Tag Archives: Radioactive Waste

Nuclear Divers – Swimming in Hot Water

Diver using an AMP 100 to measure radiation

Another day at the office, from "The Life of a Nuclear Diver," William Sheaffer, here.

Nuclear power plant maintenance requires SCUBA divers in the rivers and oceans near the intake pipes and, as the image shows, in the reactor itself. And the men and women who work as employees and contractors for the plants and for Underwater Construction Corp, UCC do the job (more images).

According to Katheryn Kranhold, here, of the Wall Street Journal and Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “Divers are in great demand these days. Power companies need them to maintain many of the world’s 442 nuclear reactors. They’re also called on to repair aging bridges and water tanks…. That has done little to increase pay for nuclear divers, who start at salaries of about $30,000 a year.”

What are the risks of this work over and beyond the risks of SCUBA diving? What are the protections afforded the workers? What insurers underwrite the risks?  And who purchases the insurance? The divers? Their employers?  The nuclear plant operators? Or the sub-contractors who hire contract divers (at $20 per hour)? How many hours per year do the divers work, and can they afford the insurance? And if they can afford the insurance, do they actually buy it?

David Goodwillie, writing in Popular Science, reports on the chilling occupation of nuclear divers in Swimming On The Hot Side excerpted below. Continue reading →

Fires Near Los Alamos

NBC Nightly News, June 28, 2011. Lisa Myers reports,

Pete Stockton, former Department of Energy official, says “the public should be concerned but not alarmed as a wildfire inches closer to a  nuclear weapons facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico.”

New Mexico fire managers scrambled Tuesday to reinforce crews battling a third day against an out-of-control blaze at the edge of one of the top U.S. nuclear weapons production centers.

The fire’s leading edge burned to within a few miles of a dump site where some 20,000 barrels of plutonium-contaminated waste, including clothing and equipment, is stored at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, fire officials said.

The town of Los Alamos, home to about 12,000 people, was evacuated Monday afternoon as a precaution.

The wildfire — which has burned 60,000 acres, or 93 square miles, in just two days — was as close as 50 feet from the Los Alamos National Laboratory grounds on Tuesday afternoon.

On Monday, a spot fire at the lab was quickly contained, and lab officials said no contamination was released.

Lab officials and fire managers said they’re confident the flames won’t reach key buildings or areas where radioactive waste is stored in barrels above ground.

Earthquake, Tsunami, and Energy Policy

Tokyo Electric Power Co.

First in a series on the systems dynamics of nuclear power in the light of the ongoing catastrophe at Fukushima.

Radioactive waste and melt downs are intrinsic properties of nuclear power. Before / After Gallery.

Current Assessment: 3/27/11 3:00 PM. 10,668 dead, 16,574 missing. Radiation levels spike, drop. (Gather). Silver lining in the cloud – radioactive substances will wind up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and trigger mutations in bacteria and plankton, creating “Plasticovores” – critters that chow down on plastic.

Eighth Assessment: 3/24/11 11:30 PM. 10,035 dead. 17,443 missing. Market Watch. Earlier in the day AP, Courtesy of the Star, Bloomberg. reported slightly lower numbers.  We have seen a natural disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and aftershocks. While the the damage is tremendous, it could have been much worse. There are 10,035 tragedies, and 17,443 people are missing. It seems likely that many of them will never be found.  Yet The nuclear plants have not yet undergone a full meltdown. This speaks volumes about American and Japanese engineering. The nuclear plants were built pretty well. Yet it also suggests that it is not prudent to build nuclear power plants in earthquake zones. Radioactive waste and meltdown are not intrinsic properties of solar, wind, geothermal, and conservation.

Continue reading →

Coal: More Radioactive Waste than Nuclear Power

Alex Gabbard at the Coal pile in front of the Oak Ridge National Lab

Alex Gabbard at the Coal pile in front of the Oak Ridge National Lab

Strange and counter-intuitive as it may seem, burning coal produces more radioactive waste than nuclear fission.  And it’s not regulated.

Back in 1993, Alex Gabbard, of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, published “Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger” in ORNL Review. Gabbard built on the work of J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco, also of Oak Ridge, in their article, “Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants,” Science, Dec. 8, 1978.

Continue reading →

Vermont Yankee – Leaks Cesium

The latest news about Vermont Yankee – The leak of Cesium-137 is not a new leak.  From VermontBiz.com (click here) or the Burlington Free Press (here).

“In a statement issued yesterday, Vermont Yankee said that recent news reports have focused less on the tritium resolution and more on the other isotopes found in the soil at the plant. Despite the recent media coverage, Vermont Yankee said the presence of Cesium-137 and other radionuclides found in the soil at the plant is not new news. During the first week of March, the company shared soil sample results with the Vermont Department of Health indicating the existence of cesium in the soil.”

What’s worse than a nuclear power plant that leaks radioactive tritium?  A nuclear power plant that leaks radioactive cesium. The good news  that it’s not a new leak. Vermont Yankee ” has not had a fuel defect that could leak Cesium-137 since 2001.” Exactly how is this reassuring?

It’s “not dangerous” according to the NRC and the people who either lied or didn’t know about the tritium leaks.

In an unscientific web-based poll (here) WPTZ a Vermont television station affiliated with NBC, 5,487 or 53% of the responders said Vermont Yankee should be shut down now (3,387 / 33%) or when it scheduled to shut down in 2012 (2,100 / 20%). The question was “Do you think Vermont Yankee should continue operations beyond its scheduled shut down in 2012?

” The question was answered affirmatively by 4,506, or 44%.

The Vermont Dept. of Health provided a summary, here of tritium contamination, here.

While nuclear power provides a tremendous amount of power from a small amount of material, it is very expensive when done right. And when done wrong we have disasters like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and business as usual like Vermont Yankee, Indian Point, Oyster Creek – the list of accidents is long for each operating nuclear power plant.

The economic externalities of nuclear and coal are very expensive in terms of health effects to people and the environment. As I’ve addressed elsewhere in this blog, solar, wind, and other renewable sources are safe and inexpensive, and the economic externalities are beneficial.

The only good news is that Vermont, in the spirit of Ethan Allen, is pointing the U. S. in the direction we need to go, vis a vis nuclear power.

Jobs, National Security, Energy, Environment, Economy

Architecting a Clean, Secure, Sustainable, Non-Carbon and Non-Nuclear Energy Future

Middelgrunden, Denmark, near Copenhagen

Middelgrunden, Denmark, near Copenhagen

  • 100 Gigawatts offshore wind. $300 Billion.
  • 100 GW land based wind. $200 Billion.
  • 50 GW solar. $325 Billion.
  • 250 GW Clean, renewable, sustainable Energy.  $825 Billion.
  • Save the World: Priceless Continue reading →