Monday
Feb062012
Catastrophic Risks of GE BWR Mark I High-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Pools
Beyond Nuclear has published a new backgrounder, "Catastrophic Risks of GE BWR Mark I High-Level Radioactive Waste Storage Pools."
Radioactive Waste
No safe, permanent solution has yet been found anywhere in the world - and may never be found - for the nuclear waste problem. In the U.S., the only identified and flawed high-level radioactive waste deep repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada has been canceled. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an end to the production of nuclear waste and for securing the existing reactor waste in hardened on-site storage.
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Entries from February 1, 2012 - February 29, 2012
February 6, 2012Friday
Feb032012
Worker falls in "radioactive waste pool" at San Onofre
The North County Times reports that yet another incident has occurred at the problem-plagued San Onofre nuclear power plant. A worker lost his balance and fell into the radioactive waste pool. However, the exact type of pool he fell into is not entirely clear. Was it the high-level radioactive waste storage pool? Was it the reactor cavity, after irradiated nuclear fuel (now high-level radioactive waste) had been removed from the core and transferred into the high-level radioactive waste storage pool? Also, exactly what tests were performed on the worker? Were appropriate tests done to confirm the presence of internal radioactive contamination, or not?
A similar incident occurred many years ago at the high-level radioactive waste storage pool at the University of Michigan's research reactor in Ann Arbor. And, as documented in Dave Lochbaum's book Fission Stories, a scuba diver sent into the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant's high-level radioactive waste storage pool to make repairs accidentally swam too close to irradiated fuel, exposing his hand to a very high dose of hazardous gamma radiation.
