washington being treated like a dirty dumping ground.

Listen. I'm not disagreeing with you about Hanniford being a big mess.

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We both seem a little frustrated over what, in retrospect, appears to be largely semantics.

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I think you are interpreting my attempt to point out that nuclear weapons are not a necessary part of nuclear power (generating electricity) as a statement intended to absolve anyone but the military of mistakes related to nuclear waste and contamination especially in regards to Hanniford. That isn't what I'm saying (would be kind of self damning if I were though, since my most of my career in the Navy dealt with radcon, operational reactor safety, dosimetry, radiological materials, shutdown maintenance planning oversight (a seemingly never ending triplicate echo of verbatim repeat backs on sound powered phones), surveys, swipes, air samples, blah, blah, blah).

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Now the military is certainly not innocent. There are well documented cases of massive at sea dumping of radiological material, not to mention the truly significant events, above ground nuclear warhead testing. Whatever org chart you want to assign to that, it is definitely a military venture. To me there is no distinction between the military and the military endeavors of the government... just because they aren't in uniform, doesn't mean the decisions are not military. Same thing with contractors, the people relinquishing control have an obligation to only choose qualified capable contractors. But, that is not really the important part of the discussion. It is just a brightly colored noisy distraction.

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In actuality the Plutonium Recycling Test Reactor was also fundamentally a military venture. The plan was an attempt to offset the sizable cost of producing weapons grade plutonium, and to make use off some of the 'tails'. That isn't something that comes about if you aren't already in the process of producing plutonium for bombs.

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We don't blame the auto industry for all the pollution that coal pumps into the air, even though Rudolph Diesel was originally developing and testing engines to run on coal dust.

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I think I probably misinterpreted your statements as impugning the value/importance of nuclear derived electrical power. I am admittedly a little to ready to jump to the defense of nuclear power, as it has been unfairly attacked since Three Mile Island. You seem focused on who exactly might be at fault directly for various conditions at Hanniford, which is an important thing. It just seems that very similar terms bring very different things to mind for you and I due to our significantly different focus on different aspects of this very wide topic.

Perhaps you should read, Too Hot To Touch. It may enlighten you on the real dangers we all face. We need solutions to nuclear waste and its by-products. And even if it were to be dispersed as some thought in the oceans, it still has effects on the food we eat. I am always concerned with this problem, far more than global warming.

It's so frustrating to live in a country whose "leadership" is comprised of idiots.

Edit: I guess I shouldn't be so hard on them; after all, they did force us into mercury laden CFLs, that are 100% made in China. That helped a lot.

The French experience is far from the best approach. The article is flawed because it does not explain the problems of re-cycling or reprocessing. Civilian fuel is often mixed with weapons grade uranium and more so with recent weapons banning agreements. The mixed oxide or MOX is used in civilian reactors but can only be reprocessed once. After that there is too much plutonium produced which is not a good fuel. Plutonium is a product of reactors where uranium takes on extra neutrons instead of splitting. The nuclear alchemy. Along with the plutonium are other radioactive isotopes that must be dealt with in a safe manner. France has been stockpiling the yet to be disposed of plutonium and radioactive isotopes and is now awash in these products. The same with all reprocessing in any country. It is the biggest problem with saying we should go all out nuclear. We do not have any repository for permanent disposal. Russia has been trying to set up a final disposal area in Siberia but has not yet proven a good final resting ground. Remember some of the half lives are quite long and will need assurance long after our reactors are shut down. And we are talking millions of years for some isotopes. Many countries had thought the sea was a good place for these waste products. However they forgot about the dispersal of material in the oceans. It is quite fast considering the size involved. There is also something called the biological effects of atomic radiation and a special committee called the BEAR committee has been set up to study, evaluate, and control international dumping of waste at sea.

The question is not so much about utilization but disposal. By the way some estimates of the value of reactor waste has been recently set at negative $25,000,000.00 per kg. When you consider the tons of waste generated, you may wonder about the economics of heading down the nuclear road.

There is far less waste with the other technologies, along with much less decay time.

I think that at some point, there's a chance that they will come up with a way to squeeze every drop of energy out, or find some way to cut the decay time down to a shorter period.

It will surely never happen if we just say no.

We have a tendency to get better at things as we go along.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2012/10/02/how_to_reuse_nuclear_waste.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXmHrC7kpis

Edit: Sometimes it pays to be persistent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents

There is no doubt a lot of appeal to use fast reactors. A lot of R and D has already been spent on them including one on the SeaWolf nuclear sub. Japan spent $6 billion on developing one but was shut down after 1 year. The same happened in Germany. Fast reactors require a liquid metal as the modifier of the speed of neutrons. Liquid sodium is most common but these metals are prone to fires. We may have an answer to using fast reactors in another 50 years of research but it is not ready today. We keep trying but disasters like Fukashima put the ability to experiment on hold. Fast reactors still produce a lot of radioactive isotopes and they require less time in storage to be declared safe. But still several hundred years. We cannot keep up with what we have today.

Nuclear alchemy can produce some precious metals and even gold. Don't think it is available for jewellery or coin minting because these metals will be radioactive. Beware of scientists claiming a solution without all the peer review.

Here is an idea for taking advantage of nuclear waste. Why not sell small pieces of it in sealed packages that will still be hot enough to say cook, or drive autos, or some other use? If selling it in small packages is deemed too dangerous (my opinion) then use it in some macro storage where it can slow boil water and generate smaller amounts of electricity for long times. We should even have enough waste to use this without breeding more dangerous waste products. The problem of nuclear waste is much more urgent than even global warming. I am a stronger proponent of natural gas and believe we can use that energy to abate the climate concerns. Nuclear energy just needs to address the little problem of waste and safety. I am not 100 percent against nuclear energy but we do need more R and D before we proceed any further. China alone is going to double its capacity and between China and India 60 new reactors are planned. What to do about waste still needs urgent resolution? The Chinese and Indians are moving too fast. Fast reactors may well be a part of the puzzle. I would urge anyone wanting more info to read the book I recommended in an earlier post.

We shouldn't let accidents scare us into stopping.

What about Thorium? I also like the idea of much smaller reactors, and more of them.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/143437-uranium-killed-the-thorium-star-but-now-its-time-for-round-two

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/thorium-reactors-could-wean-world-oil-just-five-years

I hate to give the French credit for much of anything, except for LaPlace, LaGrange, Cauchy, etc., but I still have to ask how many nuclear melt-downs they've had?

And, how many incidents of (nuclear waste leakage) have they had?

Etc...

One should always remember that large-scale disasters pay no regard whatsoever to national borders.

A little more perspective:

http://physics.isu.edu/radinf/natural.htm

I've read articles/comments on both sides and can't remember them all but do wish to dig deeper into conditions that put people at risk of exposure to respirable forms of carcinogens when critical stem cells are undergoing mitosis.

What I remember from Human Anatomy class decades ago was that different cells have different rates of cell division. Perhaps why we have a hard time pinning down cause and effect of radiation risks is the lack of our ability to sense which cells are dividing and which are not in real time. Apparently, there is one person who was injected with very high levels of Plutonium and lived a very long life and may have had some cancers prevented by his exposure.

There is argument over what is harmful and perhaps our immune system does a pretty good job of protecting itself. Perhaps we have been lucky as well. I have concerns that other living creatures, such as bees may have dodged bullets for many years due to possible leaks corresponding with higher levels of humidity and rain making the particles airborne for shorter periods and thus safer conditions.

We have no adequate documentation with this level of control to prove or disprove my concern.

On the other hand, RedFred mentioned about tobacco concentrating radioactive materials. Perhaps smoking radioactive tobacco would have a higher cancer risk than non-radioactive tobacco? Burning that highly addictive substance would certainly make the radioactive portions become respirable. What about other plant life that I'm guessing harmlessly abosorbs radiation into a more inert form but is made respirable again when a forest fire burns? Again, where are the control studies with adequate scope to confirm?

Be afraid...be very afraid.

http://inhabitat.com/14000-us-deaths-linked-to-radiation-leaks-at-damaged-fukushima-nuclear-reactor-in-japan/

This witch hunt takes place anytime there is some kind of die off of animals, .... ..Imagine what these graphs would look like with no medicines or hospitals or doctors or modern conveniences of any kind....

I don't think that Heidi came in here with any ulterior motive, but this quote from her OP exemplifies what happens to people when they succumb to the fear that is intentionally spread.

With that being said by this time you gotta bet your bottom dollar the hazardous waste has reached American soil, sand that is nasty stuff, I don't want to die, or have that destroying our Earth little by little.

Scientists are baffled as to why all the starfish are dying off the Texas coast.

Not to doubt your concern, but scientifically I'd ask, "How are starfish doing on the Fukushima Coast?"

I'm going to take an off the cuff, wild guess...but I would say that the starfish are dying off the Texas coast, because of the chemical dispersant that was used to make the oil problem disappear...due to the exact same emotional idiocy that leads people to think that nuclear power is going to kill everyone.

The gulf would have survived an oil spill just fine. Nobody knows the long term effects of the dispersant...which sinks.

It was used to create a pretty picture to the world that the problem was handled. Period.

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Following an oily trail

I had learned about natural oil seeps in graduate school, and I knew that they account for about 50 percent of oil that ends up in the coastal environment. That's five times as much oil as is delivered by accidental spills.

The Santa Barbara seeps, for example emit 5,280 to 6,600 gallons (nearly 20 to 25 tons) of oil per day, and natural seeps have been active for hundreds to thousands of years. Local Native Americans used the oil to waterproof their boats. But I just didn't appreciate how spectacular they were and what a powerful opportunity they provided to study oil spills.

In our initial research, Dave and his scuba-diving team collected bubbles of oil that trail out in a line from a seafloor seep (we call these "stringers"). We compared this oil with samples extracted from a nearby offshore drill rig, which tapped into the same reservoir that leaked oil out of the seafloor seeps.

We analyzed the specimens using a technique called "comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC)." The instrument reveals distinct chemical "biomarkers" in the oil, which like genetic markers allow us to track the oil's source and lineage. It also lets us identify and differentiate the thousands of compounds that oil is composed of.

To our surprise, we discovered for the first time that on the oil's journey up to the seafloor, approximately 1,000 compounds in the oil were devoured by microbes living in the rocks beneath the sea floor. Some ate the oil and created intermediate byproducts. These were subsequently eaten by other microbes that likely converted the oil into natural gas.

We also compared the compounds in oil seeping out of the seafloor with those in oil at the sea surface. We discovered that about 10 percent of the remaining compounds in the oil evaporated within seconds or minutes after it had floated to the surface. That was something we had never been quick enough on the scene to measure before in accidental spills."....

Read all....

https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/while-oil-gently-seeps-from-the-seafloor

I will.

We've gone off on a tangent, but I was practically screaming when I saw them using those dispersants. What were they thinking?!!!

What they did, was akin to me spilling a drink on the couch, and then burning down my house so my wife didn't find out.

How that spill came about, and how it was handled, is worthy of another thread.

Most people are unaware that the oil companies were forced into, (risky), deep water drilling, by the US government.

CR4 Admin: [Link Removed]

Coming to a fishing ground near you......

That link contains something bad. DO NOT OPEN.

Thanks a lot rash.

Something is being uploaded to my computer. I guess I know what I'll be doing in the morning.

No damage done that I can find, but it was some type of malware.

Heidi, I recommend watching Pandora's Promise.

Just know that most nuclear power generating countries are about the same as Japan in their ability to handle disasters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/21/us-japan-fukushima-strontium-idUSBRE99K01B20131021 Its the unspoken story here that the last two paragraphs hint at that I worry about.

If all reactors were manned by US Navy personel and we actually had a solution to the waste issue (which we don't) I would feel much safer

Actually, I tried the copy and paste and it didn't work at my end.

Try this one,

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Kurion-Continues-Fukushima-Cleanup-Moves-to-Test-Vitrification-of-Nuclear-

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Kurion-Continues-Fukushima-Cleanup-Moves-to-Test-Vitrification-of-Nuclear-

That worked.

If they can get the cost of vitrification down, we're talking about far less, and far safer nuclear waste.

Um...Hanford was opened and operated by the US government, since it's inception.

If the point you're trying to make, is that the government has no business "running" anything, I couldn't agree more. You are 100% correct; they have a tendency to create one mess after another.

Its not that nuclear power can't be done safely, the problem is, when its done safely its not as profitable as oil, gas, or coal.

Problem one - profit motive always trump altruism. TEPCO can't even certify their reactors as safe and they want to restart the so they can make money because the clean up is and I quote, Cutting into our profit margins."

Problem two - Personal Fable. In my other field, we understand that adolescents suffer from a really skewed self image that makes them think they are ten foot tall and bullet proof. If you look at the way we are handling Nuclear you can clearly see the fallacy of personal fable all over the place. Problem is, we are not ten foot tall or radiation proof. In fact the opposite is true, we are extremely suseptible to the harmful effects of radiation. It doesn't take much or for very long to do irrepairable harm to the human organism.

Problem three - gross irresponsibility. The concept that "someone else" will come along and clean this mess up for us so we don't have to spend our profit margin doing it. nevermind governments all over the world allowing this to go uncheck as the Hanford site clearly shows.

Again, my personal position is if it is a nation resource needed for daily functioning of the country and defense it should be provided as a service by the government not a for profit corporation. otherwwise lets subcontract out the military for profit, I'm sure Blackwater can handle it.

RedFred's got a good point about us being in the midst of WW II, in respect to the Hanford plant.

The military itself is largely independent of day to day politics...or at least it was; now it's become a petri dish for social experimentation and engineering.

With the sheer volume of natural gas that we have in the US, it's very likely that this conversation will become moot. Nuclear plants will continue to be decommissioned, and far more economical NG plants, will likely replace them.

I agree but we do have several very nagging problems that switching to natural gas cannot solve. (No, I'm not kicking the AGW bee hive. ) Wishing away the properly stored waste products does not work. Wishing away the improperly stored waste products does not work. Wishing away all of the weapons grade fissionable material does not work.

In many cases the improperly stored waste products that have been uncontrollably released (much of Hanford's problems) will have to be mitigated with the distasteful method of dilution and dispersion. (Pumping dry an aquafier or estuary is just not practical.) Those spills that can be mitigated by more appealing methods should be mitigated. Funding should be made available for improperly stored but controlled waste to be properly stored. A method to utizize, secure or sanitize properly secured waste should be decided with the understanding that if a better method becomes available as we know more about these wastes that we methodically change.

Absolutely.

I'm happy to see NG coming on strong, but the nuclear waste problem will have to be dealt with.

I keep hoping to see some MIT geniuses come up with a palatable solution. Finding a way to use them up, while generating electricity, would be ideal.

I'm sure we're also going to see protests against NG, because of CO2...but we're gonna have to pick one of them.

Hanford aside, the actual operation of the nuke plants is very safe...for the most part.

I go fishing right next to this one. Needless to say, the spring shutdown was kept fairly quiet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shearon_Harris_Nuclear_Power_Plant

I hear you Red, here in Wiscosnin we have the Badger Prairie ammunition factory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_Army_Ammunition_Plant

Set up to manufacture munitions during WW2 it ran unregulated and pretty much unsupervised untl after Vietnam.

The end result is an ecological nightmare.

Wisconsin's answer to it and the unbelieveable clean up costs?

Give it back to the Ho_chunk tribe......

As a community garden. After all nitrates make good fertilizer right?

Some branches of the government make a business out of cleaning up superfund sites and their ilk.

More people can be hired under one positon description item, then be tasked with a few others, and voila!, a larger government!

The sites are cleaned up over and over again, with continued monitoring and continued "re-mediation" efforts. It's a booming business for local specially licensed and certified contractors as well.

In a related tangent, a colleague told me this story:

He had worked as a chemist for a weapons manufacturer many years back during the cold war. His job was the fabrication of a very nasty chemical weapon agent that we surreptitiously stocked piled in those crazy days of paranoia. The agent was assembled into a ridiculously large number of rockets that was stockpiled in many military bases. Many years after he left that firm a small group of military engineers came to him for his expertise on these weapons. They were looking for information that was not in any of the archives on the fabrication of these weapons. These rockets were decaying and they wanted to know how the weapons were intended to be disposed. The short but honest answer he gave them stunned them, use the rocket on the enemy.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/18/uk-usa-pentagon-waste-specialreport-idUKBRE9AH0LP20131118

HAH! I love that!

Kind of a Duh! moment.

Rash,

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I think you are off base on your statement about safe nuclear not being competitive with plants using other fuels.

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To begin with, making a comparison with oil is not valid at least here in the US. Nuclear power produces electricity. Far less than 1% of of US electricity is produced from crude oil.

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Coal isn't safe at all. The average 1000MW coal plant dumps something like 7 tons of uranium and 12 tons of thorium into the environment every year as fine particulate. If coal were held to the containment standards of nuclear power, it wouldn't be economically viable at all.

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Natural gas is much cleaner, but it isn't perfect. It is better suited for things like peaking plants, where Nuclear is far cheaper as a base load.

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The Fukushima disaster was preventable. The problems were foreseen by engineers many years prior to the incident. Unfortunately the problems were only partially addressed. This is not an issue of the best design not surviving the earthquake and tsunami. This is an issue of the best design not surviving the willful negligence of those in charge.

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Nuclear power is a powerful tool. Like all powerful tools it can be dangerous when not handled properly.

Greetings TNC,

I will grant you your opinion, but I will also fall back on simple economics. Large companies that answer to stockholders and are expected to return a certain percentage of profit do not spend any more than they need to. If Nuclear were economically viable and PROFITABLE it would be more widespread. Economics dictate this, not my own personal opinions.

A far as oil being used for power generation, maybe not on a national grid scale, but definitely used daily on a regional and facility by facility basis. In these cases Nuclear is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE unless you have....

Dude, you will get no argument from me on this one, Coal is not the answer to our energy needs. And I agree, it is only through government rules manipulation that allows this to continue given what we know.

Here you have a good idea in the use of natural gas as a supplemental fuel source that can be quickly and fairly cleanly brought into service to meet increased "on time" demand over the base Nuclear footprint.

I do believe I have stated that as my position also, that when good design meets economics, good design loses almost every time.

As for the Japanese, their issue is more about national pride and not being able to admit mistakes. (saving face) They were letting building 4 go supercritical. The fuel pond was dry, the US Navy picked up the Strontium spike 20 miles off shore, moved their ships farther out, and then sent helicopters in to dump sea water on building 4 before it became our first expose fuel meltdown. Thank the US Navy for saving the day while the Japanese were trying to convince the world this was not really happening.

You all need to understand I have no problem with Nuclear power as a source of electricity. I have a problem letting it be run by "for profit" companies for the obvious reasons we are all seeing now. This approach has left us with Three mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and several others, (and these bad plants are also a nuclear waste issue because how do you deal with a radioactive building of that size?) and the Nuclear waste problem will not be solved by "for Profits" because solving that problem would eat into their profit structures.

So, until we put our big boy pants on and get the profit motive out of our national electrical grid you can count on lots more coal being burnt, lots more NG, More Frakking, pipeline ruptures, and all that jazz while the big companies report record profits and leave the mess for us taxpayers to clean up.

I've actually considered the potential benefits of nationalizing our electrical power generation; and with an honest, competent government, it seems like a good idea.

It's unfortunate that our government is neither honest, nor competent; I think the grid would end up being used to further their power and control over us.

It would be nice if they would at least use the multiple, overlapping regulatory agencies that exist, to make sure things are run as safely as possible...but with the money flow between the utility companies and the politicians, even that can't be accomplished. As we've seen recently, the various agencies that exist to work for the people of this country, are instead used as political tools to attack adversaries.

Do not be deluded in the ability of any government to run a utility with any degree of competence better than a private sector. You will surrender good business management for very very poor business management. When you can wave a wand and conjure money you can make things happen or not. Salaries will sky rocket but the levels of delivery will be the same. An average electrical utility worker, government worker, earned over $127,000/year (2012) compared to $59,000 in the USA (2009). All we got was higher bills with add ons like debt retirement fee?? and a commercial sector that is exporting all its high energy jobs.

Your memories are too short. Just review what the latest government has done with Yucca mountain. I do believe the government of the day won that state of Nevada. You spent $billions and $billions only to see it cancelled for the sake of winning. The science and engineering was ground breaking and excellent (1 million years planning ahead) and survived at least 4 presidents but now is just a fading memory. Meanwhile no one has an answer to the ever increasing disposal issue. It is not a trivial problem but no one especially a government can provide an answer to storing nuclear waste. Sorry, I do not mean to meddle in US affairs but when you advocate for a government to run anything, be careful.

And yes natural gas is the best short term (about 50 years) solution for energy. By then we may have better options including nuclear.

Hey Kevin,

I see Ontario is home. So you do have a bit of experience with socialism. Everything you state is a true end result of government unreliability. I look at this as a lesser of two evils choice, not a this one is good this one is bad situation. Government is likely to be more expensive, but also more accountable (eventually) to the people it answers to. Us, in other words. Where as the "for Profit" structure is totally unconcerned with you or your property values or your health or your quality of life. All they are concerned with is meeting their projected profit margin so their stock doesn't get devalued by some arbitrary rating firm. At least with our system of Government we have the ability eliminate those who do not "keep the faith" so to speak. We have NO, ZERO, ZILCH ability to control the "for profit" that isn't even a US company. Think BP and Gulf of Mexico and the Chairman of BP refusing to take a call from the President of the United States. Now that is arrogance on a level that is globally dangerous.

I am a fan of Ben Franklin and his views on the role of governments in the lives of the people they serve. In America we started off good but as Washington cautioned, the average man should not be allow the vote because they will not use it wisely. He believed that only those who own land, or businesses (again, privately held, not "public" corporations), or have served in the military should have the "right" to vote because only they were really invested in the future that was being decided by the vote. We see this every cycle with the winner being the one who spent the most money on the best looking campaign. (and now to make matters worse, we have allowed these non entity corporations to have a monetary "voice" in the election process and as we have already seen completely sway the outcome.) People do not evaluate the candidate based on his record or past tendancy but instead blindly vote for that which spends the most money or is prettiest or most popular which is how we got stuck with such a loser as Obama. Even so, we still have the ability to change the people in power if we want.

And that makes Government control a better choice than a for profit corporation in my book.

I mentioned Yucca because nuclear waste disposal is getting critical. Although, we may not have had big accidents yet, it will happen if even by chance. The US navy will soon have zero place to store waste because it is now in the hands of individual states. Yucca was cancelled without giving cause. The fiasco in my mind is caused not by science but because a government saw a means of holding one seat or NIMS. There needs to be a better system where government also cannot change its mind for the sake of political gain. If the government had been able to provide a scientific objection, I believe that would have been acceptable. In Ontario we had 2 gas plants moved from contested ridings so the government could win seats in the 2 ridings. Taxpayers had no say. All it cost Ontario taxpayers was a cool 1.2 billion dollars and counting. If you go down the road of Ontario, you will find more and more of the same and worse dog pile of political abuse of public funds. I cannot go to another utility unless I form my own on my own property. At least with competition, it helps to keep costs in check. The evil is believing governments are worried about people at all. It is a power game where we can vote the rascals out once every so many years. But manipulation of public funds is rampant and favours are given for political expedience. Sometimes we keep the rascals in as a result.

As far as industrial lobbyism, why not put clear and distinct rules and serious limits on dollars. Limit contributions to any one's election and use (ahh, it is a can of worms). Have a hands free technical board to oversee such contributions from all sources and spending. If someone running for office is using contractors to provide a house extension and build the new deck perhaps that can be seen as a misuse of funds.

My bottom line is that I believe the private sector is more accountable. They are at the very least worried about expense. You do not get the unwarranted raises because someone sees a union block of voters. Regulation and monitoring of nuclear plants is a government role as much as meat inspection. Both are critical to every country. By the way was Chernobyl not a government designed and operated plant? At least the levels of upgrading an operation is important with a for profit company and upgrades will be made. The lack of upgrading seems to have been the cause of Chernobyl. Russia has now shut down all its first generation plants. Unless the west finds a new repository for its waste, investment in western nuclear plants may go as dry as Germany.

Rash,

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Ben Franklin is also one of my heroes. His ideas are very important. I think it is great that he is the only non-president to make it on our currency. As a side note, the rumor that he died of syphilis turns out to be false, though he was quite the ladies man.

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Despite Franklin's ideas about the role of government, the reality is that it does not often live up to those ideals. You seem to be fully aware of the shortcomings, which makes your position a bit curious. Your argument leaves me more convinced/reminded that the highest and best use for government is that in which it governs the very least....and anything aside from governing, well that simply isn't its job.

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One of the reasons our government is not to be trusted and why real people will continue to get the shaft is because a new higher class of citizen has been created, one that has limited liability, unlimited life, and can contribute unlimited funds to politicians.... things that second class citizens (real living breathing people) do not enjoy. Any time a society creates a superior class of citizen, the lower class tend to get the short end of the stick.

I think it is great that he is the only non-president to make it on our currency.

What about Alexander Hamilton? Perhaps you only deal in the higher currency values and never bother with the trivial 10 dollar bill.

Wow. I had it so firmly stuck firmly in my head that he was president at some point....I had to look that up before I could accept you were correct..... . which is doubly silly because I know the early presidents and the space where I get fuzzy is after when I suspect he was already dead.

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Thank you for catching that and updating me.

No problem. He's often mistaken of being a president. Who knows if he would have become one had he not been killed.

Believe me, if anybody knows how incompetent our government is, it's me. In it's current state, I wouldn't advocate them running anything.

It was just a passing thought.

It is something I think about though.

For example: Suppose the US government opens up public lands for fracking.

Something rubs me the wrong way, about having the big companies be able to export the bulk of the oil and gas to other countries.

I don't know the answer...and I can't depend on government to come up with one.

I think we (Canada) get royalties on oil and gas that are substantial. That is why Alberta thrives. So I am OK with harvesting gas on public lands, if the controls on fracking are in place. However, where we and the US fall down is not getting royalties on minerals other than oil and gas. It is a freeforall out there for minerals. In Canada we had a Chinese company buy coal rights in British Columbia. The claimed they had new techniques for mining and wanted to bring in their own workers. So Canada leased the land for a very small amount, the company was exempt for tax for a decade, and no Canadian worked the mine, that is plain stupid. We give gold away to foreign companies without royalties. The Swiss own one mine in a place I once lived and the Swiss tore all the building down because they had to pay city tax on the buildings. More dumb. Giving natural resources away for just jobs is not helpful in the long run.

It looks stupid from our point of view, but somebody, (within government), is quietly getting rich off these deals.

You and I agree on most points.

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As far as a for profit model working, I think it can and has in the US. As with many industries, there is significant harm done when government and big business are allowed to get too cozy. Banking, pharmaceuticals, power generation, defense, insurance, banking, and banking have all done significant harm to this country and actually to the health of their own businesses long term, by getting far to cozy with the supposed oversight. I fully support making the existing oversight function in a beneficial way. I don't agree that for-profit models are hopeless or even an inferior solution.

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Three Mile Island was an outstanding success. It is only through the almost criminally irresponsible sensationalist media that it turned into the fear mongering fiasco that it did. That was for practical purposes, a demonstration of how well things can work when a bad accident begins and is ignored/not noticed right away. The designers of that facility deserve so much credit for that success, but it has been masqueraded as a catastrophe when it was anything but.

Kind of the point...but I think that no matter who were running the show...the mindset was/is the same about what to do with the waste.

The people in charge of the show don't care who their bosses are. They get paid either way, whether working for a civilian "agency" or government overlord. Their degreed learning and that of their supervisory would lead them to make the same flawed decisions.

Their are a lot of things that I think are best left in private hands, that are strictly monitored by government inspectors.

With sites like Hanford being entirely government controlled, there's nobody around to monitor what's going on. WW II was one thing, but the sloppiness continued for decades.