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Up To 35,000 Gallons of Nuclear Waste Leak At Washington State Storage Site (rt.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Over the weekend, thousands of gallons of radioactive waste have leaked at a nuclear storage tank in Washington State. One worker called the leak "catastrophic." RT writes, "The Hanford Nuclear Reservation was originally constructed in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project." It produced plutonium for weapons, including the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The U.S. Department of Energy started removing what was left in the tank in March when workers discovered leaked waste had reached a depth of 8.4 inches. The Department of Energy calls the leak "anticipated," posing no threat to the public. Mike Geffre, the worker who discovered the leak, told King5 News, "This is catastrophic. This is probably the biggest event to ever happen in tank farm history. The double shell tanks were supposed to be the saviors of all saviors (to hold waste safely from people and the environment)." The double-wall storage tank AY-102 has been slowly leaking since 2011. It wasn't until March of this year that the U.S. Department of Energy began pumping the waste leftover in the tank.
Dam it.
Too bad we didn't even try to manage it back in the day.
3500 gallons (not 35,000) of water than contained some nuclear salts (not uranium, or anything else normally referred to as nuclear waste). People who break into the restricted area should refrain from licking the ground for a few decades. Everyone else has nothing to worry about.
And it isn't surprising that a facility 70 years old, that can't get permission to rebuild, refurbish, or even empty because of ignorant Greenies, is falling apart. Maybe Greenpeace will allow the facility to build new holding tanks now, right?
Nah.
A slightly less breathless account is at the Seattle Times:
http://www.seattletimes.com/se...
Oh, the fools! If only they'd built it with 6,001 hulls! When will they learn?
-- Fry
C'mon....mdsolar we know it is you!
Why do I suspect that the anonymous reader posts under the name mdsolar?
It leaked out of the inner tank and was contained by the outer tank. As designed.
Catastrophic?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Estimates place the leak between 3000 and 3500 gallons. They've been pumping out the tank, which held 800,000 gallons at one point, and 20,000 gallons are left in it. There are now about 8 inches that have leaked between the layers of the inner tank and outer tank, the vast majority since they started pumping.
So they stopped pumping, to figure out how to deal with that.
Clean, Safe and Too Cheap to Meter!
You are welcome on my lawn.
I will reserve that term when 1) I learn what is the content of the tank 2) the amount of becquerel released outside the plant if any. Without both those info it could be between catastrophic and "meh".
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visit randi.org
The Hanford site was already an environmental catastrophe even before this happened. So, no, this isn't hyperbole.
RT -> Russia Today, a well known Kremlin owned propaganda source.
From TFA:
Sources told KING the disturbance caused by the pumping must have exacerbated the leak: essentially blowing a hole in the aging tank allowing the material to leak more quickly into the outer shell... Tank AY-102 is one of 28 double-shell tanks at Hanford
If I'm reading this right, they have a double-shell tank and then inner shell is leaking material into the outer shell. That's not good, but it doesn't sound like the material has escaped from the tank. The outer shell is there as a failsafe, and it seems to be doing its job. Am I missing something?
PS. An RT.com article, really? A news source controlled by the Russian government has reason to exaggerate US failures.
I mean, the Hanford site isn't, like, close to the Columbia River or anything... Oh wait
Well, at least the columbia river isn't used for agriculture... Ummm
ok ok, nobody is drinking this shit are they... a yeah
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/nwp/faq.htm
#cantwaittellsombodysaysitisn'tabigdealcausethereisnowaytheleakagecangetintothecolumbia
'None of the waste appears to have escaped from Tank AY 102 into the environment, the contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, said.'
The leak is between the inner liner and the outer liner, so actually ZERO has actually escaped.
So, unlikely the retarded mdsolar style summary, the double shell tank has done EXACTLY what it was designed to.
This is like complaining about a seatbelt and airbag doing its just after a minor accident where no one got hurt.
Of course we cannot let facts get in the way of our good healthy radiation terror! All those years of duck-and-cover
drills as the Reds rained nuclear death on our heads would have been wasted!
That's unfortunate news, but why does Russia need a news outlet in America? Why are they even allowed to have one?
Harry Reid has been keeping the set aside, safe unified location for nuclear waste in Nevada from having any nuclear waste put in it. Now that he's retiring the new senator might be overridden and we can finally start sticking waste there.
First , it's not "exaggerated in a way" - nothing leaked out of the tank. The story, as presented above,"is complete BS.
You talk about long-term, so I guess you're thinking of the plutonium 239 at the site. The radiation from U239 is stopped by skin, water, etc. So you can pretty safely carry it in your pocket. In fact, I DO carry a similar radioactive material in my pocket. It's not suggested that you eat U239, though. Much like bleach, toilet bowel cleaner, etc, eating it would be bad for you.
Yes, the story was exaggerated in a way, and it should not have been. However, it still is a strong proof that existing nuclear plants are not safe.
You do know that this is not nuclear power related waste, which is pretty much limited to solid spent fuel rods, right? This is cold war waste from defense programs which didn't even bother to engineer any type of proper waste management. They had all sorts of nasty liquids that are much more problematic than spent fuel rods.
I was typing in a hurry. That should be Pu-239. Anyway, try to stay within your protective skin. Without your skin to protect you, plutonium can be dangerous. So don't eat it.
Shh ... don't feed the troll
This is nasty shit left over from the US' nuclear bomb program, not civilian nuclear waste. It's completely different stuff; civilian nuclear plants don't produce this sort of waste.
On a more serious note, WTF nuclear industry?! This is why we can't have nice things!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Until less than three years ago, I worked on the Hanford site. My father in law, still works on the site a regularly oversees and checks on tank levels. At least a couple times a year, there is a minor leak, and the media breathlessly goes screaming that the end of the world is nigh. It is rarely serious, but between the media's antinuclear stance, and the Hanford project's desperate need to drag out the project as long as possible, for jobs, these things get over-reported. At this point, all the waste has been relocated from single shelled tanks to double shelled tanks where it is waiting disposal at their vitrification plant that was recently finished. None of this waste actually leaked anywhere. What it means is that one of the innermost shells on one of the tanks has finally failed significantly. The waste is still contained. This isn't a surprise as even the double shelled tanks are getting old, hence the plan to vitrify (glassify the waste).
35000 gallons are equivalent to 132490 liters.
It seems like the Molten Salt reactors can take a number of different elements.
I just wonder if we can burn up some of these liquid wastes, rather than having them sit around making a mess.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I've followed the efforts to renew the nuclear power industry for some time now and there are several people that claim to have nuclear reactor designs that can destroy nuclear waste from solid fuel nuclear power reactors. This waste is not from a reactor made to produce power but the reactors used for power and those to produce plutonium are quite similar.
If I understand the issue correctly it seems this waste is from the production of plutonium and contains some very nasty medium lived wastes. The short lived stuff would have decayed away long ago. Any long lived wastes are not likely any more of a hazard than common dirt. Even though medium lived wastes pose the greatest threat to human life it is also a problem that solves itself in time. After about 300 years this stuff isn't radioactive any more, or rather no more radioactive than anything else.
If these waste annihilating reactors can do what they claim, destroy radioactive waste while producing power, then this place sounds like a great place to test this theory. If it works then they've solved two problems, the waste on site can be destroyed and we've found a carbon free form of energy. If these waste annihilating reactors don't work then the amount of new radioactive waste we've added to the problem is minimal.
There are several forms of these waste annihilating reactors that people have designed so it's not like it's we just try it once and if it fails we don't have other options. We can keep trying different ways. There are people that are willing to pay money for this waste in an effort to have the chance to prove they can destroy it. If they are successful then this waste might in fact become a product they can sell as fuel rather than a cost. This waste might not have much value as fuel so that is unlikely but if it does work out then the waste is destroyed for all time. The other option is containing it carefully for the next 300 years or so until it decays away on its own.
They admit this is a problem that will cost billions of dollars over decades to clean up. Perhaps they can toss a few million dollars at these people that claim they can destroy this stuff in a reactor. This might save them billions of dollars in the future.
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You shouldn't expect an unknown domain name to belong to a US site unless it ends in .us.
There will be someone at the door waiting to collect your geek card from you on your way out.
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is we Americans are pretty much ignoring infrastructure expenses. What happens if the outer tank breaks? It's sorta like if my air bags go off. After that I probably want a new car. But to keep up the Car analogy we keep driving it and the next time we're dead.
I'm also reminded of our response to Flint, MI's water crisis. Which is a big "meh". We can't even get a disaster fixed _after_ it happens. So I get nervous when I see a potential disaster that can (for some indeterminate amount of time) be ignored by a country with a long history of ignoring problems...
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is we Americans are pretty much ignoring infrastructure expenses. What happens if the outer tank breaks? It's sorta like if my air bags go off. After that I probably want a new car. But to keep up the Car analogy we keep driving it and the next time we're dead. I'm also reminded of our response to Flint, MI's water crisis. Which is a big "meh". We can't even get a disaster fixed _after_ it happens. So I get nervous when I see a potential disaster that can (for some indeterminate amount of time) be ignored by a country with a long history of ignoring problems...
:P.
And sorry for the dupe post, replied to the wrong thread
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Is this even real? RT publishes a lot of nonsense, particularly anti-nuclear nonsense RT is just a propaganda weapon for Putin, and it puts out a lot of stuff to try and discredit the West, and vilify the American government, plus others...
trolls feed on ignorance, correcting ignorance starves them of means of survival.
I'm not really sure who is to blame for the lack of new tanks. It has been discussed many times. Personally I think the State and the DOE should just split the cost and build some new tanks because the waste is not going to be turned to glass any time soon.
Hold Ups:
-Where to put 'new' tanks? (Where at Hanford)
-Licensing from the State and also the DOE
-Who gets to foot the bill
Unfortunately no one wants to pay money.
Looking at the public information on the existing double walled tanks, I'd say they would probably cost 500 million to 1 billion per tank. (All material would have to be nuclear grade, lots of paperwork/inspections since the whole thing is considered 'in-acccessible' once it is built.)
Also it would likely not be built as fast, because things have changed a lot in the last 20-40 years. (It is not the cold war, some practices that were 'acceptable' are no longer allowed, Hanford (and the nuclear industry in general) does not have a LOT of work going on right now hence schedules are not as aggressive/comeptitive as they could be. You don't motivate people with the job they have today, you motivate them by telling them they have more work coming down the pipeline.
The only way I see the DOE and Washington State getting balls large enough to do something, is after something happens. Until then no one wants to spend their 'budget'. If Hanford has a reason to kick things into high gear, they can do it. But they don't and they won't.
No new reactors and no new tanks and no new Mass Underground Hanford Storage in lieu of Yucca mountain. (Modular reactors? Idaho National Lab is getting those.) So milk this cow for as long as you can because you will not be getting another.
This is nasty shit left over from the US' nuclear bomb program, not civilian nuclear waste. It's completely different stuff; civilian nuclear plants don't produce this sort of waste.
Because obviously military plutonium degrades to different elements than merely civilian plutonium. They even operate using completely different physics.
You're being an ass. I know you know the saying that "there is nothing so permanent as a temporary solution." Dealing with this in a permanent manner was not feasible, and may still not be feasible. However long the tanks were designed to last, people were going to ignore them until they became a problem. There is a lot of radioactive shit that needs to be cleaned up there, and limited resources to do it with. It's not the engineer's job to force political action, and in point of fact that's damned hard to do with a fucking tank design. It's not like you can use politicians for structural supports.
There's also a local who insists to be called "The Glowing One".
The amounts of Pu in the waste tanks should be relatively small, as most of it was extracted (the whole point of the Hanford site was to manufacture Pu, afterall, and they wouldn't willingly throw product out in the waste stream).
The waste tanks contain stuff that is far more radioactive than Pu, basically all the fission products (Cs-137, Sr-90, and other wonderful stuff), suspended in an alkaline (pH ~12) mixture of various salts and solvents. The stuff is quite hot both radioactively and thermally (due to decay heat), as well as chemically reactive. It consists of a supernatant liquid over a thick layer of sludge. About the worst possible stuff to be dealing with in terms of long-term management.
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This was waste from making nuclear bombs. It is not related to nuclear power plants.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
what goes around and drops on people comes around and laks into the groundwater.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
While active that stuff is nowhere up to the level of being usable as fuel - hence it it waste.
RT is a Russian propaganda arm, and completely untrustworthy. Forwarding their exaggerated/made up horseshit does no one any favors, honestly. YHBT