Tag Archives: Manhattan Project

Nuclear board warns of Washington tank explosion risk

April 3, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Underground tanks that hold a stew of toxic, radioactive waste at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site pose a possible risk of explosion, a nuclear safety board said in advance of confirmation hearings for the next leader of the Energy Department.

State and federal officials have long known that hydrogen gas could build up inside the tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, leading to an explosion that would release radioactive material. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recommended additional monitoring and ventilation of the tanks last fall, and federal officials were working to develop a plan to implement the recommendation.

The board expressed those concerns again Monday to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and had sought the board’s perspective about cleanup at Hanford.

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It spends billions of dollars to clean up the 586-square-mile site neighboring the Columbia River, the southern border between Washington and Oregon and the Pacific Northwest‘s largest waterway.

Federal officials have said six underground tanks at the site are leaking into the soil, threatening the groundwater, and technical problems have delayed construction of a plant to treat the waste for long-term safe disposal.

Those issues are likely to come up during confirmation hearings next week for Energy Secretary-nominee Ernest J. Moniz. The fears of explosion and contamination could give Washington and Oregon officials more clout as they push for cleanup of the World War II-era site.

Central to the cleanup is the removal of 56 million gallons of highly radioactive, toxic waste left from plutonium production from underground tanks. Many of the site’s single-shell tanks, which have just one wall, have leaked in the past, and state and federal officials announced in February that six such tanks are leaking anew.

“The next Secretary of Energy – Dr. Moniz – needs to understand that a major part of his job is going to be to get the Hanford cleanup back on track, and I plan to stress that at his confirmation hearing next week,” Wyden said in a statement Tuesday.

The nuclear safety board warned about the risk of explosion to Wyden, who wanted comment on the safety and operation of Hanford’s tanks, technical issues that have been raised about the design of a plant to treat the waste in those tanks, and Hanford’s overall safety culture.

In addition to the leaks, the board noted concerns about the potential for hydrogen gas buildup within a tank, in particular those with a double wall, which contain deadly waste that was previously pumped out of the leaking single-shell tanks.

“All the double-shell tanks contain waste that continuously generates some flammable gas,” the board said. “This gas will eventually reach flammable conditions if adequate ventilation is not provided.”

All of the tanks are actively ventilated, which means they have blowers and fans to prevent a buildup of hydrogen gas, and those systems are monitored to ensure they are operating as intended, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Could This Be the Future of Nuclear Power?

March 11, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By Maxx Chatsko, The Motley Fool

Filed under: Investing

Let’s start off with a quiz. Name at least one element that fuels nuclear reactors. I don’t normally trust strangers over the Internet, but I’m fairly confident that you were able to identify uranium as the correct answer. Now, name an element that you think is most likely to be the driving force behind the industry in 2050 and beyond. Chances are you went chalk and named uranium again.

No one can blame you for that, but you may want to consider the potential of thorium. After being developed side by side with traditional uranium reactors shortly after World War 2, thorium reactors fell into the dustbin of history despite sporting several key advantages. Thorium is cheaper, more abundant, and safer to use than uranium and received heightened attention after the Fukushima accident several years ago. Now, several macro trends have a growing list of companies and governments across the globe resurrecting the technology. Is it time to prepare your portfolio for a thorium future?

History is a winner’s game
American nuclear physicist Dr. Alvin Weinberg made major contributions to nuclear technology — from the Manhattan Project to reactor architecture — over his 18 year tenure as Research Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. What began in the 1950s as an attempt to construct a nuclear-powered long-range aircraft (The Aircraft Reactor Experiment) led to Weinberg’s lifelong dedication to molten salt reactors, or MSRs. Why haven’t you heard of this technology? The MSR Program at Oak Ridge succumbed to political pressures in the early 1970s and was all but forgotten. Losers rarely become the authors of history.

That doesn’t mean the technology didn’t work. It was even considered competitive with early light water reactors, or LWRs, which are now the industry standard. One theory as to why the program was cancelled is that thorium reactors could not be used for weapons production, which was an important concern of politicians during the Cold War. Of course, today this attribute would be emphatically filed under the “advantages” column.

While Cold War fears were certainly a nail in the coffin, Dr. H.G. MacPherson, who worked on the project with Weinberg, outlined a more complete history of the MSR Program (link opens PDF) for Nuclear Science and Engineering in 1985. And while I’m a big fan of nerding-out on technical and scientific papers, The Motley Fool doesn’t keep me around to explain the intricate details behind thorium reactors. For a more thorough examination of the element and technology, I would direct you to the World Nuclear Association’s page on thorium.

Behold, the power of Thor
The leading design for a thorium MSR is the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, or LFTR. What’s so great about it? These types of reactors are capable of operating at atmospheric pressure, which essentially makes them meltdown proof. Imagine that. Such reactors would ease fears about the accidental release of radioactive material and could save hundreds of millions of dollars on the construction …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Articles of Interest

How Gals Helped Nuke Japan Without Knowing It

March 9, 2013 Bartle Doo 1 Comment

By Neal Colgrass Only here could “hillbilly girls” outpace PhD’s in a contest to enrich uranium. Dubbed “Site X” during World War II, the atomic research facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., was secretly building the A-bomb. It also hired many young women without telling them about the Manhattan Project, according to a new… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Great Finds

News, Politics, Government

Manhattan Project special agent dies in NYC

March 7, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Nathan Safferstein, a counterintelligence agent on the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II, died Tuesday night at his home in the Bronx after a long illness, his family said.

He was 92.

The genial native of Bridgeport, Conn., was barely 21 when circumstances suddenly propelled him from his job as a supermarket manager into the stealth world of a special agent.

Wartime security of the atomic bomb project being paramount, he eavesdropped on phone calls of scientists and engineers in Los Alamos, N.M., to make sure no secrets were leaked, and delivered bomb-making uranium and top-secret messages. He also scrawled his signature on the first A-bomb, called “Little Boy,” that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945.

A second atom bomb leveled Nagasaki on Aug. 9, and Japan surrendered six days later.

“We had that feeling right from day one that this was the instrument that was going to end this war,” Safferstein said in a 2005 interview conducted by one of his sons, Michael, along with an oral history project moderator. “In my heart, I know that it saved us from the invasion of Japan and millions of casualties that would have come about.”

The Washington-based National World War II Memorial online registry includes a photo of Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, who ran the top-secret Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Los Alamos, presenting Safferstein with a Bronze Star medal after the war.

Safferstein had been working as a supermarket manager in Fairfield, Conn., when his life took an extraordinary turn. A customer at the supermarket told her brother — an Army intelligence commander — about a bright young prospect. Soon, paperwork was filled out, recommendations made.

Most of Safferstein’s activities remained a mystery to his family and friends, including his future bride, Bernice Klein.

One day, he was ordered to join about 100 other men in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal.

“It seemed like a thing out of a Bond movie,” he recalled years later. “We were all dressed in our Adam hats and cover cloth coats. … Ten or 12 agents would drop off: Syracuse, Buffalo, Chicago. The train kept going west.”

Articles of Interest

Sequestration Could Hinder Hanford Nuclear Reservation Cleanup, Says Washington Governor

February 28, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

By Eric M. Johnson
SEATTLE, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Washington state Governor Jay Inslee on Wednesday warned billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts could hamper the U.S. government‘s ability to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation site in his state, where six underground tanks were last week revealed to be leaking.
Inslee, a Democrat who took office last month, said the six single-shell tanks at the decommissioned nuclear plant near the Columbia River in southern Washington state could leak about 1,000 gallons (3,785 liters) of radioactive sludge annually.
That is in line with the latest U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) estimate released this week, which said the six tanks were leaking at a rate of less than 3 gallons a day.
“These tanks, we were told by the federal government, were stabilized years ago. We know that is not the case,” Inslee told reporters in Washington state capital Olympia. “The federal government has a legally binding obligation to both remove this material and to make sure we curb this leakage.”
The Department of Energy did not immediately return calls seeking comment but has previously said the government is committed to cleaning up the site.
The 586-square-mile nuclear site was established near the town of Hanford in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government program that developed the first atomic bombs.
Weapons production at the site resulted in more than 43 million cubic yards of radioactive waste and 130 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Oversight of cleaning up Hanford is shared between Washington Department of Ecology, the EPA and the Department of Energy, but the money behind it almost entirely federal.
Inslee voiced concerns that $85 billion in automatic government spending cuts set to take effect on March 1 – known as “sequestration” – could hurt a decades-long cleanup effort that is projected to ultimately cost the federal government some $114.8 billion before the end of this century. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

News, Politics, Government

6 underground Hanford nuclear tanks leaking, Washington governor says

February 22, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Six underground radioactive waste tanks at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday.

Inslee made the announcement after meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. Last week it was revealed that one of the 177 tanks at south-central Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation was leaking liquids. Inslee called the latest news “disturbing.”

The tanks, which already are long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons (liters) of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy said earlier that liquid levels were decreasing in one of the tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels.

The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The government spends $2 billion each year on Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The cleanup is expected to last decades.

Central to cleanup is the construction of a plant to convert millions of gallons (liters) of waste into glasslike logs for safe, secure storage. The $12.3 billion plant is billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule.

Inslee and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber have championed building additional tanks to ensure safe storage of the waste until the plant is completed. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said earlier this week that he shares their concerns about the integrity of the tanks, but that he wants more scientific information to determine it’s the correct way to spend scarce money.

Wyden noted the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site — and the challenges associated with ridding it of its toxic legacy — will be a subject of upcoming hearings and a higher priority in Washington D.C.

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