97 replies to this topic

[Fran]

Have you seen David Milliband's offer to let local councils volunteer to have nuclear waste buried in their area in return for investment?

That's all it is at the moment; all vountary, no specific places suggested and no councils expressing a view.

But if Bucks mooted considering the offer, would anyone be in favour? (I suppose it might kill the maggots?)

[KevinR]

Don't know about Bucks in general but I doubt the Chiltern chalk would make a very good final resting site for radioactive waste - seems to need something more like granite to stop it reaching the water table.

[Tallguy]

I can speak with modest knowledge on this topic but haven't seen the latest proposals.

At a recent conference I organised, one of the speakers was from Nirex. He spoke on this very topic.

A very detailed presentation followed informing us on the required depth, strata, physical location etc. The waste is currently in 37 surface sites and a long term solution needs to be found. It could be 2035, possibly longer before it opens.

The plan is for one, but there could be two.

Chalk wouldn't be stable enough I don't think - it really needs rock or heavy clay.

[Fran]

Chalk wouldn't be stable enough I don't think - it really needs rock or heavy clay.

That's reassuring. I think this is one subject where most people will be unashamed NIMBYs - which doesn't solve the problem of what to do with it though.

Last year, when the (ex?) Australian PM floated the idea of importing foreign nuclear waste and burying it in the outback (for a substantial fee), even though there were few with "back yards" nearby, it was understandably unpopular with most Australians, I believe.

[Adrian]

That's reassuring. I think this is one subject where most people will be unashamed NIMBYs - which doesn't solve the problem of what to do with it though.

Last year, when the (ex?) Australian PM floated the idea of importing foreign nuclear waste and burying it in the outback (for a substantial fee), even though there were few with "back yards" nearby, it was understandably unpopular with most Australians, I believe.

I can't say it bothers me at all. I was under the impression that nuclear waste was vitrified anyway, and I live in far greater fear of Diesel particulates than I do of radioactive contamination. I have absolutely no idea why radioactive waste is so terrifying to so many people, there's hardly any of it anyway!

As for Australia, isn't that where a lot of the uranium is mined in the first place? Surely a Uranium mine is the most logical place for nuclear waste?

[Fran]

I can't say it bothers me at all. I was under the impression that nuclear waste was vitrified anyway, and I live in far greater fear of Diesel particulates than I do of radioactive contamination. I have absolutely no idea why radioactive waste is so terrifying to so many people, there's hardly any of it anyway!

As for Australia, isn't that where a lot of the uranium is mined in the first place? Surely a Uranium mine is the most logical place for nuclear waste?

All good points. But the greater the distance you transport it, the greater the chance of something going wrong, whether a road accident and consequent spillage or someone trying to steal it for nefarious purposes.

Hopefully such events are extremely unlikely, and realistically we're all far more likely to be killed by bad habits (smoking, drinking, overeating etc), carelessness (road accidents) or general ill health. However, the human psyche is notoriously bad at evaluating risks and probabilities and the status quo invariably seems safer just because it is familiar. This often makes no logical sense at all, yet at a gut level, procrastination can seem preferable, especially for those like us who don't live near a decommissioned nuclear plant.

Doing nothing can also seem especially attractive to elected officials - leave the problem for someone else to deal with in a few years, rather than be voted out for trying to do something controversial.

[Zoom]

Well that's democracy for you Fran !!! Are you suggesting that a dictatorship or centrally controlled government (eg the Chinese model) would make more efficient decisions about controversial topics ?

[Fran]

Are you suggesting that a dictatorship or centrally controlled government (eg the Chinese model) would make more efficient decisions about controversial topics ?

Yes! Obviously an all-powerful state can potentially implement controversial decisions more easily than a democracy; it's often said that benevolent dictatorship is the most efficient form of government (though who decides what is "benevolent"?).

But I'm not saying that is a good thing and I certainly don't advocate the removal of what democracy we do have!

Given a choice between efficiency and democracy, I’d choose the latter every time (unless I was the benevolent dictator ).

[Alan]

Atomic waste, there is no sanity in it, it just avoids the current problem of globle warming to create another more deadly problem after we are gone, for our future families. Japan still has problems after WWII. This stuff is a Poison, and is nothing else, it can't be disposed of because of how long it lasts, and would you want to risk contamination of water, air & soil etc. The Oil companies have control of most alternitive energies and sit on it until oil is no longer profitable or available. It's time governments took control and chose the options we have and move toward cleaner choices (albeit late), but don't use it as a means to tax us, unless they are will to be transparent and show that every penny collected goes towards solving the problem and not just another tax. I've found a big soap box at this stage of my life, and I'm already playing with "The good life" options and some work well.

[PaulEden]

I find it odd that we discuss this like it's a real danger to us, yet up at GE (or whatever they are called this week) there are two cylcotrons, a couple of kilos of gamma radiation sources and maybe tens of kilos of alpha radiation sources.

I've found a big soap box at this stage of my life, and I'm already playing with "The good life" options and some work well.

I like to shout from the soap box marked pragmatist. Nuclear power is here to stay and it might just be the only reliable energy source left to us when the oil runs out.

A very detailed presentation followed informing us on the required depth, strata, physical location etc. The waste is currently in 37 surface sites and a long term solution needs to be found. It could be 2035, possibly longer before it opens.

The plan is for one, but there could be two.

I rather thought that, and the old Electricity Boards agreed with me, that the waste should be stored above ground at the generating sites.

[a t o m i c]

Atomic waste, there is no sanity in it, it just avoids the current problem of globle warming to create another more deadly problem after we are gone, for our future families. Japan still has problems after WWII. This stuff is a Poison, and is nothing else, it can't be disposed of because of how long it lasts, and would you want to risk contamination of water, air & soil etc. The Oil companies have control of most alternitive energies and sit on it until oil is no longer profitable or available. It's time governments took control and chose the options we have and move toward cleaner choices (albeit late), but don't use it as a means to tax us, unless they are will to be transparent and show that every penny collected goes towards solving the problem and not just another tax. I've found a big soap box at this stage of my life, and I'm already playing with "The good life" options and some work well.

In what sense is vitrified atomic waste MORE dangerous than global warming? I read a statistic once that the total amount of high level waste (spent fuel rods etc) produced by UK nuclear power stations in their lifetime thus far (and the UK had the first nuclear power stations in the world) would not fill the old Wembley stadium.

That's a HELL of a lot of power generation for a small amount of waste material. And just how dangerous is environmental radioactivity anyway? The Chernobyl experience seems to be that it's nowhere near as damaging to human health as had been previously believed.

As to oil companies 'sitting on' alternative energy sources, it's absurd. The reason we use oil and gas is because it's CHEAP. If we could generate/transport/store energy in a cheaper form, then we would do so. Compare the amount of energy stored in a tank of Diesel to ANY alternative - and then look at the price of producing that fuel. Another irritating misconception is that oil will somehow 'run out' - nonsense! Oil has a range of sources and a range of uses. Some sources are much more expensive to exploit, and will not be touched until the price of oil makes it profitable to do so - but as the price of oil climbs (as demand rises and cheap-to-exploit wells run down) other energy sources will become economically attractive. At the moment we use oil to power our cars and gas to heat our houses, but we know that we could do so with solar/wind/hydrothermal etc power too, but that it would cost a LOT more to do so. And that's pretty much all there is to it. It's not a conspiracy (though control of oil resources is) it's just economic logic, and the economic logic of using fossil fuels could well make the Earth uninhabitable for humans.

Give me nuclear power and electric cars, and if I had to live in a town which had no council tax because there was a nuclear waste burial site buried 2km beneath it I'd sleep quite happily in my subsidised bed (you DO realise that there are plenty of places where radioactive Radon gas seeps up out of the ground quite naturally and always has done as far as humans are concerned?).

One last point; Amersham IS a nuclear 'hot spot' (and environemetal monitoring site) thanks to Amersham/GE Healthcare.

[Fran]

Give me nuclear power and electric cars

Hence your nickname on this forum?

As for your comment about the high radiation levels in Chernobyl causing fewer problems than expected, there was an excellent Horizon programme on BBC2 a few weeks ago making that point. For those that didn't see it, the gist was that although the Geiger counters still read very high levels for the environment and the wildlife that has recolonised the area, the animals are breeding successfully, don't have two heads etc.

See this: Wildlife defies Chernobyl radiation

the old Electricity Boards agreed with me

If they agree with you (rather than the other way round), you must be a very powerful person in more ways than one!

[James516]

One last point; Amersham IS a nuclear 'hot spot' (and environemetal monitoring site) thanks to Amersham/GE Healthcare.

That's a good point. How many people want GE Healthcare to leave? And how many would object if they weren't here, and proposed setting up a nuclear isotope manufacturing plant?

The benefits to a community of setting up a nuclear waste storage facility might be pretty big - lots of highly skilled, highly paid jobs. Although as pointed out earlier, Amersham has the wrong type of geography for it to happen here.

[PaulEden]

If they agree with you (rather than the other way round), you must be a very powerful person in more ways than one!

Semantics Let me put it this way. I formed the opinion independently before I know it was policy in the old EB's

[PaulEden]

you DO realise that there are plenty of places where radioactive Radon gas seeps up out of the ground quite naturally and always has done as far as humans are concerned?).

Indeed. Many residents of Dartmoor receive a higher dose of radiation than is deemed safe by the WHO.

[Fran]

The benefits to a community of setting up a nuclear waste storage facility might be pretty big

Yes, but house prices nearby would fall dramatically - which would be very good news for those who don't already own somewhere, but not so good for those that do.

[Alan]

Amersham International
As it was known, was involved in the cold war. GE Health do have a part to play on this stage and yes ther're things there that would cause harm to us. They have a cataloge of products that have life saving uses. That is not nuclear power. Please don't confuse the mankers of energy and medicine. 'Atomic' will have use believe that it will all fit in a football pitch and what????????????????
This is not what you want you're kids to play with, there is no quick fix. Yes the govenment say they want to fix it now? They missed the boat. Let them fight the next elextion on that alone.

[PaulEden]

Amersham International
As it was known, was involved in the cold war. GE Health do have a part to play on this stage and yes ther're things there that would cause harm to us. They have a cataloge of products that have life saving uses. That is not nuclear power. Please don't confuse the mankers of energy and medicine. 'Atomic' will have use believe that it will all fit in a football pitch and what????????????????
This is not what you want you're kids to play with, there is no quick fix. Yes the govenment say they want to fix it now? They missed the boat. Let them fight the next elextion on that alone.

Life saving products that use nuclear isotopes. How do you think an X-ray machine works? Let's be clear about this, there are some potentially VERY dangerous materials stored/manufactured there. I'm not confusing the makers of medicine and energy, but when you say "want your kids to play with (nuclear waste)", you clearly are confused about something.

[roob_the_doob]

Life saving products that use nuclear isotopes. How do you think an X-ray machine works?

Actually, X-rays are not derived from nuclear isotopes. They are produced by bombarding metals with a beam of high energy electrons - a rather more powerful version of the electron beam which generates the picture in old-style (non flat-panel) televisions.

That's not to negate the point though. There are countless products produced by GE/Amersham which use (mainly short-lived) radioactive isotopes for specific diagnostic and/or treatment purposes. For instance, glucose radiolabelled with fluorine-17, which is taken up preferentially by tumours so that the tumours become "visible" when imaged by positron emission tomography.

Smoke alarms also use radioactive isotopes.

[a t o m i c]

Amersham International
As it was known, was involved in the cold war. GE Health do have a part to play on this stage and yes ther're things there that would cause harm to us. They have a cataloge of products that have life saving uses. That is not nuclear power. Please don't confuse the mankers of energy and medicine. 'Atomic' will have use believe that it will all fit in a football pitch and what????????????????
This is not what you want you're kids to play with, there is no quick fix. Yes the govenment say they want to fix it now? They missed the boat. Let them fight the next elextion on that alone.

Nuclear waste is conceptually very simple to deal with - protect it from the environment, keep people away from it and it's perfectly safe. Compared to chemical waste products that are discharged into the air, rivers, ground or sea, it's almost INERT once vitirified. I'd submit that PETROL STATIONS are more of a relevant health hazard than a nuclear waste facility, and Amersham has 5 or 6 current or former sites. I'll bet a little digging under the former sites will reveal clay nicely contaminated with Benzene and all kinds of other carcinogenic compounds.

Really, LEARN about nuclear energy, it's primary benefit is that it produces incredible amounts of energy using tiny amounts of fuel. The waste that it does produce (in very small quantities) is dangerous if not properly stored, but presents less immediate or long term danger to human health than many substances that we use every day. How much toxic Diesel fuel do you absorb through your skin during a year of car fill-ups? How many lung-fulls of Diesel soot do you breathe on the way to and from work? We have to stop demonising nuclear technology if we're ever going to address the Carbon Oxides disaster.

[PaulEden]

There are countless products produced by GE/Amersham which use (mainly short-lived) radioactive isotopes for specific diagnostic and/or treatment purposes. For instance, glucose radiolabelled with fluorine-17, which is taken up preferentially by tumours so that the tumours become "visible" when imaged by positron emission tomography.

Smoke alarms also use radioactive isotopes.

Short lived can be more dangerous. Alpha emitting particles generally have a very short halflife and are quite weak in their penetrating power (stopped by paper) but if ingested can do enormous damage. Gamma emmiters(much longer halflife (uranium and plutonium)) on the other hand need lead shielding to prevent exposure but the actual damage done by the particle is quite limited. It tends to go into tissue and out the other side, leaving a narrow trail of damaged cells.
Thus, if there was a leak from that sire into the watertable, the effects could be quite disastrous and the propagation would be quite unlike Chernbobyl.

[roob_the_doob]

Short lived can be more dangerous. Alpha emitting particles generally have a very short halflife and are quite weak in their penetrating power (stopped by paper) but if ingested can do enormous damage. Gamma emmiters(much longer halflife (uranium and plutonium)) on the other hand need lead shielding to prevent exposure but the actual damage done by the particle is quite limited. It tends to go into tissue and out the other side, leaving a narrow trail of damaged cells.

There is certainly a tendency for isotopes with shorter half-lives to emit more energetic (and therefore dangerous) particles, but it all depends on context, and on the chemistry and biology of the element in question. A lot of seemingly dangerous isotopes end up having very little effect because their biological half-life is very short. Natural bodily functions remove them before much dmage is done. The really dangerous ones are those which either concentrate in a particular area or which become lodged in the body for an extended period. For instance, iodine-137 accumulates in the thyroid and even though it is quickly excreted from the body it can cause a lot of damage in very little time, and heavy-metal gamma emitters tend to accumulate in bones where they give a prolonged dose to the bone marrow leading to leukaemia. Minute particles of e.g. plutonium cause lung cancer when inhaled, because they lodge in the lungs and cause damage over an extended period.

In the example I gave, 17-F is actually a positron emitter. The emitted positron doesn't go very far before it collides with an electron and the two are annihilated, generating in turn two gamma rays, which as you say do very little damage (they are what is detected by the imager). In fact, the half life of 17-F is a mere 66 seconds (so it has to be made fresh, incorporated into glucose and rushed down to the diagnostic services which use it - Harefield hospital is one, I think). Its production doesn't involve any of the more hazardous isotopes - that's one of the features of a synchrotron or cyclotron, they can be used to very specifically produce the isotope you want.

[Alan]

Medical products are vital, and do not pollute, Energy production is were we have the risks of accidents which last time contaminated Scotland, when the accident was in Russia, and the people who capped it died horribly and with in hours because of the levels. We don't just have little bits of waste from little bits of fuel, we have to decommission the stations, they are a bit bigger, and the number we have now, mostly in remote ares only suppling a fraction of our needs. Even here there was an incident when a decomissioned device was taken by road to whereever and luckly due to the time of day and location no one followed it, otherwise they would have be exposed to a fatal dose. There is no quick fix we have to work together and be more responsible, a bit like our new bins as much as we dislike things about them and as much as the council could improve it will improve things for the planet.

[PaulEden]

Even here there was an incident when a decomissioned device was taken by road to whereever and luckly due to the time of day and location no one followed it, otherwise they would have be exposed to a fatal dose.

That's not what happened. You should do your research.

[Fran]

Wow, this is getting very esoteric. Are there any physics tutors out there please as I think some of it is starting to go over my head (though perhaps that's better than in it)...?!

[Kiff]

a bit like our new bins as much as we dislike things about them and as much as the council could improve it will improve things for the planet.

The bins are a financial move, not ecological.... Otherwise they would have us recycling tins, plastics etc. I'm not against the bins, but I am against hiding financial reasons behind ecological justification (i..e being BSed).

[PaulEden]

The bins are a financial move, not ecological.... Otherwise they would have us recycling tins, plastics etc. I'm not against the bins, but I am against hiding financial reasons behind ecological justification (i..e being BSed).

Hear hear!

[James516]

Actually, X-rays are not derived from nuclear isotopes. They are produced by bombarding metals with a beam of high energy electrons - a rather more powerful version of the electron beam which generates the picture in old-style (non flat-panel) televisions.

Umm, X-rays can indeed be produced by isotopes - therapeutic X-rays for use in radiotherapy are produced from isotopes of various elements, such as radioactive cobalt [/physics geekery].

The point that nuclear energy is high-yielding and produces waste which is fine when handled correctly is true. However, we can't rely on people to handle it correctly - there will be spills etc due to human error.

But this problem is not only confined to nuclear waste - we have oil spills around the world on a regular basis, which also devastate the local ecology. Green energy will also have ecological problems - wind farms are not good news for large birds of prey, and offshore windfarms cause havoc for sharks and rays which use electric currents to hunt for prey. Large-scale solar farms cause problems by attracting migratory birds off track.

It's all about being sensible about the risk, and assessing it in relation to the benefit of each form of energy.

[a t o m i c]

The bins are a financial move, not ecological.... Otherwise they would have us recycling tins, plastics etc. I'm not against the bins, but I am against hiding financial reasons behind ecological justification (i..e being BSed).

Quite.

Even more so, there would be new product packaging legislation introduced to prevent most of our 'recyclable' garbage ever getting into the shops. The proof that the govt isn't serious about reducing landfill is that so little has been done to stop rubbish at source. The Germans are miles ahead of us on this, and I'd love to see the Eu do what our government seems unwilling to.

[a t o m i c]

Wow, this is getting very esoteric. Are there any physics tutors out there please as I think some of it is starting to go over my head (though perhaps that's better than in it)...?!

EM radiation is classified as 'ionising' and 'non-ionising'. It's the ionising type that destroys tissue and presents a health hazard - the most obvious types of inoising radiation are 1. gamma rays 2. X-rays and 3. Alpha particles. Alpha particles are easily shielded against, as they are unlikely to penetrate even a cotton shirt, which is a good thing as they are quite damaging. What's less well known is that there is considerable exposure to X-Rays by watching older-type televisions, and that people who habitually take long, high altitude aeroplane flights are exposed to significant levels of ionising 'cosmic' rays that don't usually make through the Earth's atmosphere to affect us ground dwellers. Obviously, anyone working with radioisotopes (basically, materials that emit ionising radiation) understands the hazard and how to monitor and protect themselves - one 'benefit' of radioactive environmental pollution is that it's quite easily detected, unlike many other dangerous environmental pollutants.

We all have to deal with hazardous substances in our day to day lives. We know that it's not sensible to drink bleach, we know not to smoke around evaporating petrol, we know not to breathe cement dust or asbestos fibres; why are we so ignorant about sources of ionising radiation? And is it that ignorance that makes it so scary?