Our State Politicians inaction in action

| No Comments
One can hope for some better news but it is not really expected. From the Yakima Herald:
Governor: Six underground Hanford nuclear tanks leaking
Six underground tanks that hold a brew of radioactive and toxic waste at the nation�s most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, federal and state officials said Friday.

Gov. Jay Inslee said the leaking material poses no immediate risk to public safety or the environment because it would take a while � perhaps years � to reach groundwater.

But the leaking tanks raise new concerns about delays for emptying them and strike another blow to federal efforts to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation, where successes often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges.
It is not just groundwater we need to be worried about. The Hanford plant is situated on the banks of the Columbia River. The leaks are not big -- 150 to 300 gallons per tank per year -- a drop at a time... More:
The federal government already spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup � one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The Energy Department has said it expects funding levels to remain the same for the foreseeable future, but a new Energy Department report released this week includes annual budgets of as much as $3.5 billion during some years of the cleanup effort.

Much of that money goes toward construction of a plant to convert the underground waste into glasslike logs for safe, secure storage. The plant, last estimated at more than $12.3 billion, is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule. It isn�t expected to being operating until at least 2019.

Given those delays, the federal government will have to show that there is adequate storage for the waste in the meantime, Inslee said.
The DOE needs to stop trying to do it and farm it out to some company with tried and true nuclear experience -- Bechtel, Westinghouse, Babcock and Wilcox. Another perfect example of government efficiency at its finest. And for once, I totally agree with an environmentalist:
Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, a Hanford watchdog group, said Friday it�s disappointing that the Energy Department is not further along on the waste treatment plant and that there aren�t new tanks to transfer waste into.

�None of these tanks would be acceptable for use today. They are all beyond their design life. None of them should be in service,� he said. �And yet, they�re holding two-thirds of the nation�s high-level nuclear waste.�

Wyden noted the nation�s most contaminated nuclear site � and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy � will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington, D.C.
It is not like these things suddenly sprung into existence -- we have known about this witches brew for over sixty years. We could have built aboveground tanks, pumped the materials into them and then passivated them. Another option is to burn the waste with a breeder reactor but, although these things work wonderfully, they use Thorium and not Uranium and Thorium does not go Ka-Boom and the USA wanted stuff that went Ka-Boom as well as commercial power. We didn't want to spend the money for two separate trains of nuclear development so back in the 1960's and 1970's, we decided to go with the stuff that goes Ka-Boom and funding was cut for Breeders. Breeder Reactors (Google Breeder Reactor and LFTR) can burn conventional nuclear waste and when all is said and done, the resulting waste materials only need to be sequestered for about 300 years.

Leave a comment

October 2022

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

Environment and Climate
AccuWeather
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Climate Depot
Ice Age Now
ICECAP
Jennifer Marohasy
Solar Cycle 24
Space Weather
Watts Up With That?


Science and Medicine
Junk Science
Life in the Fast Lane
Luboš Motl
Medgadget
Next Big Future
PhysOrg.com


Geek Stuff
Ars Technica
Boing Boing
Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
FAIL Blog
Hack a Day
Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools
Neatorama
Slashdot: News for nerds
The Register
The Daily WTF


Comics
Achewood
The Argyle Sweater
Chip Bok
Broadside Cartoons
Day by Day
Dilbert
Medium Large
Michael Ramirez
Prickly City
Tundra
User Friendly
Vexarr
What The Duck
Wondermark
xkcd


NO WAI! WTF?¿?¿
Awkward Family Photos
Cake Wrecks
Not Always Right
Sober in a Nightclub
You Drive What?


Business and Economics
The Austrian Economists
Carpe Diem
Coyote Blog


Photography and Art
Digital Photography Review
DIYPhotography
James Gurney
Joe McNally's Blog
PetaPixel
photo.net
Shorpy
Strobist
The Online Photographer


Blogrolling
A Western Heart
AMCGLTD.COM
American Digest
The AnarchAngel
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Babalu Blog
Belmont Club
Bayou Renaissance Man
Classical Values
Cobb
Cold Fury
David Limbaugh
Defense Technology
Doug Ross @ Journal
Grouchy Old Cripple
Instapundit
iowahawk
Irons in the Fire
James Lileks
Lowering the Bar
Maggie's Farm
Marginal Revolution
Michael J. Totten
Mostly Cajun
Neanderpundit
neo-neocon
Power Line
ProfessorBainbridge.com
Questions and Observations
Rachel Lucas
Roger L. Simon
Samizdata.net
Sense of Events
Sound Politics
The Strata-Sphere
The Smallest Minority
The Volokh Conspiracy
Tim Blair
Velociworld
Weasel Zippers
WILLisms.com
Wizbang


Gone but not Forgotten...
A Coyote at the Dog Show
Bad Eagle
Steven DenBeste
democrats give conservatives indigestion
Allah
BigPictureSmallOffice
Cox and Forkum
The Diplomad
Priorities & Frivolities
Gut Rumbles
Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0
MegaPundit
Masamune
Neptunus Lex
Other Side of Kim
Publicola
Ramblings' Journal
Sgt. Stryker
shining full plate and a good broadsword
A Physicist's Perspective
The Daily Demarche
Wayne's Online Newsletter

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on February 23, 2013 9:50 PM.

Hell no - US Military going Green and complying with the UN Agenda 21 was the previous entry in this blog.

Hey Jimmy - just go home to your peanut farm and withdraw from public life is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Monthly Archives

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 5.2.9