State issues insistent order about leaky Hanford tank

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/03/23/3111801/state-issues-insistent-order-about.html

State issues insistent order about leaky Hanford tank
The Associated Press
March 23, 2014 Updated 3 hours ago

RICHLAND — The state demanded Friday that the federal government begin removing radioactive liquid from a nuclear waste tank at the Hanford Site by Sept. 1.

The state Department of Ecology’s order requires pumping of the double-walled tank to begin about 18 months sooner than what the U.S. Department of Energy proposed.

Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons, and the site contains the nation’s largest dump of radioactive wastes.

Double-walled Tank AY-102 was found to be leaking between its walls in October 2012. While many older single-walled tanks have leaked at Hanford, this is the first of the double-walled tanks found to have leaks.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site



Nuclear reactors line the riverbank at the Hanford Site along the Columbia River in January 1960. The N Reactor is in the foreground, with the twin KE and KW Reactors in the immediate background. The historic B Reactor, the world's first plutonium production reactor, is visible in the distance.

The Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including: Hanford Project, Hanford Works, Hanford Engineer Works or HEW and Hanford Nuclear Reservation or HNR. Established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project in the town of Hanford in south-central Washington, the site was home to the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor in the world.[1] Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first nuclear bomb, tested at the Trinity site, and in Fat Man, the bomb detonated over Nagasaki, Japan.

During the Cold War, the project was expanded to include nine nuclear reactors and five large plutonium processing complexes, which produced plutonium for most of the more than 60,000 weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.[2][3] Nuclear technology developed rapidly during this period, and Hanford scientists produced many notable technological achievements. Many of the early safety procedures and waste disposal practices were inadequate, and government documents have since confirmed that Hanford's operations released significant amounts of radioactive materials into the air and the Columbia River, which still threatens the health of residents and ecosystems.[4]

The weapons production reactors were decommissioned at the end of the Cold War, but the decades of manufacturing left behind 53 million US gallons (200,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste,[5] an additional 25 million cubic feet (710,000 m3) of solid radioactive waste, 200 square miles (520 km2) of contaminated groundwater beneath the site[6] and occasional discoveries of undocumented contaminations that slow the pace and raise the cost of cleanup.[7]

The Hanford site represents two-thirds of the nation's high-level radioactive waste by volume.[8] Hanford is currently the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States[9][10] and is the focus of the nation's largest environmental cleanup.[2] While most of the current activity at the site is related to the cleanup project, Hanford also hosts a commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station, and various centers for scientific research and development, such as the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the LIGO Hanford Observatory.

[madokie]

1. We really lost our way

with the development of nuclear weapons. With that came nuclear power plants which when under ideal conditions they're relatively 'safe' but when something out of the normal happens they can and do go bad in a big way. If they knew how to control things once they did get out of control that would be one thing but with Chernobyl and Fukushima it's seen that is not the case. What they should have learned from this site, Hanford, alone should have given them pause to not go any further in development of so called peaceful nuclear energy until they have answers to these questions of what the fuck do you do with a nuclear reactor once it gets out of control.
All these years later we're still left with tons and tons of dangerous nuclear waste. Its maddening to say the least

[pscot]

2. It's surprising that 50 years of cost+ contracts

to some of our largest corporations have failed to solve Hanford's problem. Or not.

[madokie]

3. It seems the problems are insurmountable

a perfect reason to not be using that technology to begin with. IMO