OT: Favourite OT Subject - (US) 6 underground nuclear tanks leaking

[The Natural Philosopher]

because filtration is cheaper for solids.

The greater problem is dissolved salts, but these can be (and are) turned into solids by chemical means.

Its all cost though.

If the oceans were man made no doubt you would call for all the 'toxic uranium and thorium, that represents a risk to man for billions of years' to be removed and would then complain about the '10 trillion tonnes of waste that no one knows what to do with'...

"Uranium's average concentration in the Earth's crust is (depending on the reference) 2 to 4 parts per million,[8][13] or about 40 times as abundant as silver.[10] The Earth's crust from the surface to 25 km (15 mi) down is calculated to contain 10^17 kg (2×10^17 lb) of uranium while the oceans may contain 10^13 kg (2×10^13 lb).[8] The concentration of uranium in soil ranges from 0.7 to 11 parts per million (up to 15 parts per million in farmland soil due to use of phosphate fertilizers), and its concentration in sea water is 3 parts per billion.[13]"

So the total amount of 'toxic nuclear waste' on the planet is AT LEAST

100 quadrillion tonnes, and of that ten trillion tonnes is already in the seawater, God not having had the sense to put it in vitreous steel containers before he buried it in the ground.,

So it really makes sense to worry about 10 tonnes of plutonium (less than a cubic meter) doesn't it?

Facts are such a bore, aren't they? Now watch while you wriggle and squirm and claim that somehow a neutron off plutonium or a beta particle is somehow more dangerous than one off radon...

[Adam Aglionby]

But still left with the original question, of this thread, the tanks at Hannaford, if distillation or filtration was a working system for these surely would have been used in last 70 years to reduce the size of the problem?

article mentions 2 billion Dollars a year funding dosen`t appear to be the issue.

Sure could do same calculation for cyanide or mercury, it still dont make it relevant.

So the worlds dangerous nuclear waste is less a cubic meter, problem solved....

Think the issue may be some what larger than that , will leave you to contact Hannaford with the solution to their problem.

Nope ,asked for details of your half dozen plus realistic methods of nuclear waste disposal and your examples of me lying.

Still waiting for examples of either, breath not baited.

Cheers Adam

[Andy Champ]

Do you mean nuclear power or nuclear weapons? (or perhaps both...)

Andy

[John Rumm]

You might be surprised.

Have you given any consideration to a mechanism for how this might be so? Radioactive decay is a characteristic of the element / isotope itself. Irradiating something does not make it radioactive any more than illuminating it contaminates it with light. Otherwise a Geiger Muller tube would become useless in short order!

Only if your radioactive material is in the form of a dust of other contaminate that can leave residual amounts of material behind after handling.

It was a fair example in that its a toxic soft metal - handling it can leave lead contamination behind, but not simply by things being in close proximity to it, but by virtue of physically scraping or otherwise removing some of it such that a residue stays behind.

Tell that to Dartmoor

[dennis]

Current reactors are running on plutonium fuel.

[The Natural Philosopher]

SOME are running/can run on MOX fuel. But ALL uranium reactors burn up SOME of the plutonium they make.

I am not sure how up to date the info is but there seem to be two commercial fast breeders in operation in France and Russia, and about a dozen experimental or demonstration ones around the world.

But with mined uranium cheap as chips there is no incentive to develop the technology (yet).

[The Natural Philosopher]

update. The French one closed after a chequered history including being attacked by RPGs from German Green group and constantly having issues of breakdowns.

The Russian one - Beloyarsk 4 - is being loaded up with sodium coolant as we speak.

Our own Dounreay is of course being taken to pieces slowly...

[Chris Hogg]

The Russians have also used or are using lead as coolant in their fast-breeders, apparently. Wikipedia says that there are quite a few fast-breeder reactors under development or construction around the world.

It seems to me the Russians have the right approach to disposal of old 'hot' reactor parts, by dumping them into the Barents sea, where they will gradually corrode away and what radioactive components remain (probably not much of the alpha or beta emitters anyway by then), will slowly dissolve into the sea and be rapidly diluted to harmless levels comparable to what's there naturally. The only potential problem is if there's a 'Minamata effect', i.e. some form of bio-concentration that gets into the human food chain in sufficient quantities to cause harm. But so far that doesn't seem to have happened.

[Java Jive]

You'd do better to concentrate on what I say rather than what you believe I say based on what you believe I believe. I was trained as a physicist, so know about background radiation.

There are several worrying things about this story:

1) We are not told exactly what type of radio-active waste was being stored in the tanks that have leaked, and therefore cannot guage how serious any resulting contamination is likely to be. In this situation, to assume the best would be just as irrational as assuming the worst. Hence, it is not helpful to talk about background radiation, etc, because we have no idea whether the resulting radio-active will be of the same order of magnitude as background radiation, or orders of magnitude worse.

2) Why have the tanks been allowed to be used so long after their scheduled end-of-life?

3) Why was such a plant sited apparently in the watershed of major cities?

4) If this situation has been allowed to develop for so long, how many other such situations exist? WTF have the US control systems / watchdogs / governments been doing all this time?

5) Why did the Gov not apprise himself sufficiently of the facts before mak>

[Java Jive]

What a stupid, irrelevant argument. What's that got to do with this incident?

Are you seriously trying to claim that the potential of this situation doesn't matter because the nuclear industry has not yet killed as many people as the coal-industry?

And pe>

[Tim Streater]

Oh were you. First we've heard of this. Remember a previous thread where you wanted to know what everyone's qualifications were? At that time, you said you had a maths degree. Nothing about physics then.

You were provocatively assuming the worst in your first post. Why are you being irrational?

The resulting radio-active *what*? Please clarify.

They're doing what they always do in the US. Arguing and resolving nothing. Because that's how the country is structured. Having lived there, I know.

Here you go again, calling it a "major" incident. Given that there's been nothing in the press here, and after the last "major" incident (Japan) no one died or was injured, calling it "major" is bunkum.

You need to understand that, technically, the waste issue is a solved problem. IOW, what to do with it is *known*. The problem is

*implementation*, deliberately and maliciously made harder or prevented by people like you.

You're the sort of person who would have been right at home in Puritan New England. You'd be there nodding away and asserting that you had "saved the community" as you applied the flame to the woodpile surrounding the "witch".

[Tim Streater]

No, but it's a question of keeping things in proportion. All industry kills people. Focussing on the small mote presented by the nuclear industry, as *you* do, rather than the larger planks presented by others such as coal, just confirms to the rest of us that you have an axe to grind, and are not the cool, neutral, measured observer you'd have us think you are.

[Java Jive]

I wasn't originally interested in what others' qualifications were, but as part of your ad hominem attacks you and others cast doubt on mine, so I gave them and retaliated by asking about yours and others.

Actually I said I had a Maths & Computing degree. I also got Physics at A-Level, and as part of my degree also did Physics, Astronomy, Geology & Environment, Psychology, and Music units.

[Java Jive]

I'm wasn't presuming the worst, I was ironically jeering at the Gov's absurd complacency. Nor am I being irrational. If anyone here is being irrational it's you, in concentrating on what qualifications people have rather than the various aspects of the story that are genuinely of concern.

So I missed out the word 'contamination', obviously.

I hadn't noticed that this country is any better.

It's major, or if you prefer 'significant' - I really can't be arsed to mince words to pander to your pro-nuclear bias - because of the potential for serious environmental and human health consequences.

I note that to the questions of genuine and legitimate concern above, you have no replies of scientific or technical substance.

No, this is FUD, to use your own expression. You are blaming the messenger for the message. It would be just as (in)valid for me to blame people like you for the various failings of the nuclear industry, on the grounds that as long as people like you fail to question it properly, they will expect to continue to be able to hide shoddy safety and security behind bland statements.

If the nuclear industry want to be trusted, then they need to put their house in order.

FUD. What a nasty little hypocrite you are! Again, this is the sort of mental baggage that reveals more about the state of mind of the person yelling the abuse than the person unfortunate enough to be abused.

And, BTW, I'm an atheist.

[Tim Streater]

So you're assuming the worst, by assuming there will be contamination at least to background level. It's either that, or "orders of magnitude worse". No chance it might be neither, according to you.

They are only "of genuine and legitimate concern" in your fevered imagination".

Their house *is* in order, by and large. Certainly compared to other major industries, they don't do any worse. As I said before, you just concentrate on the motes and ignore the beams. This can only be because you have an axe to grind.

Oh shut up. Take your pop psychology and shove it.

[Java Jive]

I am old enough to remember Aberfan and how shocking and upsetting it was. Who are Terry or yourself to be suggesting to others how they should be feeling about it now? That was then, this is now.

Again, you are blaming the messenger for the message. I note that you still haven't got a scientifically or technically credible response to the original article.

But in fact, you are wrong anyway. Noone participating in this ng can fail to notice the blatant anti-green and pro-nuclear biases here. Therefore I have made a conscious decision to debunk the rubbish that commonly gets posted on these topics, and to provide balance in the form of anti-nuclear and pro-green links where it seems to me to be appropriate.

It's called freedom of speech.

[Java Jive]

We know that the fluid from ponds containing radioactive waste of unknown severity has leaked. It seems reasonable to call that contamination. I note that, rather than concentrate on the real problem, you seem to want to debate the meaning of words again. I don't think many, however pro-nuclear, would agree with you. I think most sensible people would want a proper, independent scientific study of the problem, rather than just blithely assume that everything's just fine because the Gov says so in such an indefinite way.

The technical facts as far as they are known, that there has been a Press Article about it, a statement from the Governor, and the reaction of non-aligned people in this ng all suggest to me that there are matters "of genuine and legitimate concern" here. If you can't see that - or perhaps more likely just won't admit it because you're not man enough to concede the argument - there's not much I can do except recommend that you stand as Governor - you would seem to be perfectly qualified for the role.

This incident proves that, at least in the US, it is not.

I have explained in another reply why I am concentrating on this issue to provide some balance.

Heh! Heh! Found the mark there!

[Tim Streater]

So am I, thank you very much.

Was I doing that? I don't think so.

Speech away, dear boy. We need a few loons on soap boxes to keep us amused.

[Tim Streater]

Actually there isn't. What there *is* is a bias against twerps.

[Huge]

Freedom to speak does not imply an obligation to listen. Which is why JJ has been in my killfile for a while.