In a strange twist of energy development, China is building at least three nuclear plants to power offshore oil and gas drilling. news.discovery.com
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Geiger Readings for Mar 01, 2015
Ambient office = 150 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 80 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 99 nanosieverts per hourAvocado from Central Market = 95 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 100 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 86 nanosieverts per hour -
Radioactive Waste 170 – Another Truck with Radioactive Waste Is Stolen in Mexico
I have often blogged about radioactive waste but it is usually about spent nuclear fuel, uranium mining and refining or weapons. Radioactive isotopes are also used for a lot of medical and industrial purposes and there is a lot of waste generated when the equipment and materials are retired.
In late 2013, a truck that was carrying radioactive cobalt-60 was stolen on the way from a hospital in Tijuana, Mexico to a radioactive waste disposal site. The truck was not properly equipped for such a task because it did not have a GPS tracing unit. It was thought at the time that the thieves did not know what was on the truck they stole. Since any radioactive material can be used to make a “dirty” bomb authorities put out an alert. In a dirty bomb, conventional explosives are used to disperse radioactive materials. The truck and cobalt-60 were recovered within days of the theft. The cobalt-60 container was found at a distance from the truck and it had been opened. The thieves may have been injured by the radiation from the cobalt-60 but they were never identified. Now it has happened again.
Early Saturday morning, a red 2006 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with an industrial pipeline scanner in the back was stolen in San Juan del Rio, north of Mexico City in the state of Queretaro. The device uses a radioactive isotope of iridium to generate gamma radiation. The theft was reported by the National Commission of Nuclear Security and Safety of the Mexican federal government. It is not known whether the iridium-192 in the scanner was the target of the theft or the thieves were just after the truck. There is concern that the iridium-192 could be used to make a dirty bomb.
The Mexican government issued a statement saying that the iridium-192 can be harmful if not handled properly. It is safe as long as it is in its container but if the container is opened, the iridium-192 can cause serious damage to skin in minutes to hours. Prolonged exposure could cause death.
I am solidly against nuclear power and nuclear weapons. I believe that we should get rid of both as soon as possible. On the other hand, there are many medical and industrial applications that utilize a wide variety of radioactive isotopes. In many cases, there are no alternative approaches to accomplish the same ends. So we are obviously not going to get rid of all use and transport of radioactive materials even if we close the books on nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
The only answer to what happened in Mexico is to increase the monitoring of the handling and transport of radioactive isotopes. In addition, the public must be better educated about the dangers of radioactive isotopes. Accidents and thefts are inevitable but the damage that results can be reduced. We are also developing ways of healing tissue damaged by radiation which will be useful when people are injured by the mishandling of medical and industrial radioactive isotopes.
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Geiger Readings for Feb 29, 2015
Ambient office = 144 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 108 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 112 nanosieverts per hourOrange bell pepper from Central Market = 139 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 81 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 62 nanosieverts per hour -
Geiger Readings for Feb 28, 2015
Ambient office = 132 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 96 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 84 nanosieverts per hourIceber lettuce from Central Market = 102 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 101 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 86 nanosieverts per hour -
Geiger Readings for Feb 27, 2015
Ambient office = 102 nanosieverts per hourAmbient outside = 90 nanosieverts per hourSoil exposed to rain water = 87 nanosieverts per hourBrussel sprout from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hourTap water = 97 nanosieverts per hourFiltered water = 81 nanosieverts per hourDover sole – Caught in USA = 82 nanosieverts per hour -
Radioactive Waste 169 – Cancer Cluster Among Workers At The Portmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio
Yesterday, I blogged about illegal disposal of radioactive waste from fracking at a landfill in Kentucky. Today I am going to blog about another problem with nuclear garbage. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. about thirty two thousand nuclear warheads and the Soviet Union had about forty thousand nuclear warheads. Fortunately, the U.S. and Russia, which inherited the Soviet nuclear arsenal, came to their senses and signed treaties to reduce arsenals to their present size of about five thousand active warheads each. Still too much but much less than during the Cold War. The creation of those huge arsenals left behind a terrible legacy of radioactive pollution in both countries. The U.S. Hanford nuclear reservation still contains a great deal of dangerous radioactive materials left over from nuclear weapons production which I have blogged about. I have also been blogging about waste from nuclear weapons polluting residential area in around St. Louis. This blog is about a Cold War legacy problem in Ohio.
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is located near Piketon, Ohio. The locations was chosen because it had available electricity, water for cooling, transportation, labor and flat topography. The plant was built between 1952 and 1956 with the first enriched uranium being produced in 1954. It is a huge facility whose buildings had a combined ten million square feet of floor space. During maximum operation, it consumed over two thousand megawatts. The plant first enriched uranium ore to ninety percent U235 for use in nuclear weapons in the 1950s. In the mid-1960s, after the U.S. arsenal reached its maximum level around 1960, the plant switched to making nuclear fuel for power reactors. The gaseous diffusion facility was shut down in 2001 and decommissioning began. A new facility employing centrifuges to enrich uranium began construction in 2007.
People who worked at the plant now say that they are suffering from health effects of exposure to radiation. There are many cases of a particularly malignant form of prostate cancer among retired workers. This and other cancers constitute what is called a “cancer cluster” meaning that the rate of cancers is much higher than their average occurrence in the U.S. Workers are having a very difficult time getting their health insurance coverage to cover their claims for radiation related illnesses.
Ill workers also claim that the U.S. government is ignoring them although there is a federal program in place to handle such complaints. The Department of Energy evaluates radiation exposure with something called “dose reconstruction.” Dose reconstruction tests for exposure to U235, the highly radioactive isotope of uranium which is needed for creation of nuclear weapons. Positive results of dose reconstruction are necessary to get workers compensation from the DoE.
Critics of the dose reconstruction method point out that the test does not cover U234, which is also highly radioactive and the isotope to which many of the workers at the plant were exposed. There is legal action against the DoE to get it to change its methodology and to seriously study the claims from workers that are currently being refused.
Sadly, it is not just the combat veterans that are being treated poorly by the U.S. Government. The veterans of nuclear weapons plants also have been denied the health care they deserve.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant:
