The Next Four Years

[analog]

[snark mode]... universally-accepted method of radiological waste disposal...[/snark mode]

now THERE's an oxymoron!

obviously, you dump it on your neighbor....
..some things never change...

later in Haggis' article there's this:

Bataille [who was assigned the problem] went and spoke to the people who were protesting and soon realized that the engineers and bureaucrats had greatly misunderstood the psychology of the French people. The technocrats had seen the problem in technical terms. To them, the cheapest and safest solution was to permanently bury the waste underground. But for the rural French says Bataille, "the idea of burying the waste awoke the most profound human myths. In France we bury the dead, we don't bury nuclear waste...there was an idea of profanation of the soil, desecration of the Earth."

Bataille discovered that the rural populations had an idea of "Parisians, the consumers of electricity, coming to the countryside, going to the bottom of your garden with a spade, digging a hole and burying nuclear waste, permanently." Using the word permanently was especially clumsy says Bataille because it left the impression that the authorities were abandoning the waste forever and would never come back to take care of it.

reprocessing does generate waste of its own.
we should be figuring out how to deal with it, then we could pretty much quit burning carbon.
the technology is there.
instead we are painting ourselves into a corner , to delight of Gore's carbon tax crowd.

now to brush up on my oxymora:

* "O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches!" John Donne, Devotions on Emergent Occasions

* "I do here make humbly bold to present them with a short account of themselves... " Jonathan Swift

* "The bookful blockhead, ignoriantly read, / With loads of learned lumber in his head..." Alexander Pope

* "He was now sufficiently composed to order a funeral of modest magnificence..." Samuel Johnson

* "O anything of nothing first create! / O heavy lightness, serious vanity! / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! / Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!" William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, scene 1

a.

[OperaTenor]

And that cigarette-sized container is oh so toxic, and for how long? And we don't "bury" the stuff; we "deep geologic disposal" it.

Now, let's talk about what we do with waste here in the U.S. Show of hands?

[analog]

Now, let's talk about what we do with waste here in the U.S. Show of hands?

we keep our head in the sand and store the fuel onsite at each power station.

One vacation i stopped at a Howard Johnson's motel in North Florida, just outside Ocala. Near Don Gartlitt's 'museum of drag racing'.
After supper the pool filled with kids. I started chatting with another dad watching his kids. It turned out he was from England and on the way to Key Largo for vacation at the Howard Johnson's there, less than a block from where I lived. If you've been there it's adjacent that concrete microwave tower at mile 102.
The conversation naturally turned to 'what do you do'.
we were each surprised to find the other was in nuclear power - i in an electric generating plant and he in a fuel reprocessing plant.
Being a nuke worker is socially kinda like having leprosy so with that in common we hit it off.

When i told him we had ten complete cores in our spent fuel pool his eyes lit up and he asked "Can you get it over to me?"
I related how the one solitary fuel element we ever shipped out was picketed clear across the country.

So there it sits, a generation's worth of used atomic fuel scattered in overcrowded storage pools at power plants all across the country. I am uneasy about it.
Thank goodness it's pretty well made stuff and will probably outlast the regressive back-to-nature-at-any-cost movement.

I remember when my grandparents did not have electricity. I got the proverbial Saturday night bath in a galvanized washtub with water heated on a wood stove.
As heartwarming as those memories are, I don't want to go back**.

that's my hand.


**Well,, maybe i sorta do but it's not something one could ask of others.
There's this Twilight Zone episode "Willoughby"...

[jamiebk]

Analog...I don't know a lot about this but I heard that the French have different sort of reactors or something whereby they can process their spent fuel in a manner that eliminates (or greatly reduces) the radiation factor. Apparently, the US does not utilize the same technology and is not able to do so. Any thoughts or information on that?

[barfle]

How much total mass are we talking about?

[Haggis@wk]

Analog...I don't know a lot about this but I heard that the French have different sort of reactors or something whereby they can process their spent fuel in a manner that eliminates (or greatly reduces) the radiation factor. Apparently, the US does not utilize the same technology and is not able to do so. Any thoughts or information on that?

from the article I linked

"Ironically, the French nuclear program is based on American technology. After experimenting with their own gas-cooled reactors in the 1960s, the French gave up and purchased American Pressurized Water Reactors designed by Westinghouse. Sticking to just one design meant the 56 plants were much cheaper to build than in the US. Moreover, management of safety issues was much easier: the lessons from any incident at one plant could be quickly learned by managers of the other 55 plants. The "return of experience" says Mandil is much greater in a standardized system than in a free for all, with many different designs managed by many different utilities as we have in America.


Things were going very well until the late 80s when another nuclear issue surfaced that threatened to derail their very successful program: nuclear waste.

"

[Haggis@wk]

And that cigarette-sized container is oh so toxic, and for how long? And we don't "bury" the stuff; we "deep geologic disposal" it.

Now, let's talk about what we do with waste here in the U.S. Show of hands?

Other than nuclear we dump it into the air.

[Shapley]

Sticking to just one design meant the 56 plants were much cheaper to build than in the US. Moreover, management of safety issues was much easier: the lessons from any incident at one plant could be quickly learned by managers of the other 55 plants. The "return of experience" says Mandil is much greater in a standardized system than in a free for all, with many different designs managed by many different utilities as we have in America.

Admiral Rickover had the same idea...

[jamiebk]

Sticking to just one design meant the 56 plants were much cheaper to build than in the US. Moreover, management of safety issues was much easier: the lessons from any incident at one plant could be quickly learned by managers of the other 55 plants. The "return of experience" says Mandil is much greater in a standardized system than in a free for all, with many different designs managed by many different utilities as we have in America.

Admiral Rickover had the same idea...

Yeah...and one mistake gets multiplied 56 times too...

[Shapley]

Yeah...and one mistake gets multiplied 56 times too...

True, which is why the prototypes were built, tested, and retested before one was put into a single vessel. Admiral Rickover was also a big proponent of redundancy in safety systems, and of training of personnel.

Chalk RIver, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl were not Naval reactors.

[analog]

Analog...I don't know a lot about this but I heard that the French have different sort of reactors or something whereby they can process their spent fuel in a manner that eliminates (or greatly reduces) the radiation factor. Apparently, the US does not utilize the same technology and is not able to do so. Any thoughts or information on that?

mind you I've never been to France.

The vast majority of their plants are carbon copies (no pun intended) of the Westinghouse PWR's, scaled up versions of submarine plants that use lower enriched fuel.

They built a demonatrator called a "phenix" (rises from its own ashes) breeder reactor which can actually turn thorium into uranium while it's making electricity, and produce more nuclear fuel than it used .
That sounds like perpetual motion but it's not. here's why.
Uranium is fissile, that is you can get a lot of energy out of it as is.
Thorium is almost fissile, by adding a neutron or two you turn it into something fissile. Then you can get lots of energy out of it, too. But most of the energy you get out was already there, thoughtfully made very nearly available by Mother nature. You just had to push thorium a bit further up the hill of binding energy. There's a very interesting book by that title, "Up the curve of binding energy" by John McPhee, he also wrote equally interesting "Survival of the birch bark canoe" . But i digress.
That's likely the design of which you speak.

First couiple chapters of Glasstone&Sessonsky (nuclear engineer's bible) talk about how much fossil, fissile, and nearly fissile stuff is in the crust of the earth. We were given nearly equal stores of fossil and fissile .
We should be able to get by another couple hundred years on fission if we'll start in on the thorium. Maybe by then somebody will have fusion going.

What's interesting about France is how good nuclear has been for their economy.
Around 1970 we were building that plant where I worked. The Westinghouse engineers remarked how enthusiastic the French and Koreans were about Nuclear, both bought licenses to build and sell the Westinghouse design. Scuttlebutt was Westinghouse figured they'd copy them anyway, so they might as well help them do a good job of it. And they have.
Lots of US utilities are replacing big reactor components. US has lost so many heavy foundries that the French are producing the parts. My old plant got new reactor heads from France, one of them (80 tons or so) was flown in on that huge Russian air transport!
AREVA is a French outfit moving into US nuclear power industry in a big way, They're looking at building plants here.
Here's their website: http://www.areva.com/

jamie i am a true believer so hardly unbiased. I see nuclear as a necessary step if we are to support 9 billion humans in any semblance of comfort.

Barfle we are talking a lot of mass before processing.
A big power reactor core is on order of a hundred tons.
What we reduce it to depends on how far we push the chemistry.
I know little about the process. Should talked more at that poolside.


As a species we just gotta get better at handling our waste.
Or reduce our numbers to pre columbian.

but i better stop - as you see i hold an extreme viewpoint.

[Shapley]

Barfle we are talking a lot of mass before processing.
A big power reactor core is on order of a hundred tons.
What we reduce it to depends on how far we push the chemistry.
I know little about the process. Should talked more at that poolside.

We had a lengthy discussion on this many moons ago. I don't remember which thread it was.

The majority of the readioactive waste produced, as well as the stuff that isn't radioactive, has commercial value. However, it is very expensive to extract most of it, whereas most of it can be obtained from virgin sources or recovered from other sources much cheaper, so we let the waste accumulate until it is commercially viable to recover it.

One of the problems we have here is that the public has been inundated with images of Hiroshima and old 50's 'B' movies that they think moving nuclear wastes is going to create vast radioactive wastelands, giant ants, and Godzilla, so they don't even want us to move it. As you noted, there are people that would be happy to process it, if we could get it to them.

Of course, the same could be said of much of our trash. Plastic bottles and used diapers contain useful materials that can be extracted and marketed, if it were economical to extract them.

[BigJon@Work]

And that cigarette-sized container is oh so toxic, and for how long? And we don't "bury" the stuff; we "deep geologic disposal" it.

Now, let's talk about what we do with waste here in the U.S. Show of hands?

You don't like my solution?

[analog]

your solution is probably what we'll see at least in my lifetime.

but can you really imagine the real estate developers leaving this prime waterfront undeveloped?
( Miami is not quite visible in top right )

[Shapley]

Someday, in the not-too-distant future, we'll be building mines atop our landfills in order to extract the valuable minerals stored there. Assuming, of course, that we make it past 2012...

[Shapley]

Venezuela Seizes Control, Assets Of Oil Installation Form U.S.-Based Williams Company

President Obama is watching the situation closely...

...for pointers on how it's done, I suppose.

[OperaTenor]

A, what would be done with the spent cores if they could be moved?

[analog]

OT

Technology is still (i believe) dissolve them in acid and start chemically separating the elements.
They can separate some of the most radiologically noxious elements and either make glass or find a market for them -

short answer is:

Separating the 235U and 239Pu from the other components of spent fuel significantly addresses two major concerns. It greatly reduces the long-lived radioactivity of the residue and it allows purified 235U and 239Pu to be used as reactor fuel.

Aren't you Navy guys are used to something like 90% enrichment so you can go a decade between refuelings?
To us commercial power guys 4% enrichment is generous. So used reactor fuel with maybe 0.4% U235 left is worth recycling. Not to mention the plutonium. It can be blended to make reactor fuel or sold to the military. What they get from civilian program they dont have to make in their old reactors.

i googled and found several articles.. apparently France is only ones doing significant recycling now. I hear rumors of a plant going in out at the Idaho site, wouldn't surprise me if it's Areva..



anyhow here's an article that's not hysterical nor intolerably long.
As it says, US abandoned plans under Carter.
I always wondered about that decision, seemed unlikely for a former nuke. Three Mile Island had just happened and i think maybe he felt our civilian industry needed to mature a little.
i'd say he had a point..

http://www.chemcases.com/nuclear/nc-13.htm

Atomic Man



Nuclear Chemistry
Recycling Spent Reactor Fuel

Dr. Frank Settle


Chemical Processes and Nuclear Reactor Fuel

There are about 557 nuclear power reactors in the world and about 440 are operating in early 2005. These reactors have common elements that uranium oxide enriched to 3-4% 235U is fabricated into pellets then inserted into fuel rods. These rods are neutron emitters and, in close proximity with each other, begin a self-sustaining chain reaction releasing energy and producing new elements by the fission of the uranium and producing plutonium (239Pu) by nuclear chain reactions. These fuel rods generally can supply energy from the fission reaction for 1-3 years. They are then removed and replaced by new rods.

Spent fuel from nuclear reactors still contains considerable amounts of 235 U but now has generated significant 239Pu. After 3 years in a reactor, 1,000 lbs. of 3.3-percent-enriched uranium (967 lbs. 238 U and 33 lbs. 235U) contain 8 lbs. of 235U and 8.9 lbs. of plutonium isotopes along with 943 lbs. of 238U and assorted fission products. Separating the 235U and 239Pu from the other components of spent fuel significantly addresses two major concerns. It greatly reduces the long-lived radioactivity of the residue and it allows purified 235U and 239Pu to be used as reactor fuel. (Courtesy of the Uranium Information Center)



Three options are available for cooled spent fuel rods; they can remain at the sites from which they have been removed from service, be moved to a more permanent site for storage or they can be reprocessed to remove the uranium and plutonium. In either case, these fuel rods must cool in storage ponds near the reactor for several months in order to reduce their short-lived radioactivity and to allow them to dissipate their initial high thermal energy. Reprocessing involves chopping up the fuel rods and dissolving the pieces.

The plutonium and uranium are then removed and chemically separated. The byproducts of reprocessing, transuranic elements and fission products can be encapsulated in glass and disposed as waste. Gaseous diffusion or other processes can be used to enrich the uranium. The plutonium can be mixed with enriched uranium to make mixed oxide (MOX) reactor fuel. Purified plutonium can also be used for nuclear weapons. Great Britain and France have built large reprocessing plants to produce MOX fuel. They reprocess spent fuel not only from reactors in their respective countries, but also from reactors in other nations.

At one time, the United States planned to use a plutonium-uranium extraction (PUREX) process to for this separation. But no spent fuel from nuclear power plants has been reprocessed in the US. In 1977 President Carter established national policy that prohibited reprocessing based on the premise that limiting plutonium would limit the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. Although President Reagan reversed this policy, reprocessing has never been initiated in the US.

But in science, what can be done, will be done. Local policy seldom deters the ambitions of the entire environment.

The French have reprocessed power plant spent fuel rods at the COGEMA LaHague site since 1966. The French see reprocessing as ecologically sound, economical and profitable and as demonstrating scientific leadership on a world stage.

Quite naturally, the rise of organized terrorism since about 1990, culminating in the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York has focused attention on all aspects of nuclear material management. As an example, the LaHague site was surrounded for a time by antiaircraft missiles for a time after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In the US spent rods are currently stored at locations near the approximately 70 plants throughout the country. US fuel rod disposal planning anticipates opening a facility at Yucca Mountain, NV by 2012 for permanent burial of spent rods.

(Courtesy of the Department of Energy)

Complete Bibliography on Nuclear Power , Nuclear Waste and Reprocessing from the ALSOS Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Kennesaw State University ©2005 Kennesaw State University
Principal Investigator Laurence Peterson
Project Director Matthew Hermes
Grant #9652889
This project is part of the National Science Digital Library funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education, National Science Foundation Grant

and a couple others

http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.html
is a good one but long

. Used fuel from light water reactors (at normal US burn-up levels) contains approximately:

* 95.6% uranium (U-232: 0.1-0.3%; U-234: 0.1-0.3%; U-235: 0.5-1.0%; U-236: 4-0.7%; balance: U-238)
* 2.9% stable fission products
* 0.9% plutonium
* 0.3% caesium & strontium (fission products)
* 0.1% iodine and technetium (fission products)
* 0.1% other long-lived fission products
* 0.1% minor actinides (americium, curium, neptunium)

Technetium is what they used in my stress tests.
Cesium is what Fair Anne's oncologist used for her radiation treatment..
Americium is in your smoke detector.

http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-2/india-b.html
we're no longer the lead dog...


and Wikipedia surprised me
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing

here's what i googled: "reactor fuel reprocessing"

regards,

a.

[Shapley]

Aren't you Navy guys are used to something like 90% enrichment so you can go a decade between refuelings?
To us commercial power guys 4% enrichment is generous. So used reactor fuel with maybe 0.4% U235 left is worth recycling. Not to mention the plutonium. It can be blended to make reactor fuel or sold to the military. What they get from civilian program they dont have to make in their old reactors.

Weapons grade Uranium is around 80% - 90%, I believe the figure for Naval reactors is still quite a bit less than 50%, although it is quite a bit higher than the 4% figure. If the level gets too high, the ability to control the reaction becomes more difficult. Sustainted fission requires the presence of 'delayed neutrons' to allow for control to be maintained. If the reactor goes critical on 'prompt' neutrons alone, control becomes difficult to impossible. This isn't an issue with nuclear weapons, since you only want to control when and where the reaction occurs, with no desire to maintain a sustained, controlled reaction once you've decided to let it happen. 'Prompt Critical' is bad for reactors, good for bombs.

[analog]

I'm sure if i knew anything about Navy cores you'd have to shoot me. I don't.

there is something called "Oralloy", short for Oak Ridge Alloy. Apparently it's Oak ridge's standard issue high-octane reactor fuel, close to 90%. Our little school research reactor was i believe Oralloy and that's how they got it so small. At the power plant we had a few micrograms of the stuff in some miniature neutron detectors that move around in the core to measure local neutron density so you can verify there's no hot-spots.. I am sure it's real expensive to make that high enriched stuff - google SWU someday when you're bored.

indeed it's pretty certain the guys at Chernobyl got theirs 'prompt critical' and it ran away literally in the blink of an eye, made so much heat it blew itself apart in a stupendous steam explosion and set fire to the graphite moderator. It was a world war two era design which can go prompt critical should boiling start in its core, and they confirmed it.
Thank goodness our side had Rickover with his common sense - his reactors don't have that quirk.

a.