Oct. 18, 2010
Former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Venue in Transition
Nuclear Energy Consumes Fossil Fuels Too States Sierra Club Member
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Piketon, OH (HNN) – Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspections of the USEC Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and USEC Lead Cascade (American Centrifuge ) Demonstration Facility over a two year period have identified no areas needing improvement. The inspection period covers July 6, 2008-July 10, 2010.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducts four or five inspections per year.
As the site has more and more buildings and waste removed, the classification of the vast acreage slowly begins change from a decontamination and decommissioning phase to, in some areas of the footprint, planning for future endeavors. The site still has six buildings in the D & D phase due to uranium and other contaminants.
In addition, the site has buried contaminants on the venue.
Nuclear Criticality Safety (NCS) Incidents have dipped from six in 2004 to one in 2010. Human performance errors (HPE) went from six (2007) to two (2010).
The lone incident involved a worker moving a UF 6 (uranium hexafluoride) cylinder that had not been in place for the required five days before an additional move. No worker safety issues were triggered. The container was quarantined to ensure that it had set for the full five days.
Mark Keef, general manager of USEC Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, credited “training techniques used at reactor plants” for “raising the bar” on safety goals during the period. He explained that future options will relate to the waste that remains at the former atomic facility.
Currently, the American Centrifuge Facility is in a holding pattern, pending governmental loans.
Miranda Carter, a member of the Sierra Club attended the public hearings. She objected to the reuse of depleted uranium , as well as other by products which harm the environment.
“They use [depleted uranium] for the tips of missile heads which gets fragmented to mist and is highly carcinogenic. There are a lot of places in the world contaminated by missiles made out of depleted uranium.”
She objected to the entire nuclear fuel scenario, which in addition to taxpayer funding, produces waste that is often recycled using fossil fuels.
“Even after the de-conversion, it’s less toxic that its hexafluoride form , but that’s needed to separate the fissionable uranium from the 99% which is not fissionable.”
As part of the uranium fuel chain up to de-conversion, it has a “tremendous carbon footprint… mining the uranium, leaving the tailings on the ground contaminating Native Americans [land] to the milling, formulation , transportation, making rods , enrichment costs. The conversion and enrichment process use fossil fuels. The [nuclear] reactor itself doesn’t pull fossil fuels, but how much energy is taken to isolate the radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years,” Carter explained. “That energy comes from natural gas and petroleum and that’s a huge carbon footprint.”
She added that “nuclear is not a solution to global warming. Wall street will not support it. They will not risk their own stockholders money. They want the government --- you and me --- to bail them out.”
Finally, Vina Colley , President of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for. Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS) Co-founder of National Nuclear Workers for Justice , stressed that “jurisdiction” for safety standards , even in the 21st Century, fails to have a simple structure. Instead, the rules and regulations vary and are enforced by numerous bureaucratic governmental agencies. The mixture of agencies ensures muddled specifications.
As an example, workers, researchers, or even advocates find they must shuffle through documents from such agencies as NIOSH, CDC, DOE, DOL, EPA, Federal Register, NRC, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as individual activists blogs, countless organizations, and a wide scope of media documents --- most of the latter coming from the non-mainstream news forums.
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Former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Venue in Transition
Nuclear Energy Consumes Fossil Fuels Too States Sierra Club Member
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Piketon, OH (HNN) – Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspections of the USEC Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and USEC Lead Cascade (American Centrifuge ) Demonstration Facility over a two year period have identified no areas needing improvement. The inspection period covers July 6, 2008-July 10, 2010.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducts four or five inspections per year.
As the site has more and more buildings and waste removed, the classification of the vast acreage slowly begins change from a decontamination and decommissioning phase to, in some areas of the footprint, planning for future endeavors. The site still has six buildings in the D & D phase due to uranium and other contaminants.
In addition, the site has buried contaminants on the venue.
Nuclear Criticality Safety (NCS) Incidents have dipped from six in 2004 to one in 2010. Human performance errors (HPE) went from six (2007) to two (2010).
The lone incident involved a worker moving a UF 6 (uranium hexafluoride) cylinder that had not been in place for the required five days before an additional move. No worker safety issues were triggered. The container was quarantined to ensure that it had set for the full five days.
Mark Keef, general manager of USEC Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, credited “training techniques used at reactor plants” for “raising the bar” on safety goals during the period. He explained that future options will relate to the waste that remains at the former atomic facility.
Currently, the American Centrifuge Facility is in a holding pattern, pending governmental loans.
Miranda Carter, a member of the Sierra Club attended the public hearings. She objected to the reuse of depleted uranium , as well as other by products which harm the environment.
“They use [depleted uranium] for the tips of missile heads which gets fragmented to mist and is highly carcinogenic. There are a lot of places in the world contaminated by missiles made out of depleted uranium.”
She objected to the entire nuclear fuel scenario, which in addition to taxpayer funding, produces waste that is often recycled using fossil fuels.
“Even after the de-conversion, it’s less toxic that its hexafluoride form , but that’s needed to separate the fissionable uranium from the 99% which is not fissionable.”
As part of the uranium fuel chain up to de-conversion, it has a “tremendous carbon footprint… mining the uranium, leaving the tailings on the ground contaminating Native Americans [land] to the milling, formulation , transportation, making rods , enrichment costs. The conversion and enrichment process use fossil fuels. The [nuclear] reactor itself doesn’t pull fossil fuels, but how much energy is taken to isolate the radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years,” Carter explained. “That energy comes from natural gas and petroleum and that’s a huge carbon footprint.”
She added that “nuclear is not a solution to global warming. Wall street will not support it. They will not risk their own stockholders money. They want the government --- you and me --- to bail them out.”
Finally, Vina Colley , President of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for. Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS) Co-founder of National Nuclear Workers for Justice , stressed that “jurisdiction” for safety standards , even in the 21st Century, fails to have a simple structure. Instead, the rules and regulations vary and are enforced by numerous bureaucratic governmental agencies. The mixture of agencies ensures muddled specifications.
As an example, workers, researchers, or even advocates find they must shuffle through documents from such agencies as NIOSH, CDC, DOE, DOL, EPA, Federal Register, NRC, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as individual activists blogs, countless organizations, and a wide scope of media documents --- most of the latter coming from the non-mainstream news forums.
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Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
