Radioactively contaminated nickle-63 is waiting at Oak Ridge, Tenn. for release. Ideal for batteries. Update, Haddam Neck nuclear plant case-by-case case for release to Idaho US Ecology. Definition of Low Level Radioactive Waste.

That radioactive nickle from the enriching of uranium for nuclear reactor fuel is being stored at Oak Ridge,Tennessee.
It was used to concentrate uranium-235, and separate out the other uraniums such as U-238 and U-234.

The Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant, at the time of its construction to produce plutonium to make our nuclear bombs during World War II, was the largest industrial building in the WORLD!!

Just thought that might interest you.

These uraniums, various isotopes, have half-lives of tens of thousands to millions and billions of years. A “half-life” means that half the radioactivity will be gone in say 1 million years. But the other half will still be there. And after another half-lifeís worth, of say, that million years, half of what remained after the first million years would still be there.

In other words, in two million years, one quarter of the radioactivity would still be there. And experts consider that any radionuclide remains
“hazardous” for 10-20 half-lives. So, if one of these uraniums had a half-life of one million years, then it would be considered hazardous for 10-20 MILLION years. A very very very long time. To possibly cause cancer and mutations and miscarriages and disease and disorder in the environment of planet Earth, with but minuscule fractions of grams-worth of potency to do these deeds randomly.

For example, one microgram of plutonium, a radionuclide which comes out of the fission of uranium, can cause lung cancer after
it deposits up in your lung cell cul-de-sac called your “alveoli.” One microgram is one MILLIONTH of one gram. And there are 454 grams in one pound. Do the math, and that shall give you 454 MILLION possible lung cancers from just one pound of plutonium. These lung cancers may take 20 or 30 years to develop to kill you. Some of us will not get any cancer, but some of us will. And no marker on your gravestone, or lung tissue by our pathologists of today, as to what caused that cancer in you.

Anyway, there is this nickle waiting for the Department of Energy [DOE] to REVERSE its ban on recycling potentially radioactive metal, so that it can then be released into the “marketplace” un-regulated, de-monitored, “free” to pass
along the chain of profit and promotion. But right now, radioactive nickle is prohibited from commercial recycling by a DOE moratorium and suspension in 2000.

Our supposed watchdog agency re nuclear goods and bads, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC], has delayed a rulemaking that might have been used as a justification by the Department of Energy to release potentially radioactive metals for commercial recycling.

Of course, it would be better for the waste generators if this
wicked stuff could be SOLD at a profit, to possibly enter your zipper or baby stroller stainless steel and emit some becquerels that could mutate a few cells and possibly cause some awfully tragic cancer growth. That is how it would work, if things happen as orchestrated out of Geneva by Don Cool and his transportation regulation sym-phony.

For America now stands on the precipice of having its radioactive metals and materials de-monitored, though they always have been monitored. In fact, we have, or our irresponsible government, has, approved transportaton regulations [TSR-1 “IAEA” transportation document]
that would exempt more radioactive materials from regulatory control in transit. The rule passed in January 2004, and went into effect in October 2004. [“IAEA” stands for International Atomic Energy Agency. Not an impartial regulatory agency.]

However, NIRS [Nuclear Information and Resource Service] and four other organizations are challenging that transport rule in an effort to stop deregulation in transport.

The NRC was about to make a rule through their bureaucratic process that would have provided an across the board exemption for the release of radioactive metal(s), soil, rubble, roads, equipment, tools, etc., to go to non-nuclear destinationsÖ And to set up a process for radioactive metals to be released into commerce.

Fortunately, such rulemaking has been put on hold until 2007, states Diane DíArrigo of NIRS. Yet, according to Ms. DíArrigo >> “In fact, the rule making that is on hold would have allowed some radioactive waste to go to regular garbage dumps with no public notification and no further review by the NRC.”
Still, the NRC is going under the radar by considering applications from nuclear generators for release of radioactive materials and such via case by case application.

Let us consider this paragraph as quoted above:

From
http://www.techreview.com/articles/05/06/wo/wo_061605brown.asp

Super-DEC Cells for NASA

“Some deep space missions may require stronger — and more expensive — stuff than tritium. Gadeken is talking with Oak Ridge National Laboratory about developing a DEC Cell based on Nickel-63, which is generated there exclusively. According to Gadeken, it’s as safe as tritium, yet emits three and a half times more energy and has a half-life of over 100 years. “Nickle-63 is extremely attractive for this application, but the market would have to be created for it,” he says.”

Hmmmmmm…..See what is going on??
That there nickle is potentially available, ready to be employed/deployed in these batteries. And they already sell tritium powered watches on the internet to regular old consumers. Tritium has a half life of 12.5 years; hazardous life then of 125-250 years. Good for shelf life; bad if it gets into your body-cells.

And what about those terrorists? Release radioactive metals unmonitored, and what if these could be collected in vast enough amounts to concentrate them inside a “dirty bomb?” We worry about the black match-striking material on our matchboxes that we have, and crystal meth making. Our DEA is going after those sticky floored crystal meth labs in shacks all over the country, especially in the midwest.

Nickle-63 with its 100 year half life. Hazardous life
of 1000 to 2000 years. Can we make the leap from NASA to Walmart?? Technology hatheth no brakes?? Hope it does, though.
What do you think?

Alas, what about an example of a case-by-case basis attempt by Connecticut Yankee to get rid of its broken down decommissioned nuclear plant parts? They want to send as much as possible anywhere they can.

Before reading this, remember the following information from NIRS and their sorting out of info re “low level radioactive waste” which is what the NRC tried to de-regulate to go into your dumps circa 1990, and outraged enough of America to sheepishly withdraw such an attempt back then, and ship the attempting over to Geneva with ole Don Cool and many other NRC staff.
[To be specific, Congress was forced to revoke the NRC’s “Below Regulatory Concern” [BRC] deregulation policies in the year of 1992. But the NRC pursued deregulation anyway via a renewed effort, and via the exemptions in the nuclear transport regulations, by participating internationally in Geneva with Don Cool et al]:

“Low-Level” Radioactive Waste

is one of the most misleading terms ever created.
In the U.S., it is all nuclear waste that is not legally
high-level waste, some transuranic waste, or mill tailings.

High-Level Radioactive Waste is: the irradiated fuel from the cores of nuclear reactors, the liquid and sludge wastes that are left over after irradiated fuel has been reprocessed [a procedure used to extract uranium and plutonium], the solid that would result from efforts to solidify that liquid and sludge from reprocessing.

Transuranic Waste is material contaminated with
radioactive elements heavier than uranium, such as
plutonium, neptunium, americium and curium.
These elements: have extremely long hazardous
lives–hundreds of thousands to millions of years
and emit alpha radiation a type of radiation that is
especially dangerous if inhaled or swallowed.
Some transuranic waste is allowed in the “low-level”
radioactive waste category. In 1983, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) adopted regulations on land disposal of radioactive waste (lOCFR61), it increased the allowable concentration of transuranics in “low-level” radioactive waste.

Uranium Mill tailings: resulting from mining and milling uranium for weapons and commercial reactors, are not usually included in the “low-level” waste category, but may be handled with it
in some states. The large volumes of these wastes, which will emit radiation for centuries, pose serious health problems.

What is “low-level” radioactive waste ?

“Low-Level” Radioactive Waste includes:

Irradiated Components and Piping:
reactor hardware and pipes that are in continual contact with highly radioactive water for the 20 to 30 years the reactor operates. The metal becomes “activated” or radioactive itself from bombardment by neutrons that are released when energy is produced.
Also called Irradiated Primary System Components.

Control Rods: from the core of nuclear power plants–rods that regulate and stop the nuclear reactions in the reactor core.

Poison Curtains: which absorb neutrons from the water in the reactor core and irradiated fuel [high level waste] pool.

Resins, Sludges, Filters and Evaporator Bottoms: from cleansing the water that circulates around the irradiated fuel in the reactor vessel and in the fuel pool, which holds the irradiated fuel when it is removed from the core.

Entire Nuclear Power Plants if and when they are dismantled.
This includes, for example, from a typical 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor building floor: over 13,000 tons of contaminated concrete and over 1,400 tons of contaminated reinforcing steel bar.

The highly radioactive and long-lived reactor wastes
are included in the “low-level” waste category along
with the much less concentrated and generally much
shorter-lived wastes from medical treatment and
diagnosis and some types of scientific research.
radioactive concentration vs volume

The nuclear industry and government commonly
describe “low-level” waste in terms of volume
although there can be a tremendous concentration
of radioactivity in a small package and a small concentration in a big package. The amount of radioactivity, measured in CURIES, indicates how much radioactive energy is being emitted by the waste.
[1 Curie = 37,000,000,000 or 37 Billion
disintegrations or radioactive emissions per second
from a radioactive material.]

The medical waste from diagnosis and treatment
shipped in one year from most states usually gives
off a fraction of one curie of radiation.

In contrast, each nuclear reactor generates
hundreds and thousands of curies in “low-level” waste every year.

Nuclear reactor waste is concentrated: Solidified
liquid emits about 2 curies per cubic meter;
Filter/Demineralizer sludges emit about 10 curies per cubic meter; Cartridge filters emit about 20 curies per cubic meter; Demineralizer resins emit about 160 curies per cubic meter.
Primary Components average 1000 to
5000 curies per cubic meter.

********************************************

OK, now. Got it?? So, now:

How about this wordage from CY-04-168
Docket No. 50-213
RE: 10 CFR 20.2002
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Attn: Document Control Desk ????

They want to: “dispose of demolition debris from decommissioning of the
Haddam Neck Plant [HDN] located at 362 Injun Hollow Road in East Hampton, Conn.
to the US Ecology Idaho Facility, located in Grand View, Idaho.”

They report that there has been “performed a conservative radiological assessment of the demolition debris material [that has] determined that the potential dose to workers involved in the transportation and placement of the waste at the site and to members of the public after
closure of the facility as a consequence of the proposed waste disposal will be no more than a few millirem per year Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE), and a small fraction of NRC limits for exposure to members of the public of 25 millirem/yr TEDE.”

This is for real, my fellow Earthlings.

Some poor suckers, members of the public, it will be OK to smackk with 25 millirems per year. Thank you. You get about 200 millirems per year of “background radiation” per year, if we do not count radon exposure.
About 400 millirems if we do count radon.

How do they make this “determination”?? Is it like the determination that the chance for the Challenger disaster-explosion would be 1 in 100,000 — but after the explosion was deemed to be 1 in 76??? This is risk assessment guess-jive. If you are exposed to a concentration of radioactivity that
you did not detect because you forget to take your geiger counter out of the garage when the truck spilt the radioactive waste on your lawn, well, too
bad. Canceration and desperation is your future. Let that radioactive waste go. It is “Below Regulatory Concern.” Nah, donít even worry about it. It just might accumulate somehow in that spent fuel wall they are transporting to Idaho or Tennessee. Or better, if they can be approved to just loft it off the truckbed into your dump, that would make it easier to keep making that
nuclear waste in your nuclear power plant or nuclear weapons facility.
Wind?
Solar?
Hydrogen cells??
Donít be a sissy.
But, rich as I am, do NOT put
that waste next to my house, or let those billion gallons per day of once-through-cooling
water empty into my private pond!! Not from the nuclear power plant in
Connecticut or New York or California. Uh-Uh!! Not today, or in any future to impact on my already hazardous life!

Here is some more from that same public document re Haddam Neck

“The material will not be isolated or dedicated to a single burial cell at the US Ecology Idaho facility. Rather, it will be co-mingled with other radioactive
and non radioactive waste material. The material will be covered at the end of each workday with an asphaltic spray to lockdown contamination, in accordance with US Ecology Idaho facility requirements.”

But there may be long-lived radionuclides in these parts with those long half-lives we mentioned before in the thousands and millions and billions of years. How long will that “asphaltic spray” last to hold and “lockdown” these cancer-causing
radionuclides??

The document goes on to say that “in the process of characterizing the radiologically contaminated buildings on site…Efforts to date have concentrated on the buildings containing the highest contamination; however, some radiological data is available on all buildings in the radiological
controlled area. The demolition plans are to scabble off surface concrete where contamination levels are high and to dispose of this material at radioactive waste disposal facilities other than the US Ecology, Idaho facility.

Areas of concrete where high neutron flux has caused significant activation of the concrete are also not proposed for disposal at the US Ecology
Idaho facility.

After dispositioning the surface contaminated material containing the highest levels of radioactivity, the remainder of the building and
structures will be demolished and it is proposed that much of the debris be shipped to the US Ecology facility near Grand View, Idaho.

For the purpose of determining the radioactivity level of material to be shipped to the US Ecology facility, concrete core sampling is most appropriate as these portions of the applicable buildings
will be demolished in total. The demolition process results in mixing the surface and volumetric contamination with the remainder of the wall and
floor material. This makes the average concentration in the total thickness of the wall or floor appropriate in determining the overall radioactivity content of the waste material.

Additional sampling will be conducted during building demolition to confirm radionuclide waste concentrations and scaling factors where currently available information is limited.

It is also appropriate to use average values as the dose limits are in terms of annual exposures. Any variation of the waste shipments would be incorporated in the average of all shipments made during a year.

Structural material other than concrete are expected to have only low levels of surface contamination and are therefore bounded by the characteristics of the concrete intended for disposal. Any rebar encased in concrete is also expected to be much less than the surface contamination levels as it is located below the depth to which most of the surface
contamination is located and therefore can be treated the same as the concrete.”

Average values and dose limits as estimates, not specifically measured. Ship this stuff all the way to Idaho. The people in Idaho, incidentally, are fighting all this. Again, what about pockets of concentration missed by sampling and
averaging?? What about just isolating the entire plant and its radioactive parts in a licensed nuclear waste facility?? Look at what these determinators want to deem unworriable as parts of the plant, again from the actual document we are quoting from:

The portions of site buildings (including structural material after removal of contaminated system piping and components) that CYAPCO proposes to dispose of at the US Ecology Facility are as follows:

* Containment Walls (including the containment liner) above
elevation 17.5′,
* Containment Floors/Structures that are inside the
containment liner,
* Residual Heat Exchanger (RHR) Pit (a Portion of Auxiliary
Building) Floors,
RHR Pit Walls,
ï Waste Disposal Building Floors,
ï Waste Disposal Building Walls and Ceilings,
* Remainder of Auxiliary Building above the RHR Pit,

* SPENT FUEL POOL WALLS AND FLOOR, [my CAPS]

* Remainder of Fuel Building above elevation 17.5′,
* Service Building above elevation 17.5′, and
* Other Miscellaneous Radiological Controlled Area (RCA)
Structures, Soil and Asphalt.”

Sound good? Those “Spent Fuel Pool Walls and Floors” though. They do worry me. “Spent Fuel Pool” is where they put the control rod complex after it gets too radioactive, too hot,
and does not work safely anymore. How can those pool floors and walls be OK to just ship over to a non-nuclear site??

De-regulate those nuclear waste radioactive materials and send them wherever the nuclear power people want to. Cancer be denied.
Itís all good. Isnít it??

Be on the lookout. And do not expect perfect lockdown of contamination au nucleare radioactive.

Call your Congressperson ASAP at these numbers and tell them to stop TSR-1 enactment, no release of radioactive materials, no de-monitoring
of them. They must all be monitored forever, the way they always have been.
Unless they are the mini-portion of it all, the very short half-lived medical waste radionuclides that have their half lives in the 6 and 18 HOUR ranges.

To reach your Senator call: 202-225-3121
To reach your House Of Representative person:
202-224-3121

Do your duty as a citizen. Tell your local representatives too, and write a
letter to your local newspaper. And tell your best — and worst — friends, and anyone else that will listen. We do not want to make America a radioactive graveyard, while we sat and watched ESPN or Judge Judy instead of getting onto our ballpoints or keyboards.

All the Best,
Conrad Miller M.D.
Copyright 2005