Reprocessing

Beyond Nuclear debates "thorium power" proponent at Sierra Club meeting

2012-10-18T19:47:14Z

On October 10th, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps debated Timothy Maloney, a proponent of so-called "thorium (nuclear) power," at a meeting of the Nepessing Group of the Sierra Club's Michigan Chapter, at Mott Community College's Regional Technical Center in Flint. The Nepessing Group of Michigan represents Sierra Club members in Genesee, Lapeer, and northern Oakland counties.

Kevin's research in preparation for the debate depended on: a Beyond Nuclear backgrounder compiled by Linda Gunter; "Thorium Fuel -- No Panacea for Nuclear Power," by Dr. Arjun Makhijani of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and Michele Boyd of Physicians for Social Responsibility (2009); a Science Friday program entitled "Is Thorium a Magic Bullet for our Energy Problems?" featuring Dr. Makhijani (May 4, 2012); "Thinking about Thorium" by Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (Sept. 16, 2012); "Thorium Reactors: Back to the Dream Factory," by Dr. Edwards (July 13, 2011); and "What is the Thorium Cycle?" by Dr. Edwards (1978).

The Thorium-232/Uranium-233 nuclear fuel chain shares many similarities with the Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 nuclear fuel chains, including the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, the risk that reactors could unleash catastrophic amounts of radioactivity (particularly from intentional terrorist attacks or acts of warfare), the unsolved (unsolvable?!) radioactive waste problem, the astronomical expense of RDD (research, development, and demonstration) for "thorium reactors," and the environmental ruination downwind and downstream (as well as up the food chain and down the generations) from reprocessing facilities.

Government Memo Slams Bechtel for Malfeasance, Safety Violations at Hanford Nuclear Site

2012-08-30T14:26:44Z

Hanford tanks under constructionHanford Challenge has made public a scathing U.S. Department of Energy internal memo detailing Bechtel's long history of incompetence, misleading the government, overcharging, and unsafe designs related to the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The facility is a decade behind schedule and 250% over budget, with a current, yet still climbing, price tag of $13 billion. The WTP is supposed to vitrify (glassify) liquid high-level radioactive wastes, byproducts from reprocessing military irradiated nuclear fuel for weapons-grade plutonium extraction for use in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The memo, written by a high-ranking DOE director, urges that Bechtel be removed as the Design Authority for the WTP, warning that Bechtel “is not competent to complete their role.”

Hanford Challenge Executive Director, Tom Carpenter, posits: “the leaked memo puts the Waste Treatment Plant’s woes into sharp relief. This memo details exhaustive and disturbing evidence of why Bechtel should be terminated from this project and subject to an independent investigation. We already knew of Bechtel’s record of suppressing its own engineers’ concerns and retaliating against whistleblowers, and now we see evidence that exhibits a shocking and inexcusable lack of attention to safety for both workers and the public.”

Hanford Challenge is a member group of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), as is Beyond Nuclear.

The news comes just two weeks after Hanford Challenge revealed that the first double-shelled liquid high-level radioactive waste tank has been documented as leaking at Hanford.

Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud receives national Sierra Club Award

2012-07-04T00:12:15Z

This quilt Judy is admiring was created by textile artist Margaret Gregg of Virginia, and was given to her on May 4th by the Sierra Club "No Nukes Activist Team" in honor of her 50 years of anti-nuclear leadership. It reads "JUDITH: PROTECTING LIFE FOREVER."Leon Glicenstein, a life-long friend and supporter of Dr. Judith H. Johnsrud, has written an article for the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter's Summer 2012 newsletter The Sylvanian about the national Sierra Club and the Sierra Club "No Nukes Activist Team" recognition ceremony, held May 4th in Takoma Park, Maryland, honoring Judy's half-century of anti-nuclear leadership not only locally, regionally, and nationally, but even globally. Judy is a founding board member of Beyond Nuclear. Included in Leon's article is a partial list of anti-nuclear victories Judy helped win in her home state of Pennsylvania alone. This has included defeating the proposed Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor in Meshoppen, PA (fast reactors "breed" plutonium, which then must be separated from high-level radioactive waste by reprocessing, which can then either make mixed oxide uraniun-plutonium (MOX) reactor fuel, or even nuclear weapons), as well as stopping the Parks Township, PA plutonium fuel fabrication facility (the plutonium would have come from reprocessing).

Beyond Nuclear posted a tribute to Judy shortly after the ceremony, which includes more photos of the presentation of her quilt (see photo, left), as well as links to writings by Judy, such as her brief history of the Environmental Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, which she founded and led for many decades.

EU directive on "deep geologic disposal" still contains loophole for reprocessing in foreign countries

2011-07-23T03:12:08Z

Reuters has reported that the European Union has set a deadline of 2015 for its 14 member states with nuclear power industries -- comprising a total of 143 atomic reactors -- to come up with plans for "deep geologic disposal" sites for burial of their high-level radioactive wastes. However, the EU admits it will take as long as 40 years to construct those repositories. Deutsche Welle also reported on this story, including on the loophole in the new EU directive that will still allow high-level radioactive waste exports to foreign countries for reprocessing, so long as those countries also have deep geologic repositories.

As Yucca gives up the ghost, specter of reprocessing rears its ugly head

2011-07-02T01:04:41Z

While the court ruling on July 1st against the Yucca dump is a major environmental justice victory for the Western Shoshone Indian Nation, President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission for America's Nuclear Future is advocating "centralized interim storage" for commercial high-level radioactive waste -- de facto permanent parking lot dumps. But consolidating irradiated nuclear fuel would make it a short step to reviving reprocessing in the U.S. for the first time since 1972. DOE's Savannah River Site, South Carolina is a top contender for a parking lot dump that could then lead to a reprocessing facility. And a number of sites in Illinois, including the Dresden nuclear power plant and adjacent, aborted General Electric reprocessing facility in Morris, were also in the running, just a few years ago, to host "centralized interim storage" and even a plutonium-extraction facility under the George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Sam Bodman "Global Nuclear Energy Partnership" attempt to revive commercial reprocessing in the U.S.

GAO confirms that parking lots dumps could easily serve as stepping stones to reprocessing

2011-06-03T21:56:21Z

In a 2009 report comparing costs of dumping high-level radioactive wastes at Yucca Mountain versus regional "centralized interim storage" (parking lot dumps) versus very long term on-site storage at nuclear power plants (centuries), the U.S. Government Accountability Office admitted (on page 29) that "In fact, reprocessing facilities could be built near or adjacent to centralized facilities to maximize efficiencies." With President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future advocating parking lot dumps, and Energy Secretary Chu advocating reprocessing, the risks of weapons proliferation, environmental destruction, health damage, and astronomical costs associated with reprocessing linger on.

NRC staff warn agency has cut safety corners at MOX plant

2011-05-24T15:16:29Z

MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility on November 19, 2007 (National Nuclear Security Administration)As the Obama/Chu "Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future" continues to flirt with a "revival" of commercial reprocessing in the U.S. (as by centralizing high-level radioactive waste storage at regional parking lot dumps), safety short cuts at a weapons plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility raise red flags. The supposed goal of commercial reprocessing would be to provide plutonium for just such a MOX fuel fabrication facility, but the agency mandated to protect public health, safety, the environment, and the common defense seems much more concerned about nuclear companies' construction schedules and profit margins.

Two scientists retained by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to oversee the construction of the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant in South Carolina (pictured left) say the agency took safety shortcuts that seriously jeopardize the project. According to an expose by the news service, ProPublica, first Alex Murray, the lead chemical process engineer on the NRC review team, and then his replacement, Dan Tedder, a chemical engineering professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology, called out safety problems but were either removed from the job (Murray) or resigned in frustration (Tedder). The MOX plant is supposed to process left over plutonium pits from the U.S. atomic arsenal into commercial reactor fuel, although no U.S. reactors are designed to use MOX and the utility slated to use it - Duke - has withdrawn from the project.

According to the scientists, as reported by ProPublica: "Work on the facility was allowed to begin, they say, before some of the most essential questions were fully answered. They have been particularly concerned about the danger of chemical explosions, the adequacy of the ventilation and radioactive waste disposal systems and the way the plutonium will be tracked as it is processed."

According to Tedder, the NRC's "primary focus is staying on schedule and not doing anything to delay the applicant, rather than identifying dominant risks and safety issues.”

The NRC has a lamentable track record, called out by Beyond Nuclear staffers for years, of prioritizing industry profit motives over public safety. Needless to say, the NRC has denied the assertions of their former staffers.

Japan to reconsider reprocessing in wake of Fukushima nuclear catastrophe?

2011-05-24T05:09:25Z

The Mainichi Daily News has quoted the head of the Japanese Communist Party as saying that Prime Minister Kan told him that as part of reviewing energy policy "from scratch," the long established policy of reprocessing high-level radioactive waste would also be reevaluated.

170 groups oppose reprocessing with "Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors"

2010-03-25T02:06:51Z

170 national and grassroots environmental organizations, representing every state in the country, have signed onto the "Statement of Principles for Safeguarding Nuclear Waste at Reactors." It urges decision makers, including Energy Secretary Chu's blue ribbon commission on radioactive waste, to require hardened on-site storage (HOSS) for high-level radioactive waste stored at nuclear power plants across the U.S. The Statement also expresses adamant opposition to the dirty, dangerous, and expensive extraction of plutonium (reprocessing) from irradiated nuclear fuel. (Image reprinted from Dr. Gordon Thompson's report Robust Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Neglected Issue of Homeland Security, commissioned by Citizens Awareness Network and published by the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Jan. 2003.)

Hanford "clean up" will take at least 37 more years, cost as much as $100 billion, and still leave behind radioactive risks lasting thousands of years

2010-02-11T04:12:31Z

An article in the Oregonian, written as the U.S. Department of Energy holds public hearings on its draft environmental impact statement for "cleaning up" high-level radioactive waste storage tanks and managing additional radioactive wastes and lingering radioactive contamination at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, reports that nearly a half century more ("clean up" has already been underway for decades), and a price tag that could top $100 billion, will be needed before the site's "clean up" is "finished." Even then, hazardous radioactive contamination will persist for many thousands of years, threatening the adjacent Columbia River and points downstream. The high-level radioactive wastes, and much of Hanford's contamination, have resulted from military reprocessing from 1943 to 1988. Commercial reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuel, proposed as the latest "illusion of a solution" to nuclear power's waste problem, would involve vastly more waste than was ever reprocessed at Hanford, waste that is significantly more radioactive than military irradiated nuclear fuel. Thus, commercial reprocessing would likely cause radioactive ruination of the environment wherever it is carried out, with serious health consequences downwind and downstream for millenia.