Nuclear Reactor rods to be shipped through Ottawa Valley
< http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/
Chalk+River+spent+reactor+rods+shipped+through+Valley/7956151/story.html >
'Expedited' approval being sought for shipment of highly radioactive material
Byline: Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen, Wed Feb 13 2013
http://tinyurl.com/c4b3w5o
Highly radioactive nuclear reactor fuel rods are to be clandestinely shipped by road from Chalk River to the United States under a non-proliferation effort to rid the Upper Ottawa Valley site of bomb-grade uranium.
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< http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/
Chalk+River+spent+reactor+rods+shipped+through+Valley/7956151/story.html >
Spent Reactor rods: 1900 Kms - Chalk R. to Savannah R.
4 posts
• Page 1 of 1
Spent Reactor rods: 1900 Kms - Chalk R. to Savannah R.
by Oscar » Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:41 am
Last edited by Oscar on Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Scores of trips - truck Canada’s bomb-grade uranium to U.S.
by Oscar » Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:34 am
Scores of trips planned to truck Canada’s bomb-grade uranium to U.S.
----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 1:41 AM
Subject: Scores of trips planned to truck Canada’s bomb-grade uranium to U.S.
Background:
1) Although shipments of solid irradiated fuel rods containing HEU have been sent to Savannah River for decades, this proposal is -- to the best of our knowledge -- the first time that the shipment of LIQUID high level radioactive waste is being considered. Evidently this highly toxic liquid
material is much more mobile in the environment.
2) Savannah River is forbidden from "reprocessing" the solid spent fuel rods that it receives -- in order to recover the HEU -- by the US federal government. Therefore the "H Canyon" (a reprocessing plant at Savannah River) is starved for business and strapped for cash. Savannah River officials intend that the Chalk River LIQUID material WILL be reprocessed in the H Canyon, thereby "getting around" the prohibition against reprocessing solid irradiated fuel -- and at the same time bringing tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the Savannah River Site.
3) The FRESH (unused) HEU that is shipped from the U.S. to Chalk River is NOT highly radioactive, and poses a MUCH greater proliferation risk than the highly radioactive liquid waste presently stored in the FISST tank at Chalk River. It is therefore hard to accept the argument that these shipments are part of an important "non-proliferation" initiative! Rather,
it seems that both Chalk River and Savannah River are taking advantage of the non-proliferation rhetoric in order to serve their own interests -- for Chalk River, off-loading a vexing radioactive waste problem, and for Savannah River, getting some cash and getting around the prohibition limiting the use of the H Canyon.
4) It would be more responsible for the liquid waste to be solidified on-site at Chalk River rather than being transported in liquid form, in dozens of shipments over several years, across public bridges and highways for 2000 kilometres. Repatriation of the HEU from Chalk River should not be undertaken until the traffic in HEU FRESH material has been halted once and for all time.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President
CCNR
http://www.ccnr.org/
===========================
Scores of trips planned to truck Canada’s bomb-grade uranium to U.S.
< http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Sco ... e+uranium/
7993490/story.html#ixzz2LVXuREKY >
Shipments part of $60M non-proliferation plan
By Ian MacLeod, OTTAWA CITIZEN February 20, 2013
http://tinyurl.com/bgdrtde
OTTAWA — As many as 76 transport truckloads of high-level nuclear waste could journey along the Trans-Canada Highway over the coming four years in an effort to ship decades worth of radioactive rubbish from Chalk River to a U.S. reprocessing site.
The magnitude of the task is revealed in documents and statements from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), part of the U.S. Department of Energy. Initial details were first reported by the Citizen last week.
Additional details show the plan calls for an anticipated 40 to 50 payloads of highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium (HEU) liquid secured in fortified steel casks. A total of about 23,000 litres of the solution would be moved in batches of a few hundreds litres at a time, the first attempt to truck liquid HEU in Canada.
The shipments would begin moving under armed guard through Eastern Ontario late this summer, pending approvals from Canadian and U.S. nuclear safety regulators, according to the NNSA.
“An initial agreement has been reached (with consignor Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.) but more preparations must occur before shipments and processing of the solutions can begin,” at the U.S. energy department’s Savannah River Site for nuclear waste reprocessing, Robert Middaugh, a NNSA spokesman in Washington, said in a Wednesday email.
Once there, the solution is to be [fed into a reprocessing plant called the H Canyon at the Savannah River facility to extract the residual Highly Enriched Uranium, which will then be] downblended to low enriched uranium (LEU) and used as fuel in U.S. commercial power reactors.
The estimated $60-million cost will be paid by AECL, which operates Chalk River, Middaugh said.
As well, under a separate proposed plan, several thousand spent fuel rods also made from U.S.-origin HEU and used to drive Chalk River’s NRU and NRX research reactors since the 1960s are to be trucked to the Savannah River Site beginning late this summer, again pending approvals from regulators, according to 2012 NNSA documents. (NRX was shuttered in 1993 and NRU has used LEU [as fuel] since the early 1990s.) [However, HEU "targets" are still used in the NRU reactor.]
The NNSA is preparing for approximately 26 spent fuel shipments over about four years, or an average of 6.5 trips a year in non-winter months. Additional details from NNSA were not available Wednesday. Canadian officials are remaining tight-lipped.
The plans follow Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s commitment at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul to return additional U.S.-origin HEU inventories to the U.S. by 2018 to lessen the risk of nuclear terrorism.
As the world’s leading producer of medical isotopes, Canada has weathered mounting criticism in recent years over the use and stockpiling of HEU from the U.S. for isotope production at the Chalk River nuclear laboratories, two hours northwest of Ottawa.
Non-proliferation advocates fear terrorists could strike and steal the material to build a weapon, or carry out an act of radiological sabotage at the Upper Ottawa Valley site. A nuclear accident and environmental disaster is also a concern.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is reviewing an application from a U.S. nuclear materials transport company to approve the cask design for transport of the liquid HEU. It has yet to receive an application from AECL for a transport licence.
Both CNSC and AECL officials were circumspect when the issue was raised during a public CNSC meeting Wednesday.
“I don’t think it’s a state secret that there’s been a commitment to allow for some of the (HEU liquid) material to get repatriated by the U.S.,” said commission president Michael Binder.
“I’m just stating the obvious that, until we get an application, there’s nothing we are interested in saying. When we get an application, it’ll be processed according to all the rules and obligations of both Canada and the U.S.
“So I assume that you’re going to send an application in the fullness of time,” he said to Robert Walker, AECL president and CEO.
“That would be exactly the case,” Walker replied.
MORE:
< http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Sco ... e+uranium/
7993490/story.html#ixzz2LVXuREKY >
----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 1:41 AM
Subject: Scores of trips planned to truck Canada’s bomb-grade uranium to U.S.
Background:
1) Although shipments of solid irradiated fuel rods containing HEU have been sent to Savannah River for decades, this proposal is -- to the best of our knowledge -- the first time that the shipment of LIQUID high level radioactive waste is being considered. Evidently this highly toxic liquid
material is much more mobile in the environment.
2) Savannah River is forbidden from "reprocessing" the solid spent fuel rods that it receives -- in order to recover the HEU -- by the US federal government. Therefore the "H Canyon" (a reprocessing plant at Savannah River) is starved for business and strapped for cash. Savannah River officials intend that the Chalk River LIQUID material WILL be reprocessed in the H Canyon, thereby "getting around" the prohibition against reprocessing solid irradiated fuel -- and at the same time bringing tens of millions of dollars into the coffers of the Savannah River Site.
3) The FRESH (unused) HEU that is shipped from the U.S. to Chalk River is NOT highly radioactive, and poses a MUCH greater proliferation risk than the highly radioactive liquid waste presently stored in the FISST tank at Chalk River. It is therefore hard to accept the argument that these shipments are part of an important "non-proliferation" initiative! Rather,
it seems that both Chalk River and Savannah River are taking advantage of the non-proliferation rhetoric in order to serve their own interests -- for Chalk River, off-loading a vexing radioactive waste problem, and for Savannah River, getting some cash and getting around the prohibition limiting the use of the H Canyon.
4) It would be more responsible for the liquid waste to be solidified on-site at Chalk River rather than being transported in liquid form, in dozens of shipments over several years, across public bridges and highways for 2000 kilometres. Repatriation of the HEU from Chalk River should not be undertaken until the traffic in HEU FRESH material has been halted once and for all time.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President
CCNR
http://www.ccnr.org/
===========================
Scores of trips planned to truck Canada’s bomb-grade uranium to U.S.
< http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Sco ... e+uranium/
7993490/story.html#ixzz2LVXuREKY >
Shipments part of $60M non-proliferation plan
By Ian MacLeod, OTTAWA CITIZEN February 20, 2013
http://tinyurl.com/bgdrtde
OTTAWA — As many as 76 transport truckloads of high-level nuclear waste could journey along the Trans-Canada Highway over the coming four years in an effort to ship decades worth of radioactive rubbish from Chalk River to a U.S. reprocessing site.
The magnitude of the task is revealed in documents and statements from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), part of the U.S. Department of Energy. Initial details were first reported by the Citizen last week.
Additional details show the plan calls for an anticipated 40 to 50 payloads of highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium (HEU) liquid secured in fortified steel casks. A total of about 23,000 litres of the solution would be moved in batches of a few hundreds litres at a time, the first attempt to truck liquid HEU in Canada.
The shipments would begin moving under armed guard through Eastern Ontario late this summer, pending approvals from Canadian and U.S. nuclear safety regulators, according to the NNSA.
“An initial agreement has been reached (with consignor Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.) but more preparations must occur before shipments and processing of the solutions can begin,” at the U.S. energy department’s Savannah River Site for nuclear waste reprocessing, Robert Middaugh, a NNSA spokesman in Washington, said in a Wednesday email.
Once there, the solution is to be [fed into a reprocessing plant called the H Canyon at the Savannah River facility to extract the residual Highly Enriched Uranium, which will then be] downblended to low enriched uranium (LEU) and used as fuel in U.S. commercial power reactors.
The estimated $60-million cost will be paid by AECL, which operates Chalk River, Middaugh said.
As well, under a separate proposed plan, several thousand spent fuel rods also made from U.S.-origin HEU and used to drive Chalk River’s NRU and NRX research reactors since the 1960s are to be trucked to the Savannah River Site beginning late this summer, again pending approvals from regulators, according to 2012 NNSA documents. (NRX was shuttered in 1993 and NRU has used LEU [as fuel] since the early 1990s.) [However, HEU "targets" are still used in the NRU reactor.]
The NNSA is preparing for approximately 26 spent fuel shipments over about four years, or an average of 6.5 trips a year in non-winter months. Additional details from NNSA were not available Wednesday. Canadian officials are remaining tight-lipped.
The plans follow Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s commitment at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul to return additional U.S.-origin HEU inventories to the U.S. by 2018 to lessen the risk of nuclear terrorism.
As the world’s leading producer of medical isotopes, Canada has weathered mounting criticism in recent years over the use and stockpiling of HEU from the U.S. for isotope production at the Chalk River nuclear laboratories, two hours northwest of Ottawa.
Non-proliferation advocates fear terrorists could strike and steal the material to build a weapon, or carry out an act of radiological sabotage at the Upper Ottawa Valley site. A nuclear accident and environmental disaster is also a concern.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is reviewing an application from a U.S. nuclear materials transport company to approve the cask design for transport of the liquid HEU. It has yet to receive an application from AECL for a transport licence.
Both CNSC and AECL officials were circumspect when the issue was raised during a public CNSC meeting Wednesday.
“I don’t think it’s a state secret that there’s been a commitment to allow for some of the (HEU liquid) material to get repatriated by the U.S.,” said commission president Michael Binder.
“I’m just stating the obvious that, until we get an application, there’s nothing we are interested in saying. When we get an application, it’ll be processed according to all the rules and obligations of both Canada and the U.S.
“So I assume that you’re going to send an application in the fullness of time,” he said to Robert Walker, AECL president and CEO.
“That would be exactly the case,” Walker replied.
MORE:
< http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Sco ... e+uranium/
7993490/story.html#ixzz2LVXuREKY >
Last edited by Oscar on Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- Site Admin
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EDWARDS: "With regard to the planned Chalk River shipm
by Oscar » Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:44 am
"With regard to the planned Chalk River shipments:"
----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 1:48 AM
Subject: "With regard to the planned Chalk River shipments:"
With regard to the planned Chalk River shipments of 23,000 litres of high level radioactive liquid waste containing 175 kilograms of highly enriched uranium:
There are two issues which are perhaps being confused. The first is the question of proliferation through the possible diversion and/or storing of weapons-grade materials like HEU.
The second is the safety and environmental considerations in shipping 23,000 litres of very high-level radioactive liquid, regardless of whether it has weapons-grade uranium in it or not.
(1) On the question of proliferation risks -- I and many others have long been opposed to the continued use of weapons-grade uranium at Chalk River. This practice should have been discontinued many years ago. It sets a terrible precedent for the entire world. Now, for example, Iran is justifying the production of HEU on the grounds that they "need" HEU for the production of medical isotopes. And Iran can of course point to Canada and a few others who are doing exactly that.
Thus the continued use of HEU at Chalk River is indirectly complicating the non-proliferation task around the world. Because of course HEU is perfect for use as a nuclear explosive material, and the warning time (once the HEU is obtained) is extremely short. So no one should be having HEU available to them -- or we will never have the possibility of a nuclear weapons free world.
IF non-proliferation is the primary goal to be achieved, then the FIRST priority should be to stop using HEU. Period. But AECL is still importing fresh HEU from the USA! And HEU is not a highly radioactive material itself; the radiation from it is primarily non-penetrating alpha radiation. So the ENVIRONMENTAL risk of the fresh HEU shipments is NOT great, but the proliferation risks are considerable -- the HEU is in a solid form, and does not require shielded packaging or bulky equipment to carry (in case of theft).
Hence the need for heavily armed guards.
I do not think that the toxic brew of liquid waste in the FISST tank at Chalk River poses ANY realistic proliferation risk where it is now, and therefore I see no reason (from a non-proliferation point of view) why this stuff should be transported 2000 km for no good reason. The radioactivity is so great that it would seriously overdose anyone who comes close, and the liquid is a chemical cesspool, so the risk of diversion of HEU from this liquid material is miniscule -- pretty close to zero. The risk of diversion is even less if it is left where it is, in the big tank behind the formidable security of the Chalk River Nuclear Complex.
No, it's not the liquid waste that poses the main proliferation risk, but the fresh HEU that keeps arriving and is stored at Chalk River. That stuff can be stolen and transported relatively easily.
Apparently some people confuse "highly enriched" with "highly radioactive". They are not at all the same thing.
HEU is not highly radioactive; it just has a high concentration of the not-so-highly-radioactive U-235. It is NOT the presence of HEU that makes the liquid shipments environmentally threatening; the threat would be virtually the same if it was high-level radioactive liquid waste with LEU or no U at all.
Here's what the American Health Ohysics Society has to say about the radioactive exposure from fresh HEU:
The low exposure threat of highly enriched uranium is further demonstrated by the fact that such material has been in use as fuel in many research and test reactors throughout the world.
When new fuel assemblies are fabricated and sent to such reactors for use, the external radiations present no appreciable threat to workers, who commonly handle new fuel elements directly with no special external radiation protection, generally simply wearing gloves to prevent possible skin contamination and to prevent transferring foreign material to the fuel elements.
A shipment of such fuel may contain well over a kilogram of 235U.
< http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q6134.html >
My conclusion is that this (in my view) hare-brained scheme to ship high level liquid radioactive waste on our Trans-Canada highways and across public bridges is unwarranted from any realistic non-proliferation point of
view.
Getting rid of the fresh (unused) HEU on the other hand would be very justifiable from a non-proliferation perspective -- not only because of the greater availability and transportability of the solid unirradiated HEU, but because of the precedent it sets internationally (as in the case of Iran).
These shipments are a dangerous and unnecessary scam in my view, making it APPEAR that Canada is complying with the non-proliferation objectives of the Obama summit while doing nothing truly meaningful in that direction.
(2) On the question of environmental risks -- this is where the shipment of liquid high-level waste really stands head and shoulders above the shipment of fresh HEU. This high-level liquid waste contains hundreds of man-made radioactive materials -- fission products, activation products, and transuranic actinides -- and is several orders of magnitude more radioactive than unused HEU. It is also in a liquid solution consisting of the
sludge-like neutralization byproducts of nitric acid as well as mercury. It's a very unappetizing liquid mix of nasty things.
By comparison, unused solid HEU is almost benign, environmentally speaking. (HEU is not benign of course, but it is not nearly as much of an environmental hazard as the lliquid waste -- and it is can be retrieved if scattered.)
The proposed shipments of high-level radioactive liquid waste are unprecedented and should definitely be subjected to the most careful public scrutiny in an environmental review process that is NOT related to the non-proliferation questions at all, except insofar as HEU in a liquid form could possible. And in fact it is a very legitimate question to ask why the materials should not be solidified on-site rather than shipped in a liquid form. From a non-proliferation perspective there is absolutely no urgent reason why these shipments need to take place at all.
So I see the situation as quite hypocritical. On the one hand, nuclear authorities are saying these liquid shipments must take place starting without delay to meet non-proliferation objectives, while at the same time fresh HEU continues to arrive at Chalk River from the US in defiance of non-proliferation objectives. And no public environmental assessment of the liquid shipments are planned to be made, because of the high-security non-proliferation concerns allegedly attaching to these shipments.
The PROLIFERATION risk is very small. Certainly Not Zero. That's how they justify having have top-security secrecy and heavily armed guards accompanying each shipment.
But the ENVIRONMENTAL risk is potentially very large. Transporting Liquid High Level Nuclear Waste is very scary indeed. I see nothing to applaud here. Quite the opposite.
In fact there is no non-prolferation or environmental rationale for making these dangerous shipments. If the liquid shipments have very little proliferation risk, leaving the liquid in the tank at Chalk River has even LESS proliferation risk.
These shipments are a dangerous and unnecessary scam in my view, making it APPEAR that Canada is complying with the non-proliferation objectives of the Obama summit while doing nothing truly meaningful in that direction. And it sets yet another dangerous precedent -- that it is OK to ship high level radioactive liquid waste whenever the nuclear industry finds it convenient to do so.
It appears more and more that the Age of Nuclear Power is drawing to a close, but the Age of Nuclear Waste has just begun. It is essential that the public understand what is going on and act to withhold approval from dangerous and unnecessary practices such as this.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President
CCNR
http://www.ccnr.org/
----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 1:48 AM
Subject: "With regard to the planned Chalk River shipments:"
With regard to the planned Chalk River shipments of 23,000 litres of high level radioactive liquid waste containing 175 kilograms of highly enriched uranium:
There are two issues which are perhaps being confused. The first is the question of proliferation through the possible diversion and/or storing of weapons-grade materials like HEU.
The second is the safety and environmental considerations in shipping 23,000 litres of very high-level radioactive liquid, regardless of whether it has weapons-grade uranium in it or not.
(1) On the question of proliferation risks -- I and many others have long been opposed to the continued use of weapons-grade uranium at Chalk River. This practice should have been discontinued many years ago. It sets a terrible precedent for the entire world. Now, for example, Iran is justifying the production of HEU on the grounds that they "need" HEU for the production of medical isotopes. And Iran can of course point to Canada and a few others who are doing exactly that.
Thus the continued use of HEU at Chalk River is indirectly complicating the non-proliferation task around the world. Because of course HEU is perfect for use as a nuclear explosive material, and the warning time (once the HEU is obtained) is extremely short. So no one should be having HEU available to them -- or we will never have the possibility of a nuclear weapons free world.
IF non-proliferation is the primary goal to be achieved, then the FIRST priority should be to stop using HEU. Period. But AECL is still importing fresh HEU from the USA! And HEU is not a highly radioactive material itself; the radiation from it is primarily non-penetrating alpha radiation. So the ENVIRONMENTAL risk of the fresh HEU shipments is NOT great, but the proliferation risks are considerable -- the HEU is in a solid form, and does not require shielded packaging or bulky equipment to carry (in case of theft).
Hence the need for heavily armed guards.
I do not think that the toxic brew of liquid waste in the FISST tank at Chalk River poses ANY realistic proliferation risk where it is now, and therefore I see no reason (from a non-proliferation point of view) why this stuff should be transported 2000 km for no good reason. The radioactivity is so great that it would seriously overdose anyone who comes close, and the liquid is a chemical cesspool, so the risk of diversion of HEU from this liquid material is miniscule -- pretty close to zero. The risk of diversion is even less if it is left where it is, in the big tank behind the formidable security of the Chalk River Nuclear Complex.
No, it's not the liquid waste that poses the main proliferation risk, but the fresh HEU that keeps arriving and is stored at Chalk River. That stuff can be stolen and transported relatively easily.
Apparently some people confuse "highly enriched" with "highly radioactive". They are not at all the same thing.
HEU is not highly radioactive; it just has a high concentration of the not-so-highly-radioactive U-235. It is NOT the presence of HEU that makes the liquid shipments environmentally threatening; the threat would be virtually the same if it was high-level radioactive liquid waste with LEU or no U at all.
Here's what the American Health Ohysics Society has to say about the radioactive exposure from fresh HEU:
The low exposure threat of highly enriched uranium is further demonstrated by the fact that such material has been in use as fuel in many research and test reactors throughout the world.
When new fuel assemblies are fabricated and sent to such reactors for use, the external radiations present no appreciable threat to workers, who commonly handle new fuel elements directly with no special external radiation protection, generally simply wearing gloves to prevent possible skin contamination and to prevent transferring foreign material to the fuel elements.
A shipment of such fuel may contain well over a kilogram of 235U.
< http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q6134.html >
My conclusion is that this (in my view) hare-brained scheme to ship high level liquid radioactive waste on our Trans-Canada highways and across public bridges is unwarranted from any realistic non-proliferation point of
view.
Getting rid of the fresh (unused) HEU on the other hand would be very justifiable from a non-proliferation perspective -- not only because of the greater availability and transportability of the solid unirradiated HEU, but because of the precedent it sets internationally (as in the case of Iran).
These shipments are a dangerous and unnecessary scam in my view, making it APPEAR that Canada is complying with the non-proliferation objectives of the Obama summit while doing nothing truly meaningful in that direction.
(2) On the question of environmental risks -- this is where the shipment of liquid high-level waste really stands head and shoulders above the shipment of fresh HEU. This high-level liquid waste contains hundreds of man-made radioactive materials -- fission products, activation products, and transuranic actinides -- and is several orders of magnitude more radioactive than unused HEU. It is also in a liquid solution consisting of the
sludge-like neutralization byproducts of nitric acid as well as mercury. It's a very unappetizing liquid mix of nasty things.
By comparison, unused solid HEU is almost benign, environmentally speaking. (HEU is not benign of course, but it is not nearly as much of an environmental hazard as the lliquid waste -- and it is can be retrieved if scattered.)
The proposed shipments of high-level radioactive liquid waste are unprecedented and should definitely be subjected to the most careful public scrutiny in an environmental review process that is NOT related to the non-proliferation questions at all, except insofar as HEU in a liquid form could possible. And in fact it is a very legitimate question to ask why the materials should not be solidified on-site rather than shipped in a liquid form. From a non-proliferation perspective there is absolutely no urgent reason why these shipments need to take place at all.
So I see the situation as quite hypocritical. On the one hand, nuclear authorities are saying these liquid shipments must take place starting without delay to meet non-proliferation objectives, while at the same time fresh HEU continues to arrive at Chalk River from the US in defiance of non-proliferation objectives. And no public environmental assessment of the liquid shipments are planned to be made, because of the high-security non-proliferation concerns allegedly attaching to these shipments.
The PROLIFERATION risk is very small. Certainly Not Zero. That's how they justify having have top-security secrecy and heavily armed guards accompanying each shipment.
But the ENVIRONMENTAL risk is potentially very large. Transporting Liquid High Level Nuclear Waste is very scary indeed. I see nothing to applaud here. Quite the opposite.
In fact there is no non-prolferation or environmental rationale for making these dangerous shipments. If the liquid shipments have very little proliferation risk, leaving the liquid in the tank at Chalk River has even LESS proliferation risk.
These shipments are a dangerous and unnecessary scam in my view, making it APPEAR that Canada is complying with the non-proliferation objectives of the Obama summit while doing nothing truly meaningful in that direction. And it sets yet another dangerous precedent -- that it is OK to ship high level radioactive liquid waste whenever the nuclear industry finds it convenient to do so.
It appears more and more that the Age of Nuclear Power is drawing to a close, but the Age of Nuclear Waste has just begun. It is essential that the public understand what is going on and act to withhold approval from dangerous and unnecessary practices such as this.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President
CCNR
http://www.ccnr.org/
- Oscar
- Site Admin
- Posts: 9966
- Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 3:23 pm
EDWARDS: Correction re. "Liquid bomb-grade uranium&quo
by Oscar » Fri Feb 22, 2013 9:44 am
EDWARDS: Correction re. "Liquid bomb-grade uranium"
----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 2:48 PM
Subject: Correction re. "Liquid bomb-grade uranium"
Note: HEU = Highly Enriched Uranium (93 % uranium-235 & only 7 % uranium-238). This is bomb-grade material, the same stuff that was used as a nuclear explosive in the Hiroshima bomb.
Correction:
In the first of 3 articles that I sent out on the shipment of Liquid HEU from Chalk River to Savannah River, the Ottawa Citizen had printed a figure of 1.8 grams of HEU per shipment.
A little simple arithmetic reveals that this figure is about 1000 times too low.
It is more like 2,000 grams (2 kilograms) of HEU per shipment.
ARITHMETIC:
175,000 grams of HEU, dissolved in the 23,000 litres of highly radioactive liquid waste in the FISST tank at Chalk River works out to about = 7.6 grams of HEU per litre of liquid waste. (This figure may be a bit on the high side, but not much.)
So a typical shipment of 4 containers per cask, with up to 64 litres of liquid waste per container (= 256 litres in all) contains about 1,945 kg of HEU. Just shy of 2 kilograms.
2 kg of HEU is not an insignificant quantity of weapons grade material; even though you need more than 7 kg to make a bomb, each little bit adds up.
However, the main issue over the shipment at this point is the fact that it is LIQUID waste, of a highly radioactive nature, and therefore poses an unprecedented environmental risk compared with solid shipments.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President
CCNR
http://www.ccnr.org/
P.S. The original incorrect figure of 1.8 grams per shipment was quickly corrected by the Ottawa Citizen to read 1.8 kilograms.
----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 2:48 PM
Subject: Correction re. "Liquid bomb-grade uranium"
Note: HEU = Highly Enriched Uranium (93 % uranium-235 & only 7 % uranium-238). This is bomb-grade material, the same stuff that was used as a nuclear explosive in the Hiroshima bomb.
Correction:
In the first of 3 articles that I sent out on the shipment of Liquid HEU from Chalk River to Savannah River, the Ottawa Citizen had printed a figure of 1.8 grams of HEU per shipment.
A little simple arithmetic reveals that this figure is about 1000 times too low.
It is more like 2,000 grams (2 kilograms) of HEU per shipment.
ARITHMETIC:
175,000 grams of HEU, dissolved in the 23,000 litres of highly radioactive liquid waste in the FISST tank at Chalk River works out to about = 7.6 grams of HEU per litre of liquid waste. (This figure may be a bit on the high side, but not much.)
So a typical shipment of 4 containers per cask, with up to 64 litres of liquid waste per container (= 256 litres in all) contains about 1,945 kg of HEU. Just shy of 2 kilograms.
2 kg of HEU is not an insignificant quantity of weapons grade material; even though you need more than 7 kg to make a bomb, each little bit adds up.
However, the main issue over the shipment at this point is the fact that it is LIQUID waste, of a highly radioactive nature, and therefore poses an unprecedented environmental risk compared with solid shipments.
Dr. Gordon Edwards, President
CCNR
http://www.ccnr.org/
P.S. The original incorrect figure of 1.8 grams per shipment was quickly corrected by the Ottawa Citizen to read 1.8 kilograms.
- Oscar
- Site Admin
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