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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.
In engineering space, a "catastrophic failure" is sometimes the terminology used to describe a single component failing. Not the actual scale or scope of the event. I could have a catastrophic failure of a wheel bearing, but safely stop and have a repair done, not a real catastrophe. FUD mongers will abuse this terminology intentionally, and then some will relay it out of ignorance.
A slightly less breathless account is at the Seattle Times:
http://www.seattletimes.com/se...
A note to the poster of the original story, if you find yourself citing Russia Today as the primary source you should probably double check your facts.
I stole this Sig
It doesn't seem catastrophic in terms of environmental damage so far. However, the two elements I find confusing are:
1) an alarm in the annulus sounded after the waste level rose to more than 8 inches deep. Several hours later the waste level in the annulus dropped by about half an inch.
If the waste is all contained in the outer hull, why did the water level in that hull go up and then down again?
2) Less than 100 gallons of waste was estimated to have leaked into the annulus in recent years, drying in three separate patches.
Wait... If it's sealed, how does it dry out?
In both of those events, the water had to go somewhere right? There are really only two options, it either went back into the main tank, or escaped containment. Since workers are lowering gauges & pumps into the outer hull space, it would imply that the outer hull is not pressurized. Applying some basic fluid dynamics, means the waste isn't going back into the main tank, and apparently isn't going into their containment pit either: Hanford workers found no waste outside the tank in a leak-detection pit in an initial check Sunday, Holloway said.
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.
In engineering space, a "catastrophic failure" is sometimes the terminology used to describe a single component failing.
Correct. It's a failure that may, but not always, lead to a more significant and more serious failure condition. You can, for example, have a "catastrophic failure" of an airplane landing gear tire but still be able to land the plane safely.
It's like when people say, "But evolution is just a theory!", not knowing that the word "theory" has a different meaning in a scientific context.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
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.
Of course it wasn't. But they built it with an outer hull because - you're not gonna believe this... wait for it - failures like this happen. If every man-made piece of technology functioned exactly as it was designed, there would be no fucking need for a second hull.
The presence of the second hull is what's known, in engineering parlance, as a FAILSAFE. Which is to say - if the first container fails, due to corrosion, damage, sabotage, etc., then the second hull preserves the SAFETY of the design even though part of the design has FAILED.
No, it sounds like it's operating explicitly as designed. If the first hull operated "as designed" with a 100% success rate, then there would be no need for the second hull.
Right, because engineers typically design containers in such a way that, should the first layer of the container be breached, the materials the container are designed to hold will react violently and explosively in the most dangerous way possible with the materials used in the second layer.
I can't wait to read about your lithium-coated thermos bottles, and Dynamite-lined chimney flues.
Your post is nothing but fucking alarmist rubbish.
Wait... If it's sealed, how does it dry out?
My guess is that since the space between the outer and inner walls of the tank is quite large a small leak could mean that the water has evaporated and is part of the air in that space. If I make further assumptions that in this space the humidity is controlled with desiccants to prevent rust then the water is contained in those desiccant materials.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
"But the inner tank was not designed to leak."
Of course it was, in a sense. All engineered systems have design lifetimes. The tank farms double-shells average around 30 years old. These tanks were not made to last "forever", unlike what the King-5 broadcast said.
It is a political failure, not a design failure. They were supposed to have been pumped dry many years ago. The permanent solution keeps getting postponed so we are stuck with various "temporary" solutions. This has been going on since before I came here after college (in 1979). We are making progress in cleaning things up, but it is very slow.
Yes I am an engineer. No I do not work at Hanford, but my friends and neighbors do.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
The green leftists are preventing any action by suing to stop work over and over.