Category Archives: Nuclear Waste

Radioactive Waste problems associated with Nuclear Power Plants

Long-term nuclear waste repository ‘not worth it’

nuclearAboriginal leaders and community members met with representatives from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for a session Friday at the Prince Albert Inn to learn more about a plan to potentially store [high level] nuclear waste in northern Saskatchewan.

Sessions were held in Saskatoon and Regina earlier this week to discuss the same topic. The NWMO provided the FSIN with $1 million over three years to fund the nuclear waste sessions.

While Friday’s session was open to First Nations people but closed to the media, participants spoke with the Daily Herald during a break in the day’s agenda.

Bobby Cameron, vice chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN), said the purpose of the meetings has always been the same.

“That’s to inform and educate our First Nations people on nuclear waste management, the storage and transportation,” he said. “We have nothing to hide. We invite our First Nation folks to come out and raise their concerns.”

Twenty-one communities in Saskatchewan and Ontario have expressed interest in accepting the NWMO’s plan to build a nuclear waste repository, with those in Saskatchewan currently in the first phase of step three — an 18-month to two-year process. Read More

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Long-term nuclear waste repository ‘not worth it’ 5/5 (100%) 1 vote

“Going nuclear” on radioactive waste – Alberta, Canada

Source: http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Going+nuclear+waste/4613105/story.html#ixzz1JWjSvKgJ
CALGARY HERALD Editorial,  APRIL 14, 2011

Excuse us while we go nuclear on this, but Alberta should not be a dumping ground for radioactive garbage from Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. They can keep it.

The Municipal District of Big Lakes, northwest of Edmonton, is investigating whether the community could become home to a nuclear-waste facility worth up to $24 billion. Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization is currently looking for a community that can safely handle the country’s nuclear waste.

The agency notes on its website that spent nuclear fuel has been safely transported internationally for 40 years. “At present, limited amounts of used nuclear fuel are transported in Canada. However, in other countries, in particular France, the United Kingdom and Sweden, shipments of used nuclear fuel take place routinely on a large scale,” it says.

Alberta has a minute supply of radioactive fuel at a SLOWPOKE research reactor at the University of Alberta. There are similar research reactors in Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. These are low-power reactors with built-in safety mechanisms that allow them to be licensed to operate unattended overnight.

There are two million highlevel radioactive fuel bundles sitting at temporary storage sites in Canada, mostly at the large plants in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick.

Jurisdictions that are the biggest producers of spent fuel should be the ones dealing with the waste. Alberta should not be taking other province’s nuclear garbage.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

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No nuclear waste storage facility for Saskatchewan, Canada

Negative public opinion makes option unlikely

by James Wood, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, April 15, 2011

Premier Brad Wall says Saskatchewan residents haven’t warmed
to the idea of storing nuclear waste in the province and it is highly
unlikely the government would allow such a facility to be built.

Wall made the comments Thursday after a petition with more than
4,500 signatures opposing a nuclear waste facility was presented
in the provincial legislature.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is eyeing Saskatchewan
as a potential site for underground storage of nuclear waste, although
a decision is likely a decade away. Three northern communities have
expressed interest as a possible host.

While Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government has been bullish on
“adding value” to the province’s large reserves of uranium, it has
said in the past negative public opinion has ruled out a nuclear
waste facility.

“I don’t sense the mood of the province has changed and frankly,
what’s happened in Japan has got people thinking, just generally
speaking, about the issue,” Wall told reporters.

“This would be very much a provincial issue and while we would respect
the fact that different communities do want this, there should be a
sense that the province in general is supportive and I don’t have that
sense,” he added.

The petition by the Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan calls
for a halt to any further expansion of the nuclear industry in
Saskatchewan and legislation banning interim or permanent storage
of nuclear waste.

Wall said it is not something the government has contemplated but
he would not rule out such a law on nuclear waste in Saskatchewan.

The government has embarked on a new nuclear agenda that
includes a focus on nuclear medicine and research into the feasibility
of small reactors for power production.

In 2009 it rejected a proposal from Bruce Power to develop two,
1,000 megawatt reactors as too large and expensive for Saskatchewan.

The Coalition for a Clean Green Saskatchewan news release said
beyond the reactor decision, the Sask. Party has ignored concerns
around the expansion of the nuclear industry in the province.

“Strong opposition to the uranium industry exists in the province.
Active citizens successfully halted a proposed uranium refinery at
Warman in 1979 and more recently, were instrumental in killing the
proposal by Bruce Power to build a nuclear power plant here. Today,
we fight to keep Saskatchewan from becoming the nuclear waste
dump for North America,” the release reads in part.

NDP MLA Pat Atkinson presented the group’s petition to the legislature.

The NDP is officially opposed to the storage of nuclear waste in
Saskatchewan and its transportation through the province.

The previous NDP government was opposed to a nuclear waste facility
but had sought the expansion of the nuclear industry in areas such as
uranium mining and refining.

The full petition is at variance with some parts of NDP policy,
acknowledged Atkinson, but “in terms of democracy all voices in the
province need to be heard by members of the legislature.”

Meanwhile, Jerry Grandey, CEO of uranium miner Cameco Corp., told
reporters in Saskatoon Thursday that it’s a good thing some provincial
communities are wanting to study the idea of nuclear waste storage,
which he called a “tremendous opportunity.”

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Three Mile Island fuel storage modules at DOE facility cracking

Background:

Irradiated nuclear fuel contains hundreds of man-made radioactive
poisons for which the natural background level is zero. They fall
into three broad categories:

(1) fission products — radioactive isotopes of xenon, krypton,
iodine, cesium, tellurium, ruthenium, and many others — which
are the broken pieces of atoms that have been split or “fissioned”;

(2) activation products — radioactive isotopes of argon, cobalt,
iron, and many others — which are created when non-radioactive
materials in the reactor absorb one or two neutrons and are
transformed into radioactive elements; and

(3) transuranic elements — plutonium, neptunium, americium, curium,
and others — which are created when uranium atoms absorb one or
more neutrons and then transform themselves into new elements.

See  http://ccnr.org/hlw_chart.html  and  http://ccnr.org/hlw_graph.html

In addition to these man-made radioactive materials, there are also
huge amounts of radioactive materials created which do exist in small
amounts in nature — such as tritium (radioactive hydrogen) and
carbon-14 (radioactive carbon).  These radioactive atoms are easily
incorporated into organic molecules of all kinds, including DNA.

—–

This is the stuff that the nuclear industry wants to bury in geologic
formations in order to protect the biosphere for millions of years.

But when a reactor melts down, that radioactive junk is trapped in
the molten blobs that form.  It’s an enormous toxic mess.  Ad hoc
measures must be taken to package and move and guard these
unwieldy radioactive blobs and contain them so that they do not
leak their radioactive poisons into the environment.

At Chernobyl, where the core of the reactor melted right into the
earth, moving it has proven to be impossible.  Constructing a
containment above the site of the core melt is also impossible
because of the intense radiation levels.  An enormous structure
is being built AWAY from the reactor core melt, which will then — when
finished — be “slid” over the reactor site, enclosing the remnants of
the reactor building and all.

Already over $650 million (US) has been spent to build
this new structure, which will take the place of the crumbling
sarcophagus that was hastily erected over the molten core
following the accident 25 years ago.  Authorities are now
seeking hundreds of million more in order to complete
the task — and this is by no means a permanent solution!

Meanwhile, the remnants of the half-melted TMI core (from
32 years ago) are also presenting storage difficulties….

Gordon Edwards
================

William Freebairn, Washington (Platts), 15 April 2011
Source: http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/6002873

The US Department of Energy facility storing melted fuel from the Three
Mile Island nuclear plant has not done enough to address crumbling
concrete modules encasing the radioactive material, the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission said in a letter made public Friday.

The DOE facility at the Idaho National Laboratory holds the damaged fuel
from unit 2 of the Three Mile Island Plant, which, in 1979, suffered a partial
meltdown of the core, leading to the US’ worst nuclear accident.

The so-called spent fuel rubble is now contained in concrete storage
modules located at an independent storage installation owned by DOE.

The concrete modules are “showing significant cracking and degradation,”
even though they were built in 1999 to last for 50 years, NRC said in the
letter, which is dated April 7.

DOE has analyzed the structural integrity of the modules, which have
walls two feet thick, and determined that the problem is getting
progressively worse, NRC said.

Since the NRC inspection, DOE has identified funding to pay for repairs
and will begin the work this construction season, meaning from the spring
to the fall, spokeswoman Katinka Podmaniczky said in an email Friday.

“These cracks have no impact on the storage modules’ ability to safely
store spent nuclear fuel,” she said.

At the time of the inspection, it was not clear whether DOE had approved
or scheduled measures to stabilize the degradation, NRC said in the
letter. It asked DOE to provide the regulator with information about
corrective measures, a schedule for their implementation and a plan
for monitoring the effectiveness of actions taken.

The degradation of the modules was likely due to “water intrusion and
the annual thawing and freezing cycle,” NRC said in an inspection report
attached to the letter. Chunks of concrete have fallen from areas of the
modules and there are signs they are no longer water-tight, NRC said.

Cracking was first recognized in 2000 but considered to be “cosmetic,”
NRC said. In 2008, DOE recognized that continued cracking called into
question the ability of the modules to protect the fuel canisters inside
from natural phenomena and shield people from the radiation of the
fuel.

A recent study determined that protective caps should be installed,
damaged concrete replaced and a sealant applied, but those actions
have not yet been taken, the NRC inspection report said.

NRC licensed DOE’s Idaho Operations office in 1999 to store the
damaged fuel in dry shielded stainless steel canisters, which are
loaded inside the reinforced concrete modules.

The 30 dry shielded canisters at the site contain melted fuel from the
Three Mile Island-2 reactor core. That unit, located in Pennsylvania,
experienced the melting of about half the fuel in the core during an
accident. The adjacent Three Mile Island-1 continues to operate.

The NRC inspectors concluded that the storage facility continues to
meet standards, but the degradation of the modules is “a concern
that will be tracked in the future,” agency spokesman David McIntyre
said in an email.

NRC also cited DOE in the inspection report for a “deviation from a[n]
NRC commitment” because it deleted certain material from an
emergency plan.

NRC ordered the energy agency to respond within 30 days. The
deviation was minor, Podmaniczky said.

William Freebairn, william_freebairn@platts.com

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Second explosion at Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan (Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7crIPPhmVI

Fears of a third explosion and meltdown still exist.

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