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Annnnnnd the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is leaking again.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  February 22nd, 2013 at 09:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Yes, “leaking.”

Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday.

[snip]

The tanks, which already are long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons (liters) of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

Yes, “again” (via @seanmdav):

In our 1989 report on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) management of the single-shell tanks at its Hanford Site in Washington, we reported that, based on estimates by DOE contractor staff, about 750,000 gallons of liquid waste had leaked from 66 single-shell tanks.1 Subsequently, in September 1990 the Washington State Department of Ecology learned that the volume of liquid waste that had leaked from one Hanford single-shell tank (designated as 241-A-105, commonly known as 105-A) was substantially higher than the volume reported to us and included in our report.

If you’re wondering why this is suddenly an issue again… eh, it could be for any number of reasons, ranging from the plutonium is particularly glowing today to Gov. Inslee getting a call from Obama to pull out all of the control rods in the unstable reactor that is public opinion. But enough of horrifically clunky metaphors for a moment; let’s take advantage of the strained reference instead and look up what Obama said once about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. From the summer of 2008:

Woman: Every year the government promises to fund the Hanford clean-up project in eastern Washington, and every year they find a way to take away the funding, which results in a lot of lost jobs. Washington’s current policy seems to be ‘the solution to pollution is dilution.”

Barack Obama: Oh-ho. Nice.

Woman: What is your policy?

Barack Obama: Here’s something you’ll rarely hear from a politician; and that is, I’m not familiar with the Hanford site. And so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. Now, having said that… having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.

It would appear that what actually happened here was that Barack Obama decided instead to ignore the entire issue the second that he got out of that town hall, because certainly pretty much nothing at all has happened since then. Well, except for the estimated cost for cleanup, and the timeline for completing said cleanup; the former gets larger, and the latter stretches out farther, every single year. Which, again, is what Obama promised to look into.

But then, nobody smart has ever trusted one of Barack Obama’s promises anyway. Particularly since in this case Obama’s claim of ignorance was a bald-faced lie: as we at RedState noted at the time in 2008 Barack Obama was either checked out on the problems with Hanford, or else he voted the way his handlers told him to vote. Either one, honestly, would be believable.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I am fully in favor of nuclear power; but we do need to put the waste products somewhere.

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COMMENTS

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  • gscandlen

    It’s a metaphor for the way Democrats deal with every issue — put your hands over your ears, close your eyes, and hope it goes away.

  • Next93

    It’s also a metaphor for what happens when you trust the government to fix any problem that doesn’t involve sending the military to reduce another country to rubble. Hanford is a DoE site.

    So, to sum things up, the DoE that was chartered to reduce our dependence on foreign oil hasn’t produced an erg of energy in 40 years, it’s failed to clean up its own research facility, and it can’t even replace storage tanks that it knows are beyond their design lifespan. Can someone tell me ANYTHING that this agency has ever done right, aside from spending vast sums of taxpayer money?

    Dodging difficult decisions in hopes that they will be “overtaken by events” is the first rule of government managers. In this case, if the DoE can put off the decision for another 5,000 years or so, the problem will go away by itself.

    Oh, and if all of this isn’t already giving you the heeby-jeebies, Hanford also has the only Chernobyl-style reactor operating in the US.

  • fredflintlock

    So it’s kind of like when the Joads roll down the hill on nothing but fumes into that park where all the people are waiting to feed them and give them a place to live because that’s what they need most and then they’re told that they can work as they want based on anything they can do to help out. Right??

  • texashistorian

    Pretty much, yeah. It’s wonderful! Just ask those who lived under Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Ho Chi Minh etc.

  • cheesycon

    this is probably the stupidest question I’ve yet asked on RedState, but why can’t we just use the waste for more power? any physics dudes here?

    I’m not really clear on the difference between radioactive uranium for power and radioactive waste. If we are using the radiation for power why can’t we just use all of it?

  • sliverlining

    That is a good question. I always thought it was because while it is still poisonously radioactive it is no longer hot enough to be used as fuel. Is re-refining an option? Probably not at all cost effective if it’s even possible.

    Still that is a good question. I’m with you; I think we need an expert to weigh in on this.

  • bcmorris02

    Blast from the not so far past; hey, Obama owed Reid a favor

    Yucca Mountain out: Hanford nuke waste has nowhere to go

    http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2011467984_yucca29m.html

  • dkbtwo

    I can’t speak to the waste in Hanford, as its makeup may render it unusable for fuel purposes as it sounds like its in a liquid state. You DO have A very valid question regarding waste from commercial power reactors. The majority of this waste could be reprocessed into useable fuel (although it would never be possible to eliminate 100% of the waste from the nuclear fuel cycle). Of course in the USA we can’t reprocess nuclear waste as the practice was stopped by the warm up act for least positively effectual President, one Jimmie Carter. Reason given for the moratorium on reprocessing at the time was the reprocessed fuel would be plutonium based rather than uranium based. Hence reprocessing was nixed to reduce the chances of proliferation on weapons material.

    In the nuclear fuel cycle the radiation from the fission cycle heats the coolant (water in the majority of commercial power reactors) and it is the heat from the coolant that is used to generate power via the Rankin cycle (same as coal, gas, oil fired power plants). The nuclear steam supply system is merely the “engine” that heats the coolant. Nuclear waste while giving off radiation is insufficient in itself to provide enough heat, as it requires the radiation levels from the fission process to generate that amount of heat. Waste non longer has enough of the correct uranium (or plutonium) isotopes to achieve fission. Reprocessing can take spent uranium based fuel from a power reactor and convert it into plutonium based fuel. This is the basis of what is known as a Breeder Reactor (it essentially breeds its own fuel, hence the name). One of the casualties of President Carter’s decision to put a moratorium on reprocessing was the cancellation of the Clinch River River Breeder Reactor (CRBR)
    In an aside the former cite of the CRBR

  • dkbtwo

    Sorry about the last sentence. Accidentally submitted before I was done.

    I meant to note that in an odd twist of fate the former site of the CRBR is now planned to be used to build a test unit for a new generation of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

    SMRs represent a huge potential for rebirth of the US nuclear industry.

    Of course in the case of the test unit planned at the old CRBR site, it is being built via TVA who was awarded a substantial federal grant by DoE. Hmmm, one entity in the government granting another entity in the government a substantial grant. Who’d a thunk it. I’m a HUGE supporter of SMR plans and technology but even I think that situation gives off its own “radiation”.

  • cheesycon

    ok, I am following you I think. So, is the reason we can’t reprocess the fuel because it’s either a. liquid form, b.because of the nuclear proliferation law, or c. because it wasn’t from a breeder reactor? Or all of the above?

  • caseyt

    I do work in the Hanford area so you can believe this. The waste in the tanks is a bunch of products that were created when they made the nuclear fuel. They do not have the ability to be turned into fuel at all. I’m not very knowledgeable concerning the exact makeup of the tanks and If I were, I probably couldn’t say anyways but the majority of the stuff in the tanks could not be used to even power up a light bulb. While the tanks leaking is a bad thing, this isn’t the end of the world like the media makes it out to be.

  • dkbtwo

    I think caseyt above covered the Handford waste specifics. Thanks for clearing that up caseyt.

    With regard to commercial power reactors the answer to your question is a combination of b) and c). Reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the US is prohibited by the moratorium established by President peanut farmer, and the type of reactor needed to reprocess is the breeder reactor.

    Thanks for posing the question. It’s refreshing to those of us who support nuclear as an energy option to see interest such as yours.

    And it was certainly NOT a stupid question. A very good question.

  • fredflintlock

    The future is Thallium. The waste cycle will be a fraction of what it is with uranium based heavy metals, and Thallium is far more abundant, easier and cheaper to procure. It works as reactor fuel in the liquid state already, so Hollywood will need to scrap the whole China Syndrome model before they can produce another phony movie about greedy corporations putting profits before helpless victims of radiation poisoning.

  • cheesycon

    thank you!

    one more question, as I am still unclear on one thing, and leaving the legal thing out of it, is it because the fuel was not used in a breeder reactor that it can not be reprocessed, or could we still reprocess the old fuel waste (from a non-breeder reactor) in a new breeder reactor?

  • dkbtwo

    Another good question. And here I’m going to do the true conservative thing and admit I’m not sure. I have a degree in nuclear engineering but have been out of the industry for over 20 years. Reactor theory class was a long long time ago. I seem to recall that it would be possible to reprocess our current waste (made in non-breeder reactors) but I could be incorrect about that.

  • dkbtwo

    Yes I am also impressed with the potential Thorium reactors have.

  • citizenkh

    Hanford was built to produce weapons grade plutonium just like Oak Ridge was built for enriched uranium. Hanford supplied the plutonium for Nagaski.

    There has been a history of cancelled projects on the site. I had looked at buying some pressure vessels from there to flip to a petrochemical company to use for mole (molecular to non technical types) sieves for removing moisture from the natural gas feed for an ethylene furnace. Cost of freight to SW Louisiana made the purchase not cost effective.

  • citizenkh

    It’s s different type, weapons grade plutonium plant, not a nuke reactor for electric power generation.