Category Archives: HAZMAT

Notre Dame researchers: new way of cleaning up and recycling nuclear waste

Physorg reports a new way to clean up the waste from nuclear operations:

A new paper by researchers at the University of Notre Dame, led by Thomas E. Albrecht-Schmitt, professor of civil engineering and geological sciences and concurrent professor of chemistry and biochemistry, showcases Notre Dame Thorium Borate-1 (NDTB-1) as a crystalline compound which can be tailored to safely absorb radioactive ions from nuclear waste streams. Once captured the radioactive ions can then be exchanged for higher charged species of a similar size, recycling the material for re-use.
Nuclear power plant symbol By Hendrik Tammen via Wikimedia Commns
If one considers that the radionuclide technetium (99Tc) is present in the nuclear waste at most storage sites around the world, the math becomes simple. There are more than 436 nuclear power plants operating in 30 countries; that is a lot of nuclear waste. In fact, approximately 305 metric tons of 99Tc was generated from nuclear reactors and weapons testing from 1943 through 2010. Its safe storage has been an issue for decades.

“The framework of the NDTB-1 is key,” says Albrecht-Schmitt. “Each crystal contains a framework of channels and cages featuring billions of tiny pores, which allow for the interchange of anions with a variety of environmental contaminants, especially those used in the nuclear industry, such as chromate and pertechnetate.”

 

Missile Warheads, stolen while under military guard, pose "no risk"

From the BBC, Missile warheads stolen from Romanian train

Romanian officials have reassured the public after the theft of more than 60 missile warheads from a train.

The warheads were taken from a railway car carrying military equipment to neighbouring Bulgaria on Saturday.

Officials said the stolen warheads could not be detonated because they were in component form without explosives.

Investigators say the missiles could have been stolen for their scrap metal value.

Romanian media said when the freight train stopped in Giurgiu, southern Romania, it was found that doors on the railway car had been forced and four boxes of 16 warheads stolen.

Officials are investigating how the theft could have happened while the consignment was being guarded by paramilitary police.

Bulgaria’s economy ministry said the warheads belonged to Grad missiles which are normally fired from multiple-rocket launchers.

In a statement it said the shipment was part of a transfer of “nonfunctional components and parts” for reprocessing at the VMZ factory – one of Bulgaria’s largest military factories – in Sopot.

Romanian officials close to the investigation told two daily newspapers that the warheads did not contain explosives.

Romanian police spokesman Florin Hulea also reassured the public, saying the warheads posed no risk.

via BBC News – Missile warheads stolen from Romanian train.

If the missiles posed no threat, why were they under heavy guard?

It's Like a Bad High School Math Problem

Oil Spill

Oil and Oceans Don't Mix. From Mining News.

“If oil gushes into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 60,000 barrels per day, and it takes 84 days to achieve a capability of “process” the spilled oil at a rate of 30,000 barrels per day, how long does it take to “process” the spilled oil?”

It takes two days to process each day’s gushed oil. So the answer is “2N + 188” where “N” equals the number of days oil gushes into the Gulf beyond the 84 days it took to achieve a processing capability of 30,000 barrels a day. If BP or the government stops the spill effective July 15, 2010, then they will process the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico by January 20, 2011. If they are able to stop the flow of oil by August 1, 2010, then it will be Feb 19, 2011, before the spilled oil is “processed.” (Source of image)

And what exactly do they mean by “Process the spilled oil?”

People cleaning up the spill

People cleaning up the spilled oil.

Here’s another problem: “What is the toxicity for people cleaning up, or “processing,” the spilled oil? How much exposure can an average person tolerate? Is BP providing adequate safety gear and instructions? If people working to clean up the spill are reporting “light-headedness” and other symptoms, is that an indication that they have sustained a toxic exposure?” For more details, here is Melissa Taylor’s article, “Doctors call for help protecting Gulf oil spill workers.”

This Like a Bad High School Math Problem, is ninth in the series on the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo oil well disaster which began after Earth Day. Other posts include:

  1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon,
  2. Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops,
  3. The Magnitude of the Spill,
  4. One Month After,
  5. The Chernobyl of Fossil Fuels?,
  6. Magnitude, Part 2,
  7. After Macondo, and
  8. Deepwater Horizon – Bombs and Hurricanes.

"Every Oil Spill Is Different" – No Spill Zone

No Spill Zone has an excellent explanation of the taxonomy, if you will, of oil spills (although not their effects – which would be an immense task, given variation between marine environments and coastal areas):

Alex Spence, the general manager for Seacor Environment Services Middle East, says that to appreciate the work of companies such as his, it is first necessary to understand how they categorise spills.

“We tend to classify spills into three categories – T1, T2, and T3,” he says.

In broad terms, a Tier 1 spill requires only a local response; Tier 2 might demand regional resources and Tier 3 necessitates international assistance.

“A T1 — that would be your first-strike response,” he says. “That would be like if you have a very small fire in a room, picking up a fire extinguisher and putting it out.”

A T2 is “if the whole room catches fire and you alert the fire brigade – and the T3 is if the whole building catches fire”.

A T2 spill can take anything from a couple of days to a week to deal with; a T3 can take months, or even years.

There are, he says, three response options for dealing with oil spills: monitoring and surveillance for light spills, containment and recovery for larger incidents and a combination of containment and spraying of chemical dispersants for the most severe.

Middle East Oil Spill Classifications

at the No Spill Zone

Matthew Wald, NYT: “Plan for Nuclear Storage Is Slow to Form”

Matthew Wald has this piece on the Times website:

Nov. 4 — The Energy Department has not finished plans to consolidate storage of nuclear bomb fuel and other high-risk materials now spread among numerous sites, even though the department said in 2005 that it would do so within about a year, according to a Government Accountability Office report to be released Monday.As a result, the department is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to defend additional sites.

The G.A.O. had reported that the Energy Department was putting off making security improvements at some of the storage sites because the sites were due to be phased out. But the new report makes clear that the goal of shutting down some obsolete weapons and research centers, and simplifying the security job by centralizing “special nuclear material,” as bomb fuel is called, has yet to advance from concept to plan, let alone to finished project.

The Energy Department “has completed only two of the eight implementation plans for consolidating and disposing of special nuclear material,” the new report found, and it cited problems with those two plans.

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