America's nuclear headache: old plutonium with nowhere to go

The U.S. Energy Department's Savannah River Site, with the unfinished building which was meant to make plutonium safe but now may not be finished until 2048, is seen in this aerial image, taken near Aiken, South Carolina, U. S. January 31, 2018. High Flyer © 2018/Handout via REUTERS

AMARILLO, Texas (Reuters) - In a sprawling plant near Amarillo, Texas, rows of workers perform by hand one of the most dangerous jobs in American industry. Contract workers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pantex facility gingerly remove the plutonium cores from retired nuclear warheads.

Although many safety rules are in place, a slip of the hand could mean disaster.

In Energy Department facilities around the country, there are 54 metric tons of surplus plutonium. Pantex, the plant near Amarillo, holds so much plutonium that it has exceeded the 20,000 cores, called “pits,” regulations allow it to hold in its temporary storage facility. There are enough cores there to cause thousands of megatons of nuclear explosions. More are added each day.

The delicate, potentially deadly dismantling of nuclear warheads at Pantex, while little noticed, has grown increasingly urgent to keep the United States from exceeding a limit of 1,550 warheads permitted under a 2010 treaty with Russia. The United States wants to dismantle older warheads so that it can substitute some of them with newer, more lethal weapons. Russia, too, is building new, dangerous weapons…

more: America's nuclear headache: old plutonium with nowhere to go

Trump's NASA Plans Are a Nuclear Disaster Waiting to Happen | Turthout | Nukes in Space

by Linda Pentz Gunter

Photo: Mat Hampson

Earlier this month, President Trump announced that he wants the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to "lead an innovative space exploration program to send American astronauts back to the moon, and eventually Mars." But while couched in patriotic sound bites and pioneering rhetoric that "Florida and America will lead the way into the stars," the risks such ventures would entail -- and the hidden agenda they conceal -- have scarcely been touched upon.

For those of us who watched Ron Howard's nail-biter of a motion picture, Apollo 13,and for others who remember the real-life drama as it unfolded in April 1970, collective breaths were held that the three-man crew would return safely to Earth. They did.

What hardly anyone remembers now -- and certainly few knew at the time -- was that the greater catastrophe averted was not just the potential loss of three lives, tragic though that would have been. There was a lethal cargo on board that, if the craft had crashed or broken up, might have cost the lives of thousands and affected generations to come.

It is a piece of history so rarely told that NASA has continued to take the same risk over and over again, as well as before Apollo 13. And that risk is to send rockets into space carrying the deadliest substance ever created by humans: plutonium.

Now, with the race on to send people to Mars, NASA is at it again with its Kilopower project, which would use fission power for deep space. It would be the first fission reactor launched into space since the 1960s. Fission, commonly used in commercial nuclear reactors, is the process of splitting the atom to release energy. A by-product of fission is plutonium…

Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet | Karl Grossman | August 1, 1997

…One (and possibly the only) journalist who has been consistently on the "nukes in space" beat for more than 30 years is Karl Grossman. When the Apollo 13 movie came out, he picked up the phone and called the film's production company, Imagine Entertainment, to ask why they had not included the higher drama of the plutonium problem. "It was surprising to see Hollywood not utilizing an Armageddon theme," he told Truthout…

…A war in space might not involve nuclear weapons -- for now. But warring satellites could knock out nuclear weapons early warning systems and set other potential disasters in motion. These cataclysmic risks play strongly into the arguments -- enshrined in the recent UN nuclear weapons ban -- that we should be disarming on Planet Earth, not arming in space…

more: Trump's NASA Plans Are a Nuclear Disaster Waiting to Happen

The end of Cassini | Karl Grossman

by Karl Grossman –

The crashing of the nuclear power-energized Cassini space probe into Saturn – a process that began on April 22, Earth Day – will culminate this Friday, September 15. The probe – containing more deadly plutonium than has ever been used on a space device­ – will then reach Saturn’s atmosphere and disintegrate as it plummets to Saturn.

The Cassini space probe was launched 20 years ago despite protests around the world. The $3.27 billion mission constituted a huge risk. Cassini with its 72.3 pounds of Plutonium-238 fuel was launched on a Titan IV rocket on October 17, 1997 despite several Titan IV rockets having earlier blown up on launch…

more: The end of Cassini - NationofChange

Wagging the Plutonium Dog: Japanese Domestic Politics and Its International Security Implications - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Japan has pledged not to produce more plutonium than it can consume. Serious questions are emerging, however, about whether it can uphold this commitment.

READ: Wagging the Plutonium Dog: Japanese Domestic Politics and Its International Security Implications - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

ABOUT THE NUCLEAR POLICY PROGRAM

The Carnegie Nuclear Policy Program is an internationally acclaimed source of expertise and policy thinking on nuclear industry, nonproliferation, security, and disarmament. Its multinational staff stays at the forefront of nuclear policy issues in the United States, Russia, China, Northeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East.

carnegieendowment.org

12.10 PORTLAND, OR: No Nukes NW Public Forum on Nuclear Madness ---Fukushima, Hanford, Columbia Generating Station

Purpose: 
For the public to have an opportunity to ask questions to a 
stellar panel about Fukushima, Hanford, CGS and in turn, 
receive truthful answers to some very deep problems. 

Why:
So people can truly become informed on how radiation is
affecting us in the NW from Fukushima, Hanford and CGS.
The media is mostly misinformed and provides, if anything,
very little accurate info to the public. In turn, the public has
almost no idea regarding what is happening to us in our
daily lives due to the radiation in our environment.

There will be a geiger counter demonstration following the event. If you have geiger counters, please bring them.


The panel:

Mimi German (RadCast)—Spokesperson
for RadCast bringing real time information about radiation in
our environment to the people 24/7. RadCast can be seen
on the Thom Hartmann News Show M-F and heard on
KBOO M-F during the News at 5pm.

Lloyd Marbett (Fukushima)—Founder of the
Oregon Conservancy Foundation and a key link to
decommissioning the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. A
devoted environmentalist for Oregon and for all living
things.

John Bertucci (Fukushima Response Team) --Filmmaker and co-creator of Fukushima Is Here event in San Francisco.

Leslie March (Waste Confidence: Long Term Waste
Storage)—A Founder of the Sierra Club Nuclear Free
Campaign

Chuck Johnson (Columbia Generating Station)—Director
of Joint Nuclear Power Task Force for OR/WA Physicians
for Social Responsibility

Dan Serres (Hanford)—Conservation Director for
Columbia Riverkeeper and member of the Hanford
Advisory Board. He is an advocate for a thorough cleanup
of the Hanford Site.

Kriyanna Feyalove—Moderator. Wife & Mother. Co-founder, Guide, and Healer with Divine Radiant Lotus and Make Love to the Mystery School. Ombudsman for Village Free School. Kin Council member.

Note: We would like to thank David Delk of the Alliance
for Democracy and the Economic Justice Action Group of
the First Unitarian Church for organizing the space for us
tonight. Thank you very much!

facebook event page: No Nukes NW Public Forum on Nuclear Madness ---Fukushima, Hanford, Columbia Generating Station

Boeing’s Meltdown Mess | Boeing ILLEGALLY Poisons Californians with Plutonium Waste Dumping

▶ Boeing ILLEGALLY Poisons Californian's with Plutonium Waste Dumping! - YouTube

Current owner of Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Boeing got the green light to secretly dismantle former nuclear structures including the plutonium fuel fabrication facility without environmental review and public input required by law. Then they are being dumped into hazardous waste Landfills and municipal dumps! 

Plutonium waste in a municipal landfill? PU-239 is by far the most dangerous radioisotope and one of the most toxic substances known to man. It deposits throughout the body, it exposes the blood, kidneys, liver and spleen to cancer causing alpha particle emissions. It's so lethal only a few millionths of an ounce being inhaled will produce with 100 percent certainty~LUNG CANCER! 

All this lands on the heels of the $41.5 million radiation study scandal by the EPA and California's Department of Toxic Substances Control. Where's the money? Where's the study?

see Boeing’s Meltdown Mess - EnviroReporter.com 

Santa Susana Field Laboratory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
    The Santa Susana Field Laboratory is a complex of industrial research and development facilities located on a 2,668-acre (1,080 ha) portion of the Southern California Simi Hills in Simi Valley, California, used mainly for the testing and development of liquid-propellant rocket engines for the United States space program from 1949 to 2006, nuclear reactors from 1953 to 1980 and the operation of a U.S. government-sponsored liquid metals research center from 1966 to 1998. The site is located approximately 7 miles (11 km) northwest from the community of Canoga Park and approximately 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. Sage Ranch Park is adjacent on part of the northern boundary and the community of Bell Canyon along the entire southern boundary... 

..Throughout the years, approximately ten low-power nuclear reactors operated at SSFL, in addition to several "critical facilities": a sodium burn pit in which sodium-coated objects were burned in an open pit; a plutonium fuel fabrication facility; a uranium carbide fuel fabrication facility; and the purportedly largest "Hot Lab" facility in the United States at the time.^[] (A Hot Lab is a facility used for remotely cutting up irradiated nuclear fuel.) Irradiated nuclear fuel from other Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) andDepartment of Energy (DOE) facilities from around the country were shipped to SSFL to be decladded and examined.

The Hot Lab suffered a number of fires involving radioactive materials. For example, in 1957, a fire in the Hot Cell "got out of control and ... massive contamination" resulted. (see: NAA-SR-1941, Sodium Graphite Reactor, Quarterly Progress Report, January–March 1957). In July, 1959, the site suffered a partial nuclear meltdown that has been named "the worst in U.S. history", releasing an undisclosed amount of radiation, but thought to be much more than the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979.  Another radioactive fire occurred in 1971, involving combustible primary reactor coolant (NaK) contaminated with mixed fission products.

At least four of the ten nuclear reactors suffered accidents. The AE6 reactor experienced a release of fission gases in March 1959, the SRE experienced a power excursion and partial meltdown in July 1959; the SNAP8ER in 1964 experienced damage to 80% of its fuel; and the SNAP8DR in 1969 experienced similar damage to one-third of its fuel.

The reactors located on the grounds of SSFL were considered experimental, and therefore had no containment structures. Reactors and highly radioactive components were housed without the large concrete domes that surround modern power reactors... [more]

6.24 WEBINAR: Pull the #Plutonium Pork – End #MOX!

Monday, June 24, 3pm (ET):

Pull the Plutonium Pork – End MOX

(Co-hosted with Georgia WAND)

Developing a disposition method for plutonium from dismantled U.S. nuclear weapons is important, but the Department of Energy’s current plan to make experimental fuel with this weapons’ plutonium is costly, dangerous and on the verge of collapse. It’s also siphoning dollars away from other nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear weapons cleanup priorities. Please join us to learn about the Mixed Oxide Plutonium Fuel Program (MOX) and what can be done to keep this failing program from gobbling more dollars while increasing nuclear dangers.  We’ll also consider what alternatives need to be developed to deal with plutonium from nuclear weapons.   Tom Clements, Southeastern Nuclear Campaign Coordinator for Friends of the Earth andKatherine Fuchs, Program Director of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability will tell us how to pull the plutonium pork and develop needed solutions.  Cohost, Georgia WAND will also discuss the regional impacts of MOX.

“Pull the Plutonium Pork – End MOX” is part of WAND’s Nuclear Budget Webinar Series looking at specific nuclear weapons programs in particular need of Congressional budget cutting scrutiny.  Last month we started with: "Is it time to boot the B61 nuclear bomb?"

> Upcoming Webinar: Pull the Plutonium Pork – End MOX! | WAND Inc.

Hanford officials hid leak evidence from advisory panel | KING5.com Seattle

Hanford officials hid leak evidence from advisory panel | KING5.com Seattle

A government-chartered advisory panel was told last September that materials spotted outside the inner wall of a tank holding radioactive waste at the Hanford Site were possibly the result of a "carbonate buildup," “cross-contamination” or "rainwater leakage."

"We've seen a lot of things and they don't point to any one thing," a senior U.S. Department of Energy official at Hanford told the group on Sept. 7, "so that's why it's hard to speculate what it is."

But internal emails obtained by KING 5, written by the government contractor carrying the multi-billion-dollar contract to manage the tanks, show that tests conducted weeks earlier had already confirmed that the materials found in the safety space of the double-shell tank were highly radioactive and matched the chemical makeup of waste contained in the primary tank... 

more > Hanford officials hid leak evidence from advisory panel | KING5.com Seattle

3.22-23 SEATTLE Fukushima NOT in the NorthWest | Shut Down CGS!!!

TalkingStickTV - Whistleblowers, Weapons, and Waste Pools and Tanks - YouTube: Panel titled "Whistleblowers, Weapons, and Waste Pools and Tanks" with Tom Carpenter of the Hanford Challenge, Holly Barker author of "Bravo for the Marshallese", Gerry Pollet with Heart of America Northwest and Tom Buchanan with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, recorded March 23, 2013 at the forum "Fukushima, NOT in the Northwest" at University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle, WA.

Seattle – March 22 and March 23 | Shut Down CGS!!!

Fri.. details soon?



Sat, March 23, 9am – 4pm
Where
Location: University Temple,
United Methodist Church, 1415 NE 43rd, Seattle, WA 98105

9AM Earthquakes in the Yakima Thrust and Hanford Geology
Tom Buchanan, Mary Hanson (WPSR)

10AM Oregon PSR Panel:
30 Years of the Columbia Generation Station Nuclear Reactor
Chuck Johnson (OPSR)
Leslie March (Sierra Club Nuclear Free Campaign)
Paul Koberstein (Cascadia Times Portland)

(Lunch and discussion at restaurants near the church)

1PM Washington PSR Panel Whistleblowers,Weapon’s Testing Fallout, & CGS Irradiated Fuel
Tom Carpenter, Hanford Challenge
Holly Barker, UW Anthropology,
Tom Buchanan, WPSR

3-4 PM Videos from the NY Academy of Medicine, Fukushima and its impacts in the world

Location:
University Temple,
United Methodist Church,
1415 NE 43rd,
Seattle, WA  98105

Birthplace of Atomic Bomb, New Mexico Remains Center of Massive U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

In this special broadcast from just outside Los Alamos National Laboratory, we look at the radioactive legacy of New Mexico. The atomic bombs used in World War II were designed and developed here, and the state still plays a key role in maintaining the nation’s massive nuclear arsenal. We’re joined by two guests: Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and Chuck Montaño, a former investigator and auditor at Los Alamos who turned whistleblower after calling attention to wasteful spending and fraud at the nation’s foremost nuclear weapons lab. [includes rush transcript]

Birthplace of Atomic Bomb, New Mexico Remains Center of Massive U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

see also
whats up: After Decades of Uranium Mining, Navajo Nation Struggles With Devastating Legacy of Contamination