posted on February 6, 2002 02:01:36 AM new
This is an article written by Cheryl Seal. She is an active independent investigative reporter of considerable talent and nerve who is not afraid to shake a tree to find the color of apple it holds. I bring her work here verbatim from time to time because of all of the people who are engaged in such endeavors she strikes me as being one of the most committed and intelligent as well as being one of the least self-serving., Yep - it's cut and pasted because I could not improve her style nor match her energy. I find her stuff here and there and I guess that she is not affiliated with any one outlet.
Here she describes an appalling situation, one that should be a very high concern of us all.
Introduction
Just about every headlining news story these days has two sides to it: The side the
Bush administration and his corporate pals want you to see and the side you need to
see -- but invariably don't, at least not if you rely on mainstream sources.
To illustrate my point, is, in two sections, the most terrifying story you may read this
year … but one you should have read long before now.
What the Bush Administration Wants You to Know:
Terror from Beyond, Money for Trains
The last week of January 2002 and the first week of February, the two of the top
stories being passed out like Happy Meals at the Drive-thru Window of Corporate
News are: 1. The grave danger of nuclear weapons being used by unknown rogues
from unknown locations on the U.S. and how we should be very, very afraid, and 2.
Amtrak, despite ticket sales that have been through the roof for the past 5 months, is
going bankrupt and needs a massive infusion of taxpayer bucks to keep going.
What you need to Know:
The nuclear threat is here, it is made in the U.S., and it will be traveling by
rail.
Missing from prominent play in the news is the ongoing story about Yucca Mountain
and the nuclear wastes that the Bush administration and the nuclear power plant
barons want to haul there via rail. But, this is indeed the real story -- the one that the
planted stories above are trying to hide. This details of this "little project" are being
hammered out right now behind all but closed doors, while the public's attention is
diverted by trumped up threats of rogue nuclear threats and plugs for "Amtrak
money" -- money that will be promptly funneled into the awaiting pockets of the
nuclear fuel barons.
Where the Nuke Plants Stand in the Infamous Bush "Energy Plan"
A big part of the Bush energy plan is revitalizing the nuclear fuel industry. This
industry has earned the public's suspicions for good reason. But even more
problematic than bad image (that fear has never stopped an oil or coal baron, so why
should it stop a nuke king?) is the practical problem of what to do with the industry's
chief demon: nuclear wastes, most especially spent fuel rods. No one on the planet
has figured out a permanent, truly safe way to dispose of this high level (level 4)
nuclear waste.. So, for years, the spent rods have been accumulating in special pools
and/or special metal and concrete "dry" casks at the facilities where they were used.
To make the nuke business profitable, the reactor folks need to do two main things:
Relicense aging plants (which are now almost paid for after 30 years, but starting to
deteriorate) and get rid of existing and future spent rods cheaply. Thanks to Bush,
relicensing is going ahead rapidly even as I write this -- despite unanticipated
problems found at the plants. Just fix 'em up sometime (wink wink) and we'll slap a
seal of approval on it so you can crank 'er back up, is the Bush "oversight" method.
One nuclear plant manager said he was frankly amazed at how quickly plants were
being sped through the relicensing process -- in fact, in some cases, surrounding
communities aren't being notified of relicensing until it is too late.
Now Bush is helping his nuke baron friends solve problem number 2: spent fuel.
Here's the plan:
The industry will load the most dangerous materials on Earth onto everyday freight
trains and send them rumbling across 43 different states, past 109 cities with
populations greater than 100,000 and off to Arizona -- to a holding area beneath
Yucca Mountain that may ultimately leak radiation, according to many geologists
and nuclear experts. This transport plan does not call for a few shipments once in a
while. Not even once every month or so. Nope -- we are talking about 96,300
shipments of spent nuclear fuel moving in a daily procession from civilian nuclear
power plants and from the Department of Energy's weapons facilities. At all hours.
In all conditions. Over rails that could never be rendered 100% secure. All in all,
70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste (mostly spent rods) will pass within one mile
of 60 million Americans.
Sound too incredible to be true -- like exaggerated "environmentalist hysterics?"
I only wish it was. But no, these are just the facts, ma'am. And they are taken from
technical sources, chief among them the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a
publication originally started by Albert Einstein and several other of the planet's most
advanced thinkers and scientists (you notice I did not make those two things
mutually inclusive). These guys know their stuff. Certainly a whole lot better than a
pack of over-the-hill white guys with MBAs and law degrees who currently call
themselves our "leaders."
So just what is high-level nuclear waste and, in particular, spent nuclear fuel rods?
The uranium used as fuel in nuclear reactors comes in the form of long (at least a
few meters) rods. Once in the reactor, these rods undergo fission, the breaking down
of the uranium atoms through intense bombardment with other particles. The energy
release is intense -- when a rod is removed, the material is up to one million times
more radioactive than it was before being used. In fact, spent fuel rods are the most
dangerously radioactive substances on the face of the Earth and account for more
than half of all the radioactivity generated since the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima.
Anyone standing anywhere near a rod without protection will receive a fatal dose of
irradiation with a few seconds.
Spent fuel rods are immediately placed in pools that are 40 feet deep and enclosed
by concrete and steel walls at least 4 feet thick. Incredibly, most of these pools are
above ground, and far more vulnerable to attack and accidental disasters, such as a
fire, than the reactors themselves. If the rods are exposed to the air, which could
happen if a crack caused enough water to leak from the pools, the rods would emit a
blast of heat that would exceed 1,000° C. A catastrophic fire would be ignited that
would trigger a nuclear disaster far worse than Chernobyl. Worst of all, a spent
rod-induced fire cannot be extinguished by any known means and would roar on for
days.
Fuel ponds contain a byproduct in the form of the isotope cesium-137, an intensely
radioactive material that, once leaked, is absorbed into the food chain. Security
experts at the NRC say that in a spent fuel building fire with just one pond involved,
more cesium-137 would be released than the sum total of all the cesium-137
released by all the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests ever conducted in the
Northern Hemisphere. An area of at up to 29,000 square miles around the site of
such a fire at the largest pools would be rendered uninhabitable, according to a
senior physicist for the Institute for Resources and Security studies. Among the
events that could lead to a pool fire: leakage, evaporation, siphoning, pumping of the
water, aircraft impact, earthquake, the dropping of a dry cask (a concrete and steel
container used to store rods once they are removed from the pools), reactor
accidents, or an explosion in or near the pool building.
Meanwhile -- incredibly! -- nuke plant owners, encouraged by Bush, are clamoring
for permission to make their spent fuel ponds bigger so they can hold more rods.
Yet, at the same time, almost nothing is being done by the Bush administration to
secure these facilities. In France, anti-aircraft missiles are deployed around the fuel
ponds, while Germany makes sure its rods are stored in the most advanced dry
casks available. Homeland security ought to earn its name and deploy forces around
nuclear facilities, not around anti-globalization marchers.
Instead, Bush wants to ram through a plan to truck spent fuel rods across country,
very possibly through your community. As one scientist with the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service put it, the scheme amounts to playing radioactive
Russian roulette on wheels. It may be okay, but then … it might not -- a game the
nuclear industry folks call a "low-risk, high-consequence" scenario. The dry casks
that the rods are placed in following removal from the pools are sturdy enough -- as
long as nothing goes really wrong. They are designed to withstand an "engulfing
fire" burning at 1,475 degrees F for 30 minutes.
However, if a train were to have an accident in a tunnel which resulted in a fire, the
casks would be useless. In fact, if the train that derailed and burst into flame in the
tunnel in Baltimore last summer had been carrying spent fuel rods in dry casks, a
large area of Baltimore would be but a soot stain on the map. That tunnel fire
burned at at least 1,500 F for many hours -- quite sufficient to have turned the
derailment into an event that could have dwarfed the 9/11 disaster. The entire city of
Baltimore would have been rendered uninhabitable in the aftermath -- at least for
those who survived.
Incredibly enough, although Bush has rammed the Yucca Mountain facility down
the throats of everyone in the nation, he has failed to make any provisions for
special rail routes or trains. Instead, the present plan calls for all nuclear fuel casks to
be shipped in general freight service. Although the casks can survive a variety of
crash scenarios, they are not designed to withstand high-temperature tunnel fires --
which account for some of the worst rail disasters over the decades. Instead, Bush's
energy plan calls for the trains to be up and running for Yucca Mountain laden with
their potentially lethal loads before the final routes are disclosed to the public --
through whose communities the trains will run.
So, does it come as any surprise that Bush is using the press to direct the public's
attention away from the nuclear threat he himself is creating and instead direct it to a
vague, exotic terrorist threat? The real joke here is that he is doing nothing of any
significance to mitigate the threat of a terrorist attack on nuke plants.
As for the Amtrak bankruptcy scam: This is clearly an effort by the administration to
railroad through billions in aid to the railroads so that new lines for facilitating the
transport of spent rods (and also coal see article) can be put in place without public
input, using the public's money (which the public, of course, thinks is being spent in
the name of passenger rail services). And of course, anyone who complains will be
written off as "undermining national security" or as an "alarmist." Yep, like yelling,
"Look out!" as a piano careens from the tenth floor toward a crowd on the sidewalk
is being an "alarmist."
I for one find our own nuclear industry and its pals in Washington a lot more
threatening than a vague, shadowy figure crouched in a cave somewhere trying to
figure out how to put together a "dirty bomb." In fact, his dirty bomb wouldn't do as
much damage, if he did figure out how to put it together, as one spent fuel pool fire
or one dry cask train tunnel fire.
How on Earth are we supposed to believe that a train crossing hundreds of miles is
going to be safe when, as of 1998, not one nuclear facility was able to pass even the
most liberal of security tests? To summarize the dismal results of the Operational
Safeguards Response Evaluation, even given a half-year's advance notice, and
beefing up their security force by over 50%, security at all plants failed. I mean,
really failed. It took mock terrorists only 17 seconds to breach the access control
barrier at one plant -- the highest score went to Maine Yankee, which held the
terrorists off for 45 seconds! But not to worry. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has corrected the problem. Now, any companies failing the tests can now simply test
themselves! Yet almost every article that has been written about this horrific lapse of
security has been done after Sept. 11. After it could have been too late.
After September 11, new NRC chairman Richard Meserve tried to get the
commission to call out the National Guard and air defenses to protect reactors and
upgrade all security regulations, especially those focused on spent fuel pools. The
response, despite strongly worded warnings from responsible Congresspeople (there
are about four of those): not one change has been made. A bill proposed by Senators
Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Jim Jeffords, Joe Lieberman, and Congressman Ed
Markey that would have required the NRC to improve security has been blocked by
industry lobbyists. We don't need more security, the unbelievable scumbags at the
Nuclear Energy Institute now tell us, because, after all, Chernobyl wasn't all that
bad! (I am not making this up!!). Are you starting to get the impression that the
energy industry, be it an Enron or a Nuke, could give a royal #*!@ about anyone -- or
anything -- except itself?
I can summarize this no more elegantly than to quote Daniel Hirsch of the
Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles-based nuclear policy organization:
"And why has the NRC not imposed upgraded security requirements? Put bluntly,
the NRC is arguably the most captured regulatory agency in the federal government,
a creature of the industry it is intended to regulate … The NRC's principal interest is
in assisting the industry, keeping regulatory burdens and expenses to a bare
minimum, and helping to jumpstart the nuclear enterprise."
So the next time you hear Bush telling us all how hard he is working to protect us
from a nuclear threat … you will pardon me while I puke.
posted on February 6, 2002 11:36:19 PM new
I read this before I went to lay awake all night last night.
They have discussed this here quite a bit, I imagine due to Hanford. It is REALLY important and people should be taking this very seriously and writing their congressmen .
What I always wonder though is why would anyone want to do these things that so obviously jeopardize so many people? These people have families and friends that would be affected by this as much as just us regular peons.Generations of peons.Is money THAT important~that all other considerations are shoved to the side?
This I cannot understand. Either the dangers are not as great as we perceive them to be or these people are so greed driven they care nothing of the following generations. Have they made some sort of pact with the devil so thay can take it with them?
posted on February 7, 2002 01:13:29 AM new
Of course I was pulling your leg!
I don't know what it is other than a lack of vision that has brought us to do the things we do. What I do know is that there remain places where a person can go and still see the land in the way that it was first seen by Europeans who came here. How pretty it must have seemed. Lush, filled with life. Now it is filled with busy little people going about their oh-so-important business of destroying it all. Talking to people who grew up here, (and I'm sure that the same is true most places) hearing their descriptions of what it was like as little as fifty years ago, and comparing those viewpoints, and those of my own, with what is around now to see gives me a deep feeling of sadness. Everywhere you can look a big ugliness has been and is being committed in the name of progress by those entities who fill their coffers at the expense of irreplaceable things.
I don't pretend to have an answer. All I hope for now is a chance to escape, and more and more I'm looking forward to my ultimate escape. I don't want to see any more. It rubs me the wrong way.
posted on February 7, 2002 08:47:26 AM new
Harrumph! And people get mad at ME because I read things like THIS and accuse their leaders of being SATAN, which makes them SATANIC SUPPORTERS. Who, but SATAN himself would take pleasure at the waste and destruction, the billions spent and lost that could have gone to the public good -- such as education, health, and housing? Who, but SATAN himself would tell such lies and untruths and what do we think of those who support such lies and untruths? I get BLASTED for making such comparisons, or " nonsensical, unsupportable, rabidly introduced, ranting theories that are nothing more than delusions" is what this article will be brushed off as; or at least, my summation of it will be.
Borillar
"Friends don't let friends vote republican"
posted on February 7, 2002 09:58:08 AM new
The Yucca Mountain thing has been on the news here for the past couple of weeks. They said that spent fuel rods have always been transported by truck or train and there's never been an accident yet, and of all of the geological places they've looked into, Yucca Mtn. seems to be the safest.
"Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much....."
posted on February 7, 2002 11:37:56 AM new
Maybe if you read the above article, particularly that part which says:
"The industry will load the most dangerous materials on Earth onto everyday freight
trains and send them rumbling across 43 different states, past 109 cities with
populations greater than 100,000 and off to Arizona -- to a holding area beneath
Yucca Mountain that may ultimately leak radiation, according to many geologists
and nuclear experts. This transport plan does not call for a few shipments once in a
while. Not even once every month or so. Nope -- we are talking about 96,300
shipments of spent nuclear fuel moving in a daily procession from civilian nuclear
power plants and from the Department of Energy's weapons facilities. At all hours.
In all conditions. Over rails that could never be rendered 100% secure. All in all,
70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste (mostly spent rods) will pass within one mile
of 60 million Americans."
you'll see that the safety of Yucca mountain is not the point.
posted on February 7, 2002 11:44:48 AM new
Krafty, They have been moving the rods by train and truck. No accidents so far. SO FAR. One accident would be too many. They are also talking moving them on a much grander scale than before and bringing them right through major population centers. We didn't consider terrorists before~ not that we shouldn't have... Now they tell us out of one side of their mouths that we should be afraid of them [terrorists]and out of the other that its ok to put this stuff on trucks and trains even though they know they couldn't protect that many vehicles.People have protested this for years.
KRS, I know what you mean about the land. We go hiking in the Cascade and Olympic mountains in the summer and sometimes we go where you could almost swear no human has ever had a foot down before. So serene and beautiful. Then off in the distance we'll hear the sound of those hideous off road vehicles and know that this too will be gone shortly. People cannot seem to respect anything anymore, They have been taught that all is for them to use up forgetting that ,hopefully, there will be generations to follow that might like to see these wonders as well.
Sometimes I feel as though I was born into the wrong time. I don't feel like I belong here.BUT I do enjoy other aspects of life and it is always interesting to watch what happens.So here I am.
posted on February 7, 2002 01:02:18 PM new
Sorry, I should have been more clear....my post was just about what the Canadian news was saying about all of this. I myself, know next to nothing about nuclear waste, so I found it really interesting.
It seems to be kind of a hush-hush topic and I'm wondering why? I feel just a sick as you do about the tons and tons of nuclear waste. What bothers me the most is to see the barrels upon barrels of what they call "the most deadly poison known to man", piled up in some warehouse, or stockpiled outside, waiting to find a new home. They reported that (in their opinion) the only safety measure taken, were that they're at "undisclosed locations"....
As for Yucca Mountain, they didn't say why the U.S. said it's the best spot.
(I do find that unless you watch CNN, you don't always see the same type of news that you see in the U.S. CBC is the best source for news here imo, and are tops on enviromental issues.)
"Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much....."
posted on February 7, 2002 01:11:03 PM new
Also forgot to mention how right you are about the timing. It's like putting up a billboard invitation to terrorists.
"Sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much....."
posted on February 9, 2002 07:42:28 AM new
Here is article on another menace, also full of "Solid facts with a bit of emotional emphisis."
About as objective
Dihydrogen Oxide (DHO) is colourless, odourless, tasteless, and kills
uncounted thousands of people each year. Most of these deaths are caused
by accidental inhalation of DHO, but the dangers of Dihydrogen Oxide
do not end there.
Prolonged exposure to it's solid form causes severe tissue damage.
Symptoms of DHO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination,
and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte
imbalance.
Not only is DHO dangerous to humans it is also extremely hazardous to
the environment. It is a major component of acid rain, it contributes
to the greenhouse effect, and is a common cause of erosion of our natural
landscape.
Worldwide contamination by DHO is reaching epidemic proportions. Quanti-
ties of the chemical have been found in almost every stream, lake and
reservoir in Australia today. But the pollution is global, and the
contaminant has even been found in the Antarctic. So far governments
and environmental watchdogs have been indifferent to the problem.
Despite the danger DHO is widely used as an industrial solvent and
coolant, in nuclear power stations, as a fire retardant, as an additive
in certain junk foods and other food products, and in a wide variety of
other uses. Companies routinely dump DHO into rivers and oceans, and
nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal.
The Australian government (In fact no government) has refused to ban the
production, distribution or use of this damaging chemical due to its
'importance to the economic life of the nation'.
In fact the U.S. Navy and other military organizations are conducting
experiments with DHO, and designing multi-billion-dollar devices to
control and use it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military
research facilities receive tons of it through a highly complicated
underground distribution network. Many store huge quantities for
later use.
Act now to prevent further contamination. Find out more about this
dangerous chemical.
posted on February 9, 2002 08:04:34 AM new
Sure, and fish f___ in it, but that's about as dumb a comparison as I could imagine. Them rods burn forever and they let out the most noxious effect. They kill, and should not be treated haphazardly through the convenient decree of an ignoramus like bush. This is a real hazard, as anyone who'se read of a train derrailment could relay, and to blindly place into trust the lives of self, offspring, and generations to come should be a criminal stupidity.
You sound like you're in denial, figmente. Live by a rail line? Maybe near Yucca?
posted on February 9, 2002 08:37:28 AM new
Very cute figmente. However factual it may be, it is not objective in the least. But I will save it for future arguements and I thank you for posting it.
Borillar
"Friends don't let friends vote republican"
posted on February 10, 2002 07:05:20 PM new
Really you mean you dont trust the hanging chadling with nuclear waste ?fact is with hiqualifications had he not been silver spooned up on us he probably would not even have a driver's liscense. I'll trust him when and not until someone like dr. Gofman gets put in charge of this incredible filth.
posted on February 11, 2002 02:48:54 PM new
from the provided data:
Oh. How reassuring.
Studies for NRC and other federal agencies have found that casks meeting NRC's standards would survive nearly all transportation accidents without releasing large amounts of radioactive material. The safety record of more than 1,000 past shipments of spent fuel in the United States is consistent with those findings. Four accidents occurred during those previous U.S. shipments, and none released radioactive material, according to a federal database.
Forgive me for thinking that it only takes one, and that analysis of risk factors which allow for any risk whatsoever is sufficient reason not to do it.
NRC's cask standards and the federal safety studies have been criticized by the State of Nevada and others who contend that severe accidents could release hazardous levels of radioactivity. They argue that NRC's cask tests do not adequately represent a number of credible accident scenarios, and that individual casks may be fatally compromised by manufacturing flaws and by loading and handling errors.
A recent transportation study for DOE evaluated rail access to the Yucca Mountain site and potential rail routes from all nuclear waste storage locations. For nuclear waste rail shipments to Caliente, Nevada, one of the potential access points to Yucca Mountain, the study found that 265,000 miles of total distance would be traveled
from each storage site and that 51,738,000 persons were living within 1 mile of the tracks that could be used.
That IS only about 52 MILLION, after all. Why worry?
Similar numbers were calculated for the other options examined. (See Endnote 49.) Figure 1 shows the representative rail routes to Caliente identified by the study.
Members of the public most likely to be affected by normal shipments of spent nuclear fuel are drivers and passengers of other vehicles (in the case of highway shipments), residents and workers near transportation
routes, and persons near stopping points, such as fuel stations. Normally, the radiation dose to any individual member of the public would be extremely low, because each person's proximity to the moving transportation cask would typically last less than a second, or perhaps a few minutes for vehicles traveling the same direction. The
dose from a passing cask has been estimated at 0.0005 millirem for a resident 10 meters from a transportation route and 0.00004 millirem at 100 meters. (See Endnote 52.) Individuals could receive greater exposure,
however, if they were near a nuclear waste truck that was stopped for refueling or stuck in a traffic jam.
Minimization of total public exposure (the cumulative exposure of all individuals) is a related consideration during routine transportation operations. According to the National Research Council, an average of 800 cancer deaths are expected per 1 million person-rem of exposure. (See Endnote 53.) For example, if 1 million persons each received one-thousandth of a millirem from brief exposures (0.4 seconds at 10 millirems per hour) to passing
nuclear waste vehicles, then their total exposure would be 1 rem, and an additional 0.0008 lifetime fatal cancers would be expected. For residents between 10 meters and 1 mile of a transportation route, the average dose per cask shipment is 0.00001 millirem; (See Endnote 54.) the total dose would equal the population along transportation routes multiplied by the number of casks shipped on each route. As with individual exposure, total public exposure to normal nuclear waste shipments that meet regulatory standards is expected to be low.
Routing criteria for transportation shipments are expected to emphasize the minimization of total travel time and the number of stops. Other important risk elements for route selection are the total number of persons likely to be traveling in other vehicles on the transportation route, the total population near the transportation route, and the likely number of persons to be encountered near vehicle stops. (See Endnote 55.) Analysis of those factors would
also be important for minimizing potential radiation exposure from transportation accidents.
posted on February 11, 2002 05:40:57 PM new
An unnecessary risk propounded for the convenience of the energy producers. The only reason for any of this is to save money - not your money or mine, our bill will rise. Trying to push it through while you're not looking hardly indicates a concern for all, or any, facet of the public safety which should be uppermost in any consideration of such an abomination as this is.
But sensational distortion (such as Ms. Seal's) really doesn't contribute to public safety.
Blaming Dumbya? No major change from the previous several administrations, (just more arrogance in the statements). Helping the nuclear industry is counter to the interests of his oil buddies.
posted on February 11, 2002 11:20:12 PM new
"Helping the nuclear industry is counter to the interests of his oil buddies".
Exactly, borillar. The oil buddies are in it, we don't know that YET. It's the logical conclusion to derive from the administration's support. They're manuevering for total control of nuclear energy because it is the only viable long term solution to the limits of oil supply.
I'm not against nuclear energy at all, and think that it provides the only viable means to assure a continuing ability to meet growing electrical needs both for general usage and for the developing technologies.
BUT, they cannot be allowed to do it haphazardly with disregard for the safety of the populace as was done by the oil industry.
We don't need nuclear supersites impossible to cleanup. They haven't been able to clean up the messes they've made because of oil so the lesson is there for all to see. The time to assure that such things won't be needed is during this infancy of the industry and the only way that such caution will be assured to the people is through the force of legislation and enforcement.
We don't need administrations in place to make a smooth ride for the companies; we need administrations in place to protect us from those companies.
