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Not exactly. Reprocessing to extract Plutonium and unburnt fissile Uranium is absolutely a civilian thing, and still uses nasty nitric acid, although much of the waste at Hanford is from earlier processing that was a lot less efficient. France and Japan have done a lot of civilian reprocessing in recent times.

Most (in excess of ninety percent!) of the U-235 fuel in modern commercial light water reactors is not burnt, due to the accumulation of "neutron poison" reaction products that kill the reactions. A bit like alcohol killing/inhibiting the yeast in fermented products, requiring distillation to obtain higher alcohol concentrations.

There are approaches to getting better fuel economy, but most of these involve higher enrichment, fast spectrum reactors that have a lot of serious engineering problems, or reactor designs that are completely untested and can't address carbon emission concerns in the near term.

https://www.hanford.gov/page.c...
https://inis.iaea.org/collecti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.nuclear-power.net/...

FYI, "emergency" is not a recognized classification. Considering the press's slavish attention to detail during the last election, I'm amazed that not even a single news report that I've seen so far has got it right.

According to the site's official website this is a Site Area Emergency, which is the higher of the two possible classifications. As shown on the NRC's website, both classifications are filled with weasel words. An event may occur that could lead to a significant release of radioactive materials, and the release, if any, could require off-site help to contain.

Triggering an event classification, or upgrading an ongoing one, causes various agencies and offices to take action. The specifics for this type of event will be in countless binders and charts in dispatch centers and EOCs around the region. On site, the priorities are typically 1) lockdown, 2) deploy survey gear, 3) evacuate non-responder staff when/if safe to do so. Staff are told not to eat or drink during lockdown in case there is any radioactive dust around.

Volunteers have probably been asked not to leave town in case they need to open an evacuee reception center. Local first responders with counterterrorism and radiological training probably picked up their DRDs. HAMs and nerds in the area probably turned on the public access feeds on the Geiger counters they keep in their attics.

From the sounds of things, 8 feet of shielding got moved a bit closer to some waste containers. If someone had thought to put it on the calendar, no one would ever have heard about it, but because the earth decided to do it without asking what the plant management thought, it automatically turns into a shitshow.

I'll raise a glass tonight to the guys in tyvek suits. I know exactly how unpleasant they are to wear, and I'll pray that everyone wearing one this week remains annoyed by them, and never thankful.

Columbia river for our secondary system

Never happened. People have know to keep their boiler water clean for at least one and a half centuries. On the other side of the condensors it can even be sea water but that boiler water is kept clean.
Nukes have the extra loop that exchanges heat with the boiler water - thus cooling water that goes through the cooling towers is the third loop. If anything from the first loop has made it into the third it's either a string of failures or a huge catastrophic event obvious to anyone within miles.

First reactors out here used Columbia river for the primary, then let it sit in big cooling pools before releasing it back to the river, there were two cooling pools.
They have buried it all now, even the reactor I operated. http://www.hanford.gov/page.cf...

My area

The Hanford Tank Farms house 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive and chemical waste that is the byproduct of “reprocessing” spent nuclear fuel.* .
http://www.hanfordchallenge.org/the-big-issues/tank-waste/

massive underground storage tanks ranging in capacity from 55,000 gallons to more than 1,000,000 gallons to hold the wastes. Scientists believed that the tanks would only be used temporarily until a permanent place to dispose of the waste was identified.
http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/TankFarms

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository isn't panning, out storage waste levels leakage control are well known.

Not just government but Department Of Defence started in 1943 to specifically build nuclear weapons. The US Department of Defence is now hand balling the problems to other government departments. http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/HanfordOverviewandHistory.

Well regardless, that is how it is assessed. Take a look at a recent Hanford Site EIS. The risk levels are calculated out for about 10,000 years for each alternative scenario!

That filtering isn't quite as easy as you would think and not just cesium, but a potpourri of nasty isotopes. An evaporator like the one below is pretty common technology and probably the way they'll eventually go to reduce the amount of waste. http://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/242AEvaporator

Try where we WERE years ago..
FFTF was a sodium cooled reactor built at Hanford in 1982 and run until 1992
http://www.hanford.gov/files.cfm/fftffocus.pdf

You have to distinguish between two types of lead-acid batteries and then the whole thing is not that optimal anymore.

With wet-cell lead-acid batteries you'll get evaporation and resulting loss of capacity. Beside that you have a precipitation of lead(II) sulfate that can ultimately kill your battery.

With maintenance-free (sealed) batteries like Valve Regulated Lead Acid batteries you do not get these problems but you could get thermal runaway and they do explode. Gel-batteries are less inclined to explode but especially older ones do that too.

On the other hand lithium metal polymer are said to "have service lives as long as 10 years, under ambient temperatures from -40C to +65C."

What's puzzling about this is that it's totally out of touch with reality. The USSR was interested in American R&D, but that's because they had an industrial base and weapons plants that could use R&D. No enemy of the US today has anything like that.

Except tha a lot of espionage is done by our friends; whether it be against government agencies (such as Israel in the Pollard case) or private companises (such as the French do as explained by a retired head of one of their intelligence services -

'This espionage activity is an essential way for France to keep abreast of international commerce
and technology. Of course, it was directed against the United States as well as others. You must
remember that while we are allies in defense matters, we are also economic competitors in the
world.'" (Reference - http://www.hanford.gov/oci/maindocs/ci_r_docs/fren chesp.pdf)

Like it or not there are many countries that spy on us.

nuclear waste is infinitely easier to contain than a cloud coming out of a smokestack.

Oh really? "Infinitely?" It takes a hell of a lot of coal to come close to the problems at Hanford or Rocky Flats. And Yucca Mountain is already overflowing.

Personally, I'm pro nuclear power too. But it's only significantly cleaner than coal when you ignore the waste.

Oh, and did you know that the investigation of Aldrich was done by FBI and not NSA? CIA, after YEARS and YEARS of ignoring evidence, finally wised up after some public drunk episode by Aldrich, finally decided that he is a security liability?

Oh, and did you know that Aldrich's house was NOT SEARCHED until his arrest warrant was issued? Oh, I guess you wouldn't know unless you really RESEARCHED this case (http://www.hanford.gov/oci/maindocs/ci_r_docs/ame scase.pdf).

The Washington Times article you reference is filled with inaccuracies. No doubt Bush administration paid handsomely for this "reporting".

Why don't you try some REAL reading for once.

The federal government has no obligation to obey state laws..

Federal consent decree.

And if it hits Hanford or Yucca Mountain?

Finish cleaning up the mess your old toys made before you ask for new toys.

Then it might be a bit easier to convince the public that new applications of nuclear power are safe and cost effective.

As I imply above, hanford is one of the scariest places in the world.

Obviously, you've never been to Cleaveland! (rimshot!)

I work at Hanford. You haven't a clue about the past history and present condition of the facility. It is glaringly apparent by your comments:

I have met many people who have gone on tours of the facility, with happy dazy reports such as yours. This is because quite clearly, any place they let people visit is carefully designed to give a sense of normality.

The tone of your comment belies your bias. No matter what someone who has *been* to the site tells you, YOU know better.

Ah, yes... Nothing like a religious experience to convince you that your form of wisdom is *the* truth.

I overflew Hanford several years ago, and let me tell you, this place is not "cool".

You can tell a lot from a seat at ~8,000 ft, can't you? What was the condition of the facility located just south of the 223E facility in the 200 East Area? What? You couldn't tell?

No doubt their seismograph is to detect intruders, not to detect "vibrations from space" (lol).

No, the seismographs are installed to detect earthquakes. If you want to see their location, you can read the Annual Seismic Report online.

From the air, the truth becomes apparent, the LIGO is fairly distant from "real" hanford site,

Which "real" Hanford Site are you referring to? The Hanford Township? The reactors in the 100 Area? The separations facilities in the 200 Areas? The fuel fabrication facilities in the 300 Area?

Just what are you talking about?

and no doubt from ground level its seems just like any old desert like area.

That is because, despite what this twit is claiming, it is just like any old desert area. It just happens to have a HUGE inventory of radionuclides in the ground.

Lest anyone fail to catch my sarcasm, it is clear that people like rufusdufus refuse to read information publicly available to anyone in the world. I would not claim that Hanford is your next vacation destination, but it is also not the scary X-files-like place that this person claims it is.

The staff who work at Hanford are scientists and engineers engaged in the worlds largest environmental cleanup project, and we intend to do it right. Even if we *wanted* to hide anything, there is a federal consent decree that requires the Department of Energy to meet the both federal and state environmental regulations, as well as stakeholder groups like the native American tribes in our region.

Is Hanford contaminated? Yep. It has millions of curies of radioactive wastes in various forms that are currently being removed, repackaged, and stored until the US comes to grips with nuclear materials. When people actively spread misinformation about how we manage the site, it provides the policy makers with the ammunition to grind the cleanup to a halt. That is NOT in ANYONES best interest.

Whatever feelings people have regarding nuclear power or nuclear weapons, one would think that they would not approve of leaving it in the condition it was 20 years ago. That's what our work is trying to achieve.

And we are certainly extremely proud to have first-rate science projects like LIGO here at Hanford.

Any Geek tour of America should include the following sites:

The NSA National Cryptologic Musuem

The INEEL nuclear labs in Idaho - Home of the world's first nuclear power generation facility.

Tour of the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. Home of the worlds first large-scale nuclear reactor for production of weapons grade plutonium. Nuclear reactors, Plutonium Generation plants, lots of nuclear waste,... a must see!

Grand Coulee Dam, The largest hydroelectric dam in North America and one of the largest in the world.

If you're in the area you might also want to visit one of the various lower Dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, which feature huge locks for transporting boats and barges above the dams.

If your into Natural Disasters and biological recovery, visit Mount St. Helens, the volcano that erupted in 1980.

Also note that Hanford is misspelled as Hartford in both posts!

Thank you very much. The ignorance propogating through this forum is amazing. Well put. I work at the Hanford reservation. Being savvy with what's going on in the D.O.E. and at sites that were used for weapons grade materials production, I'm not so damn paranoid as most of the ignorant public out there. Years ago my mother, working in Health Physics (Radiation Protection Technician), worked at the BWIP (Basalt Waste Isolation Project) project here at Seal Mountain. This was to be a national nuclear waste repository. Well, BWIP was canned over various politics and issues that the Native Americans had (as I remember off the top of my head - I was young and it was many years ago). However, I wouldn't care if they had buried waste here. Hell, I live 45 miles from tanks filled with some seriously strange, toxic, and radioactive shit that they are still working on cleaning up out here. Yes, some of it will probably end up at Yucca Mtn. after it's processed. You don't see me scared and worried. Geez people, they've been studying this for decades. I don't think most of you have a clue how much work is going to go into storing this stuff. If you don't think that they've factored in earthquakes, floods, and other such issues, think again. Crack some D.O.E. regulations sometime (if you want to fall asleep - heh heh) and see. Have a little more faith in the system folks. Get educated a little. It's painful to read this crap that's being posted.

Another potential advantage that has been discussed in using laser drilling techniques is the "analysis on the run" that could be conducted while drilling. Because laser vaporizes the formation, and anything it contains (i.e., hazardous contaminants), this drill could be used in front of a gas chromatograph/mass spectroscopy apparatus to analyze the stream of drill waste as the laser advances.

This technique is probably only useful for shallow, high risk drilling operations. The cost of deploying this machine, not to mention maintaining it, are so far off the scale for oil drilling that it is rediculous. No oil company will spend the kind of money it would take to run this drill when conventional drilling techniques have become more cost-efficient, and more precise in directing the borehole.

The Hanford Site hosts 177 underground high-level radioactive storage tanks with approximately 53 million gallons of radioactive waste containing 190 million curies of radioactivity.

I guess it is easy to be glib when you are unaffected by this level of contamination. Unlike yourself, however, I live 23 km from these high-level tank farms.

Yes, it is, and it was a major producer of the U.S. plutonium stockpile. Hanford is in Eastern Washington, which isn't terribly close to Microsoft (5 - 6 hour drive). It IS close to the Columbia river, and they have leaked radioactive material into there in the past.

Nuclear power IS risky, and there is no long term solution to waste disposal (yet). Fast breeder reactors, and breeder/burners are one potential solution. But there is great paranoia about diversion of Pu-239 to terrorists. A fast breeder (in a nutshell) can produce Pu-239 (fissionable) from U-238 (waste).

A burner is a little different. This is used to deliberately break large isotopes into smaller ones with shorter half lifes. The U.S. Congress has cancelled most funding for advanced reactor programs, although the DOE's Argonne National Lab still does some research.

Considering some of the half-lifes of certain isotopes (Pu-239 has a half life of 24,000 years or so), just burying it seems to be a ridiculous proposition. I'd much rather see funding put into burner programs which can take care of this waste in a more responsible fashion.

Just my $.02

SEAL