Radioactive Russian roulette
Radioactive Russian roulette: " Radioactive Russian roulette
By Kevin Kamps
posted February 24, 2006
The nuclear power industry and its friends in Washington want to build the first new reactors in 30 years. But to do so, the illusion of a “solution” to the radioactive waste dilemma must be maintained. A growing mountain of lethal atomic waste — currently 55,000 tons — has piled up at scores of atomic power plants in dozens of states, with nowhere to go. It is stored in stopgap facilities such as indoor pools and outdoor silos. Last summer, the National Academies of Science (NAS) reported that the wastes are vulnerable to terrorists and are essentially radioactive bull’s eyes risking catastrophic downwind releases if attacked. Expanding such targets undermines national security.
Tragically, the NAS “solution” to these sitting-duck reactor waste sites is to multiply these targets by tens of thousands. Instead of recommending that waste be safeguarded and secured against accident and attack where it is, NAS now advises that the waste be rushed onto our roads, rails, and waterways. In a report on waste transport published Feb. 9, NAS whitewashed the dangers of the weakest link of the nuclear fuel chain: moving waste by truck, train, and barge through 45 states, within a half mile of the homes, places of work and worship, schools, and hospitals of 50 million residents.
The timing of this report is suspicious. The 20-year old “Plan A” — to bury waste at Yucca Mountain — is in disarray. That site was singled out for political reasons, but the faulty science has caught up. Over time, the earthquake-fractured geology would leak deadly amounts of waste into the underlying drinking water supply, poisoning one of Nevada’s most vibrant farming communities downstream. Legal, budgetary, and political impediments have pushed Yucca’s opening off for another decade at least. The Department of Energy (DOE) has gone back to the drawing board and is overhauling the dump’s design, promising years’ more delay.
Even the decade-old “Plan B” — a nuclear utility initiative called Private Fuel Storage (PFS) to park waste on Indian land in Utah — has fallen apart. A recent federal wilderness declaration has blocked the preferred railway extension for delivering the waste, and most PFS member utilities have announced that they will invest no more funds in the proposal.
The nuclear establishment is now clutching at straws for a waste solution. Indefinite “interim” storage at DOE sites — in Idaho, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington — are being floated. Incredibly, there are calls to revive long-abandoned reprocessing, the extraction of plutonium from waste, supposedly to reuse as reactor fuel. Presidents Ford and Carter banned reprocessing as an atomic weapons nonproliferation measure. They recognized long before the era of al Qaeda that separated plutonium in the wrong hands leads to loose nukes. Any of these proposals would start a shell game of waste shipments crisscrossing the country and set up a smorgasbord of opportunities for terrorists.
NAS has declared waste transport safe — unless something goes wrong — such as a long-duration, high-temperature fiery accident. The prospect of “Mobile Chernobyls” speeding at 60 mph or more down roads and rails through hundreds of cities introduces new accident risks not faced by stationary on-site storage at reactors. A study of a 2001 train tunnel fire beneath downtown Baltimore concluded that, had atomic waste been aboard, the shipping container would have been breached; so much radioactivity would have escaped that a $14 billion clean-up would have been required, or else 30,000 people would later have died from cancer as a result of living amidst the contamination.
Such waste traveling through the hearts of our major population centers would also present tempting terrorist targets — veritable dirty bombs on wheels. Each highway cask would hold 40 times the long-lasting radioactivity released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb; each rail or barge cask, 240 times Hiroshima. Casks are vulnerable to explosive and incendiary attack. Anti-tank missiles and shaped charges are designed to penetrate even thicker armor. Release of just a fraction of the deadly cargo would spell radiological disaster, for which our emergency responders are inadequately trained and equipped.
NAS has attempted to grease the skids for launching unprecedented numbers of atomic waste shipments through our communities. The study, funded by such waste transport and dump advocates as DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the industry’s own Electric Power Research Institute, does a dangerous disservice to the nation. The radioactive Russian roulette on our roads and rails must be stopped in its tracks.
Kevin Kamps is a nuclear waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, DC."
By Kevin Kamps
posted February 24, 2006
The nuclear power industry and its friends in Washington want to build the first new reactors in 30 years. But to do so, the illusion of a “solution” to the radioactive waste dilemma must be maintained. A growing mountain of lethal atomic waste — currently 55,000 tons — has piled up at scores of atomic power plants in dozens of states, with nowhere to go. It is stored in stopgap facilities such as indoor pools and outdoor silos. Last summer, the National Academies of Science (NAS) reported that the wastes are vulnerable to terrorists and are essentially radioactive bull’s eyes risking catastrophic downwind releases if attacked. Expanding such targets undermines national security.
Tragically, the NAS “solution” to these sitting-duck reactor waste sites is to multiply these targets by tens of thousands. Instead of recommending that waste be safeguarded and secured against accident and attack where it is, NAS now advises that the waste be rushed onto our roads, rails, and waterways. In a report on waste transport published Feb. 9, NAS whitewashed the dangers of the weakest link of the nuclear fuel chain: moving waste by truck, train, and barge through 45 states, within a half mile of the homes, places of work and worship, schools, and hospitals of 50 million residents.
The timing of this report is suspicious. The 20-year old “Plan A” — to bury waste at Yucca Mountain — is in disarray. That site was singled out for political reasons, but the faulty science has caught up. Over time, the earthquake-fractured geology would leak deadly amounts of waste into the underlying drinking water supply, poisoning one of Nevada’s most vibrant farming communities downstream. Legal, budgetary, and political impediments have pushed Yucca’s opening off for another decade at least. The Department of Energy (DOE) has gone back to the drawing board and is overhauling the dump’s design, promising years’ more delay.
Even the decade-old “Plan B” — a nuclear utility initiative called Private Fuel Storage (PFS) to park waste on Indian land in Utah — has fallen apart. A recent federal wilderness declaration has blocked the preferred railway extension for delivering the waste, and most PFS member utilities have announced that they will invest no more funds in the proposal.
The nuclear establishment is now clutching at straws for a waste solution. Indefinite “interim” storage at DOE sites — in Idaho, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington — are being floated. Incredibly, there are calls to revive long-abandoned reprocessing, the extraction of plutonium from waste, supposedly to reuse as reactor fuel. Presidents Ford and Carter banned reprocessing as an atomic weapons nonproliferation measure. They recognized long before the era of al Qaeda that separated plutonium in the wrong hands leads to loose nukes. Any of these proposals would start a shell game of waste shipments crisscrossing the country and set up a smorgasbord of opportunities for terrorists.
NAS has declared waste transport safe — unless something goes wrong — such as a long-duration, high-temperature fiery accident. The prospect of “Mobile Chernobyls” speeding at 60 mph or more down roads and rails through hundreds of cities introduces new accident risks not faced by stationary on-site storage at reactors. A study of a 2001 train tunnel fire beneath downtown Baltimore concluded that, had atomic waste been aboard, the shipping container would have been breached; so much radioactivity would have escaped that a $14 billion clean-up would have been required, or else 30,000 people would later have died from cancer as a result of living amidst the contamination.
Such waste traveling through the hearts of our major population centers would also present tempting terrorist targets — veritable dirty bombs on wheels. Each highway cask would hold 40 times the long-lasting radioactivity released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb; each rail or barge cask, 240 times Hiroshima. Casks are vulnerable to explosive and incendiary attack. Anti-tank missiles and shaped charges are designed to penetrate even thicker armor. Release of just a fraction of the deadly cargo would spell radiological disaster, for which our emergency responders are inadequately trained and equipped.
NAS has attempted to grease the skids for launching unprecedented numbers of atomic waste shipments through our communities. The study, funded by such waste transport and dump advocates as DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the industry’s own Electric Power Research Institute, does a dangerous disservice to the nation. The radioactive Russian roulette on our roads and rails must be stopped in its tracks.
Kevin Kamps is a nuclear waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, DC."
posted by Greta Jane at Friday, February 24, 2006
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