I attended a public meeting at the Seattle Center last night where representative from Hanford presented information about the current cleanup efforts. These meeting are supposed to be held once a year in Seattle, Portland and Richland but it has been two years since the last round of meetings. It was a small gathering and the number of people who were there because it was their job were about equal to the number of concerned citizens.
There has been publicity lately touting the promise of small modular reactors (SMR). As defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a "small modular reactor" is a nuclear reactor with an output of less than three hundred megawatts. However, in the general usage of term, any reactor with an output of less than five hundred megawatts is considered to be a small reactor.
The Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) is a program of the National Nuclear Security Administration under the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). Its mission is to "reduce and protect vulnerable nuclear and radiological material located at civilian sites worldwide." The GTRI have been very successful to date. There are three programs that are being carried out by the GTRI.
I have blogged about the negative health effects of ionizing radiation in previous posts. Alpha particles are helium nuclei, beta particle are high energy electrons and gamma radiation consists of very high energy photons. All are generated by radioactive decay. Alpha and beta particles can be blocked easily and are generally most dangerous to the skin in the form of radiation burns and causing cancer in internal organs if ingested.
The Czechoslovakian government began construction of four nuclear reactors in 1987 for the Temelin Nuclear Power Station near the village of Temelin. After the Velvet Revolution of 1990, construction of two of the four reactors was cancelled. During the 1990s, there were redesigns of the remaining two reactors for better safety and reliability. There were also construction delays and cost overruns.
