Ambient office = 55 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

White onion from Central Market = 70 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 63 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 43 nanosieverts per hour

      Graphite is used to maintain the fission chain reactions in some types of widely used nuclear reactors. It is estimated that there are about three hundred thousand tons of nuclear graphite waste awaiting disposal around the globe. Because they have a high density of legacy reactors, about one third of the irradiated graphite waste in the world is in the U.K.
     Abbie Jones works at the University of Manchester. She said “Most of the advanced nuclear reactor technologies being proposed for future low carbon energy production will also use nuclear graphite, so this waste burden is likely to increase for future generations unless novel solutions are examined to treat, reduce and recycle this waste form. Technologies that can minimize this burden will not only massively reduce costs of managing legacy wastes but also improve the sustainability of future nuclear reactors and help achieve net zero targets.”
     The current strategy of the U.K. is to store waste graphite temporarily in order to allow short-lived isotopes to decay prior to final disposal. This strategy was handed down from the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. However, storing nuclear graphite waste is costly, space-inefficient and carries the risk of radioactive contamination.
     In response to these issues, Jones and her colleagues investigated whether electrolysis in high-temperature molten salt solutions could be used to decontaminate nuclear graphite. Clint Sharrad is one of the Manchester team. He said that they chose to utilize molten salt because it has a wide electrochemical window. This allows them to access electric potentials that could better force nuclear graphite contaminant removal.
     As proof of concept, the team carried out tests using graphite samples from different reactor sites across the U.K. Following electrolysis, they analyzed what corrosion and fission products the graphite released into the molten salt media. The team then adjusted their process parameters to optimize radioisotopes transfer into the salt phase. After the treatment, the team evaluated the graphite and found that there had been a significant reduction in the radioactive content. The decrease in radioactive processes in the graphite was sufficient to reclassify the remaining graphite from intermediate-level waste to low-level waste.
      Ken Czerwinski is a radiochemist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in the US. He says that the “key contribution of this work is the potential to concentrate radioactive waste and limit the amount of material destined for high-level radioactive waste disposal.”
       Jones suggested that if they can apply this new method on an industrial scale, it “could save the UK over £1 billion” in costs related to managing legacy nuclear graphite by “avoiding interim storage requirements and minimizing waste volumes requiring managed disposal”.
     The researchers observed that there was minimal degradation in the graphite in spite of achieving high decontamination levels. This suggests that it may be possible for future reactors to reuse the decontaminated graphite. Sharrad says that this would result “not only reducing the waste burden but also enhance the sustainability of nuclear reactor systems by providing a whole lifecycle approach for a main reactor core component.”
    The next step of the Manchester team is to conduct follow-up research to look at a broader variety of graphite samples and to explore whether treated graphite will perform as well as virgin graphite in a reactor system. This will enable them to determine whether reusing nuclear graphite may be a feasible option in the future.

Ambient office = 74 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 145 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 133 nanosieverts per hour

Roma tomato from Central Market = 63 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 95 nanosieverts per hour

     Energy Northwest operates the Columbia Generating Station nuclear power plant near Richland, Washington. Earlier this year Energy Northwest announced its plans in collaboration X-energy and Grant County Public Utility District to construct a small modular reactor (SMR) near its current, full-sized commercial nuclear power reactor on its leased land on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near the Columbia River.
     The U.S. does not have a deep geological repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. Initially, it was planned to build such a repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Political opposition killed that project in 2009. Now there will be no such repository before 2050 at the earliest.
     The Columbia Generation Station is the only commercial nuclear power plant now operating in the U.S. Northwest. The spent nuclear fuel that it produces is currently stored in concrete and steel storage cylinders that sit on a reinforced concrete pad near the reactor pending the availability of a permanent geological storage facility.
     The SMR that is planned by Energy Northwest is a high temperature gas-cooled Xe-100 reactor. The eighty- megawatt reactor could be the first operating advanced nuclear reactor in the U.S. If the project goes forward, it could be operating as soon as 2028. Additional SMRs could be added to the first to ultimately produce three hundred and twenty megawatts. The Columbia Generating Station has the capability to generate one thousand two hundred and seven megawatts of electricity.
     An Oregon environmental group is objecting to the Energy Northwest’s plan for an SMR at Hanford. Columbia Riverkeeper has issued a report that it expresses its concern about the spent nuclear fuel that the proposed new reactor would generate. Columbia Riverkeeper says that the Xe-100 would generate more spent nuclear fuel than the conventional big reactor with respect to the power generated by each.
     Columbia Riverkeeper is also concerned about situating the new SMR on Energy Northwest’s leased land at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south central Washington. They point out that the Reservation was developed expressly for the purpose of Cold War nuclear weapons manufacture rather than as a location for commercial nuclear power production. The Department of Energy Nuclear Reservation was used to produce two thirds of the U.S. plutonium from World War II through the Cold War which ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Approximately two and a half billion dollars is being spent each year to clean up the radioactive and chemical contamination left from the project.
     The DoE is focused now on fifty-six million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste stored in underground tanks after chemical processing was used to separate small quantities of plutonium from irradiated uranium fuel. Spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors usually remains in a solid form rather than being liquefied and chemically processed.
     Lauren Goldberg is the legal director with Columbia Riverkeeper. She said, “Adding more nuclear infrastructure — a small modular nuclear reactor — at Hanford without any long-term plan for the radioactive waste should be a nonstarter. A new nuclear reactor and its inevitable waste would further perpetuate the burden of cleanup.”
     Miya Burke is the lead author of Columbia Riverkeeper’s new report titled “Q&A: Nuclear Energy Development Threatens the Columbia River.” The report quotes the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The Tribes have treaty rights at Hanford and they oppose any new nuclear projects on the Hanford site. They say that no expansion of nuclear energy production should be developed without permission obtained through the Tribes by government-to-government consultation.
     Energy Northwest has responded to the Columbia Riverkeeper concerns. They say that they have always supported open discussions on advanced nuclear and small modular reactors. However, Energy Northwest has questioned the validity of some of the claims made in the new report and the data that was used to support them. Among issues raised in the report was the safety and cost of the proposed SMR which remains under development.
     X-energy claims its proposed reactor design is based on “safe, secure, clear and affordable technology”. The DoE awarded it eighty million dollars to develop, construct and demonstrate its first commercial SMR.
     Energy Northwest issued a statement that said, “Over the past year we have engaged many groups and stakeholders — from environmental organizations and tribes to elected officials and local communities — to understand their concerns and receive their input. Energy Northwest and our partners hope to have the same opportunity with the authors of this report.”

Ambient office = 69 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 156 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 158 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 69 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

     TEPCO is the giant Japanese utility company that brought the world the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. They had a bad record of managing nuclear power well before 2011. They had been chastised in court by the Japanese government for incompetence. Three years before the Fukushima disaster, they had generated an internal report that warned of the possibilities that did come to pass. But they sat on the report and claimed that everything was fine.
     TEPCO recently reported on security lapses at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwas nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture. The report dealing with problems with anti-terror measures at the Number 7 reactor at the plant was submitted to the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) on September 22. It detailed the causes of the problems and needed measures in order to prevent a recurrence. Analysts say that the report itself calls into question the ability of TEPCO to reinvent itself as it has promised to do.
     The report emphasized a lack of commitment to safety. This was indicated by the utilitie’s tendency to ignore warnings about problems from front-line workers. The bitter lessons from the Fukushima disaster have apparently been forgotten. In response to revelations about nuclear security failures, the NRA issued an order in April that banned TEPCO from restarting the Number 7 reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwas. Previously, the NRA had cleared Number 7 for restart following an NRA safety inspection.
     In one incident, a TEPCO worker entered the central control room without authorization. The worker used another employee’s identification card. In addition to that problem, safety devices installed to detected unauthorized entry to the control center had failed to function properly at the plant.
     The report attributed security lapses to the poor recognition of risks among rank-and-file employees. The report said that there was a serious need to improved communications inside workplaces and between organizations. There needs to be changes in the top-down and control-oriented culture. Currently, the organizational culture discourages workers from pointing out problems. There is a need to ensure more respect for security personnel. The report proposes measures to review the organization and establish an effective safety culture within the company.
      One conclusion in the report was that TEPCO has a propensity to prioritized cost reduction over safety. The company cut costs by purchasing intrusion detectors it used to lease. As these devices aged, malfunctions increased. However, the company dealt with malfunctions only after there had been several cases. Nuclear security is essential for protecting nuclear materials from terrorism and it should never be compromised.
      The question has been raised of just how seriously TEPCO management has taken the situation. A survey of TEPCO employees conducted by an outside fact-finding committee recorded many harsh opinions about TEPCO management. One respondent wrote that it was hard to believe that TEPCO managers and executives really understood the importance of nuclear security. Another respondent said that executives would not respond seriously to proposals concerning safety. Instead, they gave employees a lecture about high costs and slow progress. A third respondent stated that managers acted to accommodate the assumed wishes and intentions of upper-level management.
     After the report was submitted to the NRA, the TEPCO Chairman and President faced harsh questions at a press conference. The Chairman said, “We will implement measures (to prevent a recurrence) with the resolve that this will be our last chance.” However, the top executives did not give an unambiguous answer to the question of whether TEPCO would withdraw from nuclear power generation if it failed to solve the problems outlined in the report.
     The NRA will analyze the report and conduct additional inspections. At a regular press conference on September 29, NRA Chairman expressed his concern about the top TEPCO executives’ poor understanding of the importance of nuclear security and their low involvement in the issue. The NRA must carefully evaluate TEPCO’s safety culture and management mindset.
     At the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, a variety of cases have revealed flawed work to install safety measures at the Number 7 reactor. In its editorials, the Asahi Shimbun daily newspaper has said that TEPCO is not qualified to operate a nuclear power plant. The company’s top executives need not only to establish a solid and shared safety culture, but they also have to reform their own mindset based on a clear recognition of how their words and deed affect front-line company operations.
      TEPCO should be dissolved and all of their assets dedicated to helping with the cleanup of the Fukushima disaster which is still reverberating ten years after the event.

Ambient office = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Avacado from Central Market = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 77 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 72 nanosieverts per hour