One thing I've always wondered is why no one seems to have suggested just
sending it off into space?
M
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2013 1:43 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; pete
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Washington State nuclear waste leak
At 09:12 24/02/2013, Pete wrote:
(PV) I disagree, in as much as problems at Hanford do not reflect
anything about the current state of nuclear technology.
Hanford is not a commercial power station, it is a federal research
establishment and part of the weapons infrastructure The closest
Canadian equivalent would be Chalk River, but there is really no
equivalent as we made no attempt to refine isotopes for weapons in
Canada.
(KH) Our equivalent in the UK is Sellafield with scores of waste tanks (some
leaky) contaning radioactive liquids of long half-life that should have been
sequestered decades ago. One of the reasons why a solution has not yet been
found is the poor quailty of scientists and engineers attracted to a career
in nuclear projects. Whereas, 70 years ago, it took dozens of the world's
most brilliant physicists to construct the nuclear bomb, today, most UK
universities (201 out of 203) eschew teaching nuclear engineering because
they can't attract students of any calibre. Our Nuclear Inspectorate has
been under strength.
(PV) But Chalk River was a reasearch institute active during the early
years of exploring nuclear energy, and it also has great warehouses
full of hazardous materials.
We have learned much from the activities in these projects, and no one
today would consider storing nuclear wastes as liquids in tanks,
certainly not from power plants, which shouldn't produce such material.
Canadian heavy water reactors, which I might remind you, can run quite
happily on what is considered the spent fuel of a US light water
reactor, typically run on unenriched uranium, which requires no exotic
processing to prepare, and when spent, in a CANDU reactor, it is really
quite spent, and can be prepared as a solid waste block encapsulated in
glass, and stored underground in the same mines from which it was
extracted, nested in gravel beds in the Canadian Shield, where there is
zero risk of groundwater contamination nor exposure via earthquakes or
whathaveyou.
(KH) I didn't know the above, but the point is taken -- apart from "zero"
risk.
(PV) I don't have any really strong opinions about the adoption of
nuclear energy one way or the other, but most criticisms I hear of the
industry just aren't up to speed with the current state of the
technology. Pointing at 60 year old mistakes as a reason to dismiss the
current technology makes no sense.
(KH) One 60 year-old mistake is that no insurance corp has yet agreed to
cover nuclear reactors. Another fact of the last 60 years is that no civil
engineering firm that has been all too eager to design and build a reactor
has yet agreed to run them and to supply electricity at the price stated on
the tin (that is, the low price that politicians keep on telling us is the
real price) -- or indeed to run them at all. What's more -- considerably
more -- is that the cost of sequestering radioactive wastes year after year,
or rather century after century, has never yet been estimated and published.
(Even glassified blocks, buried at very deep level has to be inspected
regularly so that its safety for hundreds of generations of humans is
assured.) The long and the short of both of the above facts is that nuclear
power has had to be subsidised before, during, and after construction. We've
never been given the true costs of nuclear-generated electricity.
Keith
-Pete
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013, Keith Hudson wrote:
It was good to read this because I think it comes just at the right
time to permanently affect new build in the advanced countries. The
news of these leaks comes on top of the realization of universal
shale gas and ought
now to
finally stop the bleatings (and false propaganda) of the wannabe
power
station
constructors (who, be it noted, are not the slightest bit interested
in running them once built).
Keith.
At 21:56 23/02/2013, Natalia wrote:
Most of you have probably read this by now. Given what this news
reveals, how can more new builds of such plants be justified?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57570857/wash-state-governor-6-und
erground-nuclear-tanks-leaking/
Natalia
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