Posted on 11/16/2018 7:43:04 AM PST by deandg99
The Woolsey fire that has engulfed over 90,000 acres in California last weekend may have spread toxic and radioactive substances from a Superfund site. Activists, who believe authorities might be downplaying the risks of the toxins released into the air, say the burning of the nuclear waste site could further complicate health concerns.
According to RT, the Woolsey fire ripped right through the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL), a federal Superfund site in the Simi Hills that was the site of the worst nuclear meltdown in United States history in 1959. While the SSFL has been the site of multiple nuclear accidents, the worst took place in 1959 when a reactor vented nuclear material to avoid an explosion, ultimately releasing 459 times more radiation than the infamous Three Mile Island meltdown 20 years later. [PDF from a .gov website]
While the California Department of Toxic Substances Control said there was no reason to be concerned of any risks other than those normally present in a wildfire situation, locals arent so sure, pointing out that the agency has dragged its feet in cleaning up toxic sites. Many are accusing the government of a possible cover-up as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at dcdirtylaundry.com ...
And it is being discarded instead of reprocessed. Wasteful.
“Now just think about the years of spent fuel stored at a nuclear power sit. What could go wrong?”
:: ultimately releasing 459 times more radiation than the infamous Three Mile Island meltdown 20 years later. ::
And, yet, we SPCULATE about fire-borne releases magnitudes smaller?
Where are all the mutants from 1959? All the radiated bodies with malformities and lesions?
Perspective.
Because Cali has a Dem Governor, Dem House, and Dem Senate. When you can’t blame a Republican, you just hush it up.
#23 Where are all the mutants?
They were killed off. See the documentary’s on Saturday night on METV....
“If years of spent fuel are stored at site, it is precisely because nuclear produces minuscule quantities of byproduct while generating huge energy.”
Those Minuscule quantities of Nuclear waist are more deadly than anything on the planet. And they last for eons.
However you are even wrong about the quanity, and it just shows how ignorant you people are.
“A 1000-MW nuclear power plant produces about 27 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel (unreprocessed) every year. In 2010, there was very roughly estimated to be stored some 250,000 tons of nuclear HLW, that does not include amounts that have escaped into the environment from accidents or tests.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste
“And it is being discarded instead of reprocessed. Wasteful.”
Obviously it is not practical or it would be happening. And there is already so much of it.
“Those Minuscule quantities of Nuclear waist are more deadly than anything on the planet. And they last for eons.”
BTW, want something more deadly than anything on the planet (whatever that means)? Try arsenic. And it lasts FOREVER.
And I don’t see anything in what you posted that contradicts what I said, that is the amount of nuclear waste is minuscule compared to the energy produced. All the nuclear waste ever produced by mankind can be stored in some square miles, which is peanuts. BTW, unprocessed fuel is not even waste, it’s pure energy, that could be burned in fast reactors, a technology which has worked safely for more than 3 decades (see e.g. the IFR, Phenix or the BN800).
And it is being discarded instead of reprocessed. Wasteful.
Obviously it is not practical or it would be happening.
The SSL1 reactor was an experimental sodium salt reactor in the ‘50s. It ran wild for two weeks if my recollection is correct. Sodium salt is a very difficult medium to use as a heat transfer medium, it is fluid at very high temps and the pumping system runs at the margins of technology.
If my memory is correct there were large releases of airborne radiation as the tried to put the genie back in the bottle.
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