Bacteria Live Happily in Nuclear Waste

unassimilatible writes "Scientists studying the soil beneath a leaking Hanford nuclear waste storage tank have discovered more than 100 species of bacteria living in a toxic, radioactive environment that most would have thought inhospitable to all forms of life, reports the Seattle PI. For most living creatures, the nuclear and chemical waste in the underground storage tanks on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is the deadliest mixture of toxins and radioactive muck on the planet. For certain bacteria, however, this toxic goop left over from decades of nuclear weapons production appears to be just a second home. 'Scientifically, it's pretty interesting stuff,' said a microbiologist at the lab. 'The material in the tank is self-boiling and quite hot, so it's not just radioactive and harsh chemicals but also in extreme heat.' The discovery eventually could help researchers better understand how microorganisms can survive severe contaminants -- and how to use the bacteria to help clean up toxic environments. Hanford was an important site for the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II. For 40 years, it processed plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. Today, work there centers on a $50 billion to $60 billion cleanup, to be finished by 2035. See also, the related AP story."

Comments

Update: Sorry

[mcgroarty]

It seems that Jones just had *really* dirty hands when preparing the microscope slides.

We're terribly sorry about all this.

-- The Scientists

I for one

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

...welcome our new radioactive bacteria overlords!

Why is anyone surprised?

[Inominate]

Everytime we look closely at an environment suspected to be unable to support life, we invariably find it.

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

And of course here there's a great energy source: the radioactive sludge the bacteria are living in. I'm not suggesting that they actually use the radioactivity directly (I don't think we've ever found a critter that can do that) but there must be lots of interesting chemistry going on in those tanks, creating all kinds of high-energy compunds the bacteria can digest.

Re:Why is anyone surprised?

[CheshireCatCO]

I'm especially not surprised, since I've read reports of bacteria that have been found in the cooling pools for the spent nuclear fuel rods at reactor sites. Apparently, the little buggers are related to the guys that live in the hypersaline environments. The same celluar repair machinery works for both the saline damage and the radiation damage.

Life finds a way

[Pi_0's don't shower]

I completely agree. Just because we are such fragile creatures, we often (so erroneously) assume that all other creatures are fragile, too.

Single-celled organisms, especially, can survive in ridiculous environments. A virus can be frozen and thawed years later with no ill effects. It's not that life is easy to just "create" out of nothing (oogenesis, and it's hard), but life is very hard to eradicate.

Cockroaches, for one, can survive over 100x the radiation levels that would be lethal to humans.

It's good that science is confirming what we all should have expected, I agree with the parent, and don't understand why anyone would have expected otherwise. Can anyone respond to this? (IANAB)

Re:Life finds a way

[Boglin]

IANAB either, but I am an amateur physicist. The difference between this and that standard scenario is that, instead of finding life where it should be missing the things it needs, we found it where there are things that should kill it. When we find life in pitch black portions of the ocean, we're surprised because life normally needs the sun to live, but here they have found a different energy source. The radioactive waste is different, however. We're not saying that life shouldn't live here because it's missing some crucial componenent, but because the radiation should destroy it. To put it differently, the ocean depths would kill most life forms, but we aren't surprised when a submarine makes it down there. With the nuclear waste, we're amazed every time it doesn't destroy things that aren't even alive. So to see things living where the inanimate die is quite remarkable.

To put it differently, finding life in a closed ice source in the arctic is like finding an astronaut in a space suit on the moon. Finding life in nuclear waste is like finding an astronaut in bermuda shorts on the moon.

Re:If you read the artical

[droid_rage]

The article doesn't say that they actually looked inside the tanks. They tested ground samples from boreholes taken in areas contaminated from leakages. Those tanks are sealed and buried, so I doubt if they are even able to open them up to see if any bacteria is currently living inside.
However, with the vitrification plant being finished in a few years, some of those tanks will be getting dug up soon, and it will be interesting to see what they find when that happens.

Re:critter that does that...

[maxume]

Plants?






Sort of anyway...

Most? Who's most?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

most would have thought inhospitable to all forms of life

What is it with these statements about where we would think life can live? We've had so many stories about extremophiles over the last few years that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that life can live in hard vacuum, at temperatures over 200C or in even my shoes. By all means, keep telling us about cool new extremophiles, but please stop telling me I wouldn't have thought it possible. My imagination doesn't stop at this week's latest discovery.

This isn't just a facetious point - it can damage the credibility of scientists to keep feigning surprise at things that really aren't that surprising any more.

I would be surprised

[Spamalamadingdong]

I don't see how bacteria could survive and grow on energy from radiolysis while their own cytoplasm is being damaged by that same radiolysis.

It is far easier to believe that the bacteria are consuming the organic materials in the radioactive sludge. The Hanford wastes are from the Solvex and Purex processes, which (if I understand correctly) used the different affinities of various ions for organic vs. aqueous solvents to separate uranium and plutonium from fission products. The spent, contaminated solvents wound up in the now-problematic tanks and their continued chemical breakdown under the radiolytic assault is one of the reasons they are so hard to handle.

It does make one wonder: could these bacteria be used to consume the organic matter in the tanks and reduce them to solutions in water? You would have to dilute the waste for the bacteria and re-concentrate the products (say, by evaporation) but getting rid of the organic solvents would be a big plus.

The tanks cannot be sealed

[Spamalamadingdong]

Those tanks are sealed and buried, so I doubt if they are even able to open them up to see if any bacteria is currently living inside.

The tanks cannot be sealed, as many of them are producing gases as radiation breaks down the solvents into free radicals and other molecules. As you recombine CH3- with H+ you get methane, recombine two hydrogen atoms and you get molecular hydrogen, etc. These compounds don't remain in solution and have to be vented off so the tank doesn't explode.

Researchers have to monitor the tanks to make sure that they remain relatively safe. It wouldn't do to have one blow its contents all over the place while we're still gearing up to glassify the stuff, and any plan to process the waste for permanent disposal depends on a detailed knowledge of what's inside.

Re:The tanks cannot be sealed

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually one of the tanks did blow up a few years ago. It was a "chemical" explosion that released a large yellow cloud.

What is interesting is the tanks are also capable of a "nuclear" explosion from the radioactive isotopes present reaching criticality.

So they have to occasionally "stir" the tanks to prevent this.

The "self-boiling" feature of the tanks is due to the radioactive decay, that heats up the chemical soup.

The tanks were installed in the 50's with an expected lifetime of twenty two years. But research has shown that because of the harsh chemical enviroment the tanks can last only 12 years. (Don't forget that fifty years has elasped since then).

They ran out of tanks space, so what they did was just pour the chemicals on the ground. This in turn has led to vast areas of "radioactive soup" swampland.

Mice running around trigger radiation sensors because they have become highly radioactive due to the enviroment they live in.

When they find a radioactive animal, they can do an autopsie on it to determine where it came from, by looking at the specific radioactive isotopes that it has.

To say that this place is "a mess" is an understatement. It makes love canal look like pristine park in comparison.

The number one thing they need to do is get the stuff out of the ground water table. Currently they have pumps on the edge of the plume pumping out water, filtering it, and pumping it back into the ground. This currently is the state of hanford - taking care of one emergency after another, while never achieving actual "clean up."

Whether they will be able to clean the place up or not remains to be seen, due to the magnitude of the problem. This is why it has been labeled as "a national sacrifice area."

Re:Self-boiling?

[Carnildo]

Um... "self-boiling?" Does that mean that it will boil of it's own accord? If that's the case, why aren't we using this stuff to power generators? (boiling sludge -> water -> vapor -> drives a turbine...)

"Self-boiling" means the radioactive waste generates so much heat as a result of decay that the solvents it's in are boiling. You wouldn't want to use this to power a turbine: it's neither hot enough nor reliable enough to efficiently boil water through a heat exchanger. Using it directly would be even worse: any leaks in the steam piping means radioactive waste spewing all over.

happiness

[WormholeFiend]

how do you know those bacteria are happy?

maybe they're really depressed to have to live there, but can't afford to move someplace else?

next time I spot a news item about bacteria living in an odd environment, I'll submit it to slashdot, "Bacteria struggling to make ends meet in [weird environment], suffer from overpopulation; Joe Bacterium comments: "What can you do, it's part of our culture."