Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 02, 2013

Ambient office = .064 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .093 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .077 microsieverts per hour

Red onion from local grocery store = .124 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .087 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .077 microsieverts per hour

              South Africa, sitting at the southern tip of Africa, is very interesting from a geological perspective. It has an amazing abundance of valuable minerals and is a world leader in mining. Its reserves of manganese, platinum, gold, diamonds, chromium and vanadium are some of the largest in the entire world. There are also commercial deposits of coal, aluminum, and iron ore. And, relevant to this blog, they also have uranium mines. As well as the mining industry, secondary mineral processing industries are a large part of their economy.

              South Africa began work on the development of nuclear weapons in 1969. This nuclear program and their practice of apartheid made South Africa an outcast among developed nations in the West, many of whom would not trade with S.A. Being surrounded by hostile neighbors, S.A. created an entire nuclear infrastructure with fuel processing and weapons development including missiles as well as warheads. They were aided in their nuclear development by Israel.

             In 1975, S.A. drilled two test shafts in the Kalahari Desert to conduct underground nuclear tests.  When the Soviet Union discovered the test preparations, they notified the U.S. Combined diplomatic pressure from the Soviets, the U.S. and France convinced S.A. to cancel the tests.

             Over the next decade, international fears of nuclear proliferation in Africa increase pressure on S.A. to abandon its nuclear weapons program. In 1987, the president of S.A. said that S.A. might sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if other states in Southern Africa would sign it. Intense diplomatic effort resulted in Tanzania and Zambia signing the NPT. S.A. signed the treaty in 1991.

             Following the signing of the NPT, in 1991, S.A. also signed a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. These safeguard agreements were used to insure that the signatories were complying with the terms of the NPT and included giving the IAEA access to information and facilities in order to verify compliance. S.A. had dismantled all of its nuclear weapons and weapons production facilities before signing the NPT and the IAEA agreed that its inspections found no indication that S.A. had not ended its nuclear weapons program. South Africa is one of the few countries that has destroyed its nuclear weapons capacity.

            The S.A. Atomic Energy Corporation redirected resources away from nuclear deterrence and into economic development of peaceful used for nuclear technology. In 1993, S.A. became a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The NSG was created in 1975 to help control the international trade in nuclear technology and nuclear materials. In 1996, S.A. signed the Treaty of Pelindaba along with many other African nations to create nuclear free Africa. S.A. also became a signatory for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty in 1999.

            The S.A. energy department is currently pushing a huge project to build a whole new fleet of nuclear reactors to supply energy to S.A. They claim that the window is closing and that a decision has to be made immediately to move forward in order to have needed reactors in place by 2023. The new national planning commission has just issued a report challenging the position of the energy department. The report says that an immediate decision is not critical. The report also says that building new nuclear reactors to supply electric power to S.A. might actually raise the cost of electricity over other alternative sources of power. Even if power demands are higher than projected and costs of nuclear construction are lower than projected, new reactors would not be needed until 2029 at the earliest. Other energy sources can easily allow S.A. to reduce carbon emissions at a lower cost and in a shorter time frame. Building a lot of new reactors may result in an enormous waste of money and excess generating capacity.

            South Africa made a very wise decision to abandon nuclear weapons. Let us hope that they make an equally wise decision to abandon nuclear power.

Logo of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation:

CNN Films has acquired the domestic television rights for PANDORA’S PROMISE, a provocative 2013 Sundance Film Festival selection that explores the potential of nuclear power to combat the worldwide crisis of climate change.  businessinsider.com

The amount of radioactive materials in the soil outside of the in-the-ground water storage pond of Fukushima Unit 1 reactor is 10 times larger than it was two days ago. ex-skf.blogspot.com

Every person on the planet should be aware of the perils posed by nuclear weapons. usatoday.com

The United States said on Tuesday it regretted Egypt’s decision to walk out of U.N. talks on non-proliferation and still hoped all sides would agree to hold a conference on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East. reuters.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on May 01, 2013

Ambient office = .089 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .125 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .079 microsieverts per hour

Sliced black olives from local grocery store = .078 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .055 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .046 microsieverts per hour

              Fracking has been in the news a lot lately. They drill down a couple of miles and then often drill horizontally for a distance. Water and a mix of proprietary chemicals are injected into the wells to “fracture” the rock strata and release trapped natural gas which is then pumped out of the well. There are many problems with this process. Some of the chemicals injected into the ground are toxic and even flammable. The chemicals contaminate the ground water in the area to the point where people are getting ill and tap water will burn like gasoline. There have been earthquakes in the areas where they are fracking and the fracking may be the cause. Water that is recovered from the wells has to be disposed of so it won’t contaminate surface water. This waste water has been injected back into the ground into caverns for disposal but a giant sinkhole opened up in Louisiana above on such cavern and people had to be evacuated from nearby homes.

            The drilling process for fracking brings up mud and rock which has to be disposed of. Recently, at a Pennsylvania landfill, a truck carrying drill cuttings was rejected because the cuttings set of an alarm indicating radioactivity. The radiation was from radium-266 and was over eighty times the level that is acceptable at the landfill. The truck was sent back to the drill site to be redirected to a landfill that would accept higher levels of radioactivity.

              Radium 226 is the result of the decay of naturally occurring uranium-238 in the soil and rock where the fracking drilling is taking place. It emits alpha and gamma radiation. It poses a serious threat to human health if inhaled or ingested. Radium 226 concentrates in bones and can cause cancer such as lymphoma, bone cancer, leukemia or anemia. Even outside of the human body, exposure to gamma radiation from radium-226 can increase the risk of cancers in all tissue and organs. However, these diseases can take years to develop so it is often difficult to prove the cause.

             Aside from exposures from landfills, radium-226 is a threat to the public water supply. The water that comes out of the fracking wells may contain as much as sixteen thousand picoCuries of radioactivity per liter. The allowed level of radioactivity for waste water released into the environment is sixty picoCuries of radioactivity per liter. The EPA has a standard of five picoCuries per liter. That makes the fracking water three thousand times as radioactive as safe drinking water!

             So far, Pennsylvania is the only state that requires landfills to monitor for radiation although fracking is taking place in at least thirty one states in the U.S. Only four of the thirty one fracking states have serious regulations for fracking operations. It is somewhat ironic that the cheap natural gas coming from fracking is reducing the demand on nuclear generation of electricity but carries its own radiation threats that will increase as fracking increases.

Fracking effluent pit – picture from peacecouncil.net

 

Last summer, in the dead of night, three peace activists penetrated the exterior of Y-12 in Tennessee, supposedly one of the most secure nuclear-weapons facilities in the United States. washingtonpost.com

Plastic bags, tape and broomsticks were used to fix a leak at the San Onofre nuclear reactor. 10news.com

Flow of tainted water is the latest crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant. nytimes.com

French electric utility EDF said on Tuesday cost-cuts and higher nuclear production should boost second-half profits after cold weather helped to produce a 4.7 percent increase in the company’s first quarter sales on a like-for-like basis.  reuters.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on Apri30, 2013

Ambient office = .079 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .136 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .142 microsieverts per hour

Sliced black olives from local grocery store = .087 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .059 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .044 microsieverts per hour

             I have mentioned India in a number of previous posts. They have nuclear weapons and an active commercial nuclear reactor program. In this post, I am going to dig a little deeper into the domestic Indian nuclear program.

               The Nuclear Fuel complex in Hyderabad, India is a key facility in the Indian nuclear industry. All the fuel for Indian nuclear reactors is produced at this facility. It has plants that convert yellow cake from uranium ore processing into uranium oxide. The uranium oxide is then converted into uranium hexa-fluoride in order to produce enriched uranium oxide in other plants. The enriched uranium is made into pellets which are then inserted into zircaloy tubes to create fuel assemblies. Eight hundred and fifty tons of fuel  are produced for India’s fleet of pressurized heavy water reactors. All of this is accomplished on site at the complex. Other components for nuclear reactors are also produced at this complex.

              There are serious concerns in Hyderabad about pollution from the plant threatening the people and the environment. When the plant was first built, it was outside the city. Although the guidelines for urban development say that the any residences should be miles away from such a facility, now it is surrounded by residences. Zirconium and other wastes from the plants on the site used to be dumped in an unprotected area. People would visit the dump regularly looking for anything useful or salable.  After a fire broke out in the dump, killing several people and injuring others, a big wall was built around the dump site to prevent public access. Ground water pollution has been detected in the area around the site. Members of a government pollution control board were denied entrance to the complex and denied information about what goes on there in violation of India’s Environmental Protection Act. Rail cars that bring in uranium ore are not labeled and may be used for transporting food or other products when they leave Hyderabad. Emergency plans for the complex are not being shared with the local authorities. There have been accidents and explosions inside the complex but authorities were assured that they posed no threat and were not allowed inside to investigate. Recent plans for urban development include expansion of residential density around the complex.

            I have highlighted a lot of problems with monitoring and regulating nuclear processing facilities in the United States. But I have never seen anything like the cavalier attitude exhibited by the people who operate the Hyderabad Nuclear Fuel complex in India. The operators seem totally unconcerned with the threat that they pose to the people around the plant. Huge tanks of noxious chemicals are kept there and if any of them were breached, millions of people could be under threat. The local authorities are incompetent, corrupt or powerless. And the national government seems inclined to let the abuses and problems at the complex continue without serious investigation. I very much fear that only a major accident with loss of many lives will cause any significant change in this dangerous situation.

Hyderabad, India from a photo by Bikash Mishra:

Are tea, seaweed, fish oil, kelp & chlorella supplements grown in Asia radioactive and contaminated with heavy metals? investmentwatchblog.com

In a video appeal, a Fukushima woman said that a young girl died of leukemia and begged authorities to investigate what is happening in Fukushima. fukushimavoice-eng.blogspot.com

Wall Street Journal praises new EPA guidelines on how much radiation is too much.  washingtonpost.com

Wholesale power prices per megawatt-hour in California dipped just 2 percent last year, barely reflecting a 30 percent drop in average natural gas prices as the absence of two Southern California nuclear units, less hydro power and more demand kept prices up. reuters.com

Geiger Counter Readings in Seattle, WA on April 29, 2013

Ambient office = .088 microsieverts per hour

Ambient outside = .083 microsieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = .074 microsieverts per hour

Fobidden City black rice from local grocery store = .066 microsieverts per hour

Tap water = .085 microsieverts per hour

Filtered water = .071 microsieverts per hour