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QUESTION: DO WE AS A NATION WANT TO CONTINUE TO USE AND DEVELOP NUCLEAR POWER?
In this article, these processors were built in just over 1 year, many of them. The HALF-LIFE one waste at the Hanford Site is 24,100 years. The HALF LIFE.
As an example, plutonium has a half-life of 24,100 years, and a decay of ten half-lives is required before a sample is considered to be safe.
The most significant challenge at Hanford is stabilizing the 53 million U.S. gallons (204,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks. About a third of these tanks have leaked waste into the soil and groundwater.
As of 2008, 1 million U.S. gallons (4,000 m3) of highly radioactive waste is traveling through the groundwater toward the Columbia River. This waste is expected to reach the river in 12 to 50 years if cleanup does not proceed on schedule.
The Department of Energy is currently building a vitrification plant on the Hanford Site. Vitrification is a method designed to combine these dangerous wastes with glass to render them stable. Bechtel, the San Francisco based construction and engineering firm, has been hired to construct the vitrification plant, which is currently estimated to cost approximately $12 billion. Construction began in 2001. After some delays, the plant is now scheduled to be operational in 2019, with vitrification completed in 2047. It was originally scheduled to be operational by 2011, with vitrification completed by 2028.
In early 2008, a $600 million cut to the Hanford cleanup budget was proposed.
simple understanding of the situation:
- " Nuclear energy relies on the fact that some elements can be split (in a process called fission) and will release part of their energy as heat.
- Because it fissions easily, Uranium-235 (U-235) is one of the elements most commonly used to produce nuclear energy. It is generally used in a mixture with Uranium-238, and produces Plutonium-239 (Pu-239) as waste in the process.
- A nuclear power plant generates electricity like any other steam-electric power plant. Water is heated, and steam from the boiling water turns turbines and generates electricity.
- The main difference in the various types of steam-electric plants is the heat source. Coal, oil, or gas is burned in other power plants to heat the water. Heat from a chain reaction of fissioning Uranium-235 boils the water in a nuclear power plant. Some have compared this process to using a canon to kill a fly. " quoted, written by:
by Leslie Lai & Kristen Morrison, Nuclear Energy Fact Sheet, of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Also, the requirements for nuclear sites has been changed. Originally, it was to be in a REMOTE AREA, away from civilization, and had requirements that needed to be met, such as:..The ideal site...A large and remote tract of land, ...A "hazardous manufacturing area", ..No towns of more than 1,000 people closer than 20 miles (32 km) from the hazardous rectangle, ...No main highway, railway, or employee village closer than 10 miles (16 km) from the hazardous rectangle, ..A large electric power supply, ...Ground that could bear heavy loads, and finally, the clincher: A clean and abundant water supply .
SAY THAT AGAIN: A CLEAN AND ABUNDANT WATER SUPPLY
THE HANFORD SITE, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF United States government...Army Corps of Engineers, placed the newly formed Manhattan Project under the command of General Leslie R. Groves IN 1942....
The federal government quickly acquired the land under its eminent domain authority and relocated some 1,500 residents of Hanford, White Bluffs, and nearby settlements, as well as the Wanapum and other tribes using the area.
