Can't Get Over Losing You
This sort of thing makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. And then nauseous, then dizzy, then I can't breathe, and so forth.
I used to work with nuclear power. Of all the things one could lose, I don't understand how it could be spent fuel rods. Which, incidentally, I do not think would be sent to a "low-level" waste storage facility. Spent fuel is by definition high-level waste.
For example: "Spent nuclear fuel is used fuel from nuclear power plants. Spent fuel contains some reusable material that may be recovered. That recovery process is called reprocessing, and everything left over after the reusable material has been recovered is classified as high-level radioactive waste. The United States is not presently reprocessing spent nuclear fuel."
You might ask, but Jude, since the rods were removed in 1979, a good long 25 years ago, doesn't that mean that the dangerous isotopes involved would have mostly decayed away by now?
Dream on.
The majority of the uranium in commercial fuel rods is the most commonly found isotope, U-238. U-238 is a bad fissile fuel, though, and, as such, the rods are enriched (a mechanical process done to separate the different isotopes of a single element based on their atomic weights) to 2-3% U-235. Both isotopes decay through spontaneous fission (releasing neutrons and gamma radiation) and alpha decay (releasing alpha particles). U-235 is the nasty stuff that they make atomic bombs out of--the good thing is that there wouldn't be enough in this spent fuel rod to make a nuclear explosive.
U-235 has a half-life of slightly over 700 million years. You heard me. 700 million.
U-238's half-life is about 4.5 BILLION years.
To put that in geological terms, 700 million years ago, there were no plants or animals yet. None. That was in the Proterozoic Era in the Precambrian period. 4.5 Billion years ago, THE EARTH WAS BORN.
There's no way that uranium isotopes are going to decay away any time soon. It's commonly given that it takes five half-lives for a substance to be considered a non-concern, radioactively speaking.
So, there's no danger of this stuff being used to make atomic explosives, as noted. However, it's dangerous, dangerous stuff. Lethal. And there's no excuse for it being "lost."
This sort of thing makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. And then nauseous, then dizzy, then I can't breathe, and so forth.
I used to work with nuclear power. Of all the things one could lose, I don't understand how it could be spent fuel rods. Which, incidentally, I do not think would be sent to a "low-level" waste storage facility. Spent fuel is by definition high-level waste.
For example: "Spent nuclear fuel is used fuel from nuclear power plants. Spent fuel contains some reusable material that may be recovered. That recovery process is called reprocessing, and everything left over after the reusable material has been recovered is classified as high-level radioactive waste. The United States is not presently reprocessing spent nuclear fuel."
You might ask, but Jude, since the rods were removed in 1979, a good long 25 years ago, doesn't that mean that the dangerous isotopes involved would have mostly decayed away by now?
Dream on.
The majority of the uranium in commercial fuel rods is the most commonly found isotope, U-238. U-238 is a bad fissile fuel, though, and, as such, the rods are enriched (a mechanical process done to separate the different isotopes of a single element based on their atomic weights) to 2-3% U-235. Both isotopes decay through spontaneous fission (releasing neutrons and gamma radiation) and alpha decay (releasing alpha particles). U-235 is the nasty stuff that they make atomic bombs out of--the good thing is that there wouldn't be enough in this spent fuel rod to make a nuclear explosive.
U-235 has a half-life of slightly over 700 million years. You heard me. 700 million.
U-238's half-life is about 4.5 BILLION years.
To put that in geological terms, 700 million years ago, there were no plants or animals yet. None. That was in the Proterozoic Era in the Precambrian period. 4.5 Billion years ago, THE EARTH WAS BORN.
There's no way that uranium isotopes are going to decay away any time soon. It's commonly given that it takes five half-lives for a substance to be considered a non-concern, radioactively speaking.
So, there's no danger of this stuff being used to make atomic explosives, as noted. However, it's dangerous, dangerous stuff. Lethal. And there's no excuse for it being "lost."
posted by Jude at 10:10 AM
