Weaponizing Radioactive Medical Waste - The Looming Threat

Across the globe, use of radioactive substances for medical treatment, by hospitals has resulted in generation of toxic wastes on a large scale. Disposal of these wastes are being entrusted to waste disposal vendors. Environmental concerns, pressures, restrictions and high labor costs, compel these vendors to dump these wastes in third world countries, where enforcement and awareness are substantially low. Unrestricted access to these waste dumps is an open invitation to terror organizations to extract toxic substances and fabricate crude dirty bombs to threaten public safety, and cause low-level contamination of sensitive installations. It is therefore imperative to create an international organization to monitor, regulate, and supervise the safe disposal of toxic radioactive wastes

Phytoremediation of Hazardous Radioactive Wastes

Phytoremediation technology incorporates living plants for in situ remediation of contaminated soils, sediments, tailings and groundwater. These practices integrates the removal, or degradation of toxic wastes that is capable of cleaning up an area with low to moderate levels of contamination. Phytoremediation has been studied widely for metals, pesticides, solvents, explosives, crude oil, etc. These studies and research are advanced, especially in small-scale operations. Phytoremediation has been successfully tested to decontamination of radioactive sites. The chapter initiates with possible remediation methods used for radioactive wastes where we will discuss types and nature of radioisotope contamination. Then we discuss discusses the classifications of phytoremediation techniques to treat radioactive contaminated waste. Phytoremediation performance depends on numerous factors such as soil composition, level of toxicity, suitable plant species, etc. Conversely, phytoremediation prospects low cost, practical and ecologically viable approach for low-level radiation waste clean-up

A Review and Comparison of Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facilities

In 2002, the Department of Energy (DOE) released the draft Hanford Solid Waste Environmental Impact Statement (DOE 2002). That draft called for the disposal of over 12 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) at Hanford in unlined near-surface disposal trenches. The draft EIS was withdrawn by USDOE following public comment, as urged by numerous official agency, advisory board and public commentators. In April, 2003, USDOE issued the Revised Draft Hanford Solid Waste EIS, which forecast that USDOE would dispose of up to 12.3 million cubic feet of LLRW in near-surface burial trenches.1 Sixty three percent (63%) of this LLRW would be imported to Hanford for burial. At an undefined future date, the Revised Draft EIS proposed that LLRW would be buried together in new trenches with up to 5 million cubic feet of Mixed Low-Level Waste, which is Low-Level Radioactive Waste mixed with hazardous chemical wastes.2 To develop a technical position on the proposal for use of Hanford newr- surface burial for Low-Level Wastes, Heart of America NW wanted to know if the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Burial Grounds meet the basic engineering requirements for such facilities and how they compare with other similar facilities and alternative potential disposal sites available to USDOE for these wastes. As such, this report represents the first independent, publicly available Cross-Site Comparison of USDOE Low-Level Radioactive Waste Burial Ground Alternatives. Performing a complete engineering review of multiple facilities was clearly beyond the potential budget capacity so a proposal was proffered to limit the investigation to the geotechnical aspects of representative LLRW disposal facilities. This type of focused review was accomplished by visiting the sites and reviewing documentation on the sites. Performance standards and review criteria were identified and the disposal facilities were evaluated to determine how well they meet the performance standards. This is the basis for a comparison of the facilities. This report presents the results of this study. This research was completed money allocated during Round 3 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at [email protected]://commons.clarku.edu/heartofam/1000/thumbnail.jp

Materials design considerations and selection for a large rad waste incinerator

A new incinerator has been built to process self-generated, low level radioactive wastes at the Department of Energy`s Savannah River Site. Wastes include protective clothing and other solid materials used during the handling of radioactive materials, and liquid chemical wastes resulting from chemical and waste management operations. The basic design and materials of construction selected to solve the anticipated corrosion problems from hot acidic gases are reviewed. Problems surfacing during trial runs prior to radioactive operations are discussed

Management of Radioactive Waste From Operation of Nuclear Power Plant -Perspective for Indonesian Program-

MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE FROM OPERATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT -PERSPECTIVE FOR INDONESIAN PROGRAM-. Nuclear power is the only energy industry which takes full responsibility for all its wastes, and costs this into the product. Nuclear power is characterized by the very large amount of energy available from a very small amount of fuel. The amount of waste is also relatively small. It is predicted in the near future of Indonesia NPP program, about approximately 200m3 of low and intermediate level waste and 6,76m3 of spent fuel is taken each year from the core of a l000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant. There is a new option for the spent fuel management i.e. repatriation of the spent fuel to the supplier country through Global Energy Partnership (GNEP) or Developing Global Nuclear Infrastructure (DGNI) programs. Disposal methods for radioactive wastes vary in many countries. The two main options currently employed or planned by countries are, near surface disposal facilities (for short lived and low level waste); and geologic repositories (for long lived and high level waste)

Licensing and Operations of the Clive, Utah Low-level Continerized Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility - A Continuation of Excellence

Envirocare’s Containerized Waste Facility (CWF) is the first commercial low-level radioactive waste disposal facility to be licensed in the 21st century and the first new site to be opened and operated since the late 1970’s. The licensing of this facility has been the culmination of over a decade’s effort by Envirocare of Utah at their Clive, Utah site. With the authorization to receive and dispose of higher activity containerized Class A low-level radioactive waste (LLRW), this facility has provided critical access to disposal for the nuclear power industry, as well as the related research and medical communities. This paper chronicles the licensing history and operational efforts designed to address the disposal of containerized LLRW in accordance with state and federal regulations. The Clive, Utah facility was initially licensed for naturally-occurring radioactive material wastes (NORM) in 1988. The facility has expanded in size and capabilities over the years. Currently, in addition to NORM, the facility is licensed to receive Class A LLRW, low-activity radioactive wastes (LARW), mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes (MW), and 11e.(2) byproduct wastes, also known as uranium mill tailings and similar materials. Envirocare received a new license to dispose of all classes of LLRW (Class A, B and C) on June 9, 2001. Prior to implementation of the Class A, B, and C license, the Utah State Legislature and Governor must approve operation. Envirocare’s Class “A” LLRW disposal license reflects many years of operations, as well as over 40-years of experience derived from the nation’s commercial LLRW disposal industry. Envirocare has applied lessons learned from previous and ongoing disposal operations at other low-level disposal sites. These lessons, combined with Envirocare’s superior siting criteria, ensure maximum protectiveness of human health and the environment throughout the design life of the disposal facility. The above grade disposal operation reflects a distinct break from prior commercial LLRW disposal facility design. This type of disposal is more typical of the European LLRW disposal facility design. It presents both long-term isolation and maintenance advantages as well as current operational challenges. The current challenges are related to the management of personnel and public exposure from the higher activity waste materials. This involves dose modeling for direct dose and skyshine. These exposure challenges have been identified and addressed with engineering, radiological and procedural controls. With continued experience, Envirocare’s management and CWF staff is defining its upper limits of activity and dose that the site can receive while continuing to meet the personnel and public exposure criteria

Long-term field and laboratory leaching tests of cemented radioactive wastes

Experiments with real and simulated radioactive cementitious wasteforms were set up to compare the leaching behaviour of cementitious wasteforms containing nuclear power plant operational waste in field and laboratory test conditions. Experiments revealed that the average annual Cs-137 leach rate in deionised water was about thirty-five times greater compared with the measured average value for the 1st year of the field test. Cumulative leached fraction of Cs-137 for 1st year (3.74%) was close to values reported in literature for similar laboratory experiments in deionised water, however more than two orders of magnitude higher than the 1st year leached fraction of Cs-137 in the repository test (0.01%). Therefore, to compare field and laboratory test results, a scaling factor is required in order to account for surface to volume factor difference, multiplied by a temperature factor and a leach rate decrease coefficient related to the ground water composition. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Application of the Flotation Method for the Treatment of the Waste Solution in the Chemical Processing of Used Nuclear Fuel : Selective Removal of Mixed Fission Products

As a part of the fundamental study on the treating of the liquid wastes in the chemical processing of used nuclear fuel, the preferential flotation was investigated for the selective removal of the long-lived fission products such as ¹³⁷ Cs, ⁹⁰Sr, ¹⁰⁶Ru, +1⁴⁴Ce and ⁹⁵Zr from the low or intermediate level radioactive solutions. By three stage preferential flotation using sodium oleate or octadecylamine acetate as the collector and cupric ferrocyanide or ferric hydroxide as the coprecipitant, 95% of ¹³⁷Cs, 87% of ⁹⁰Sr, and above 98% of the mixture of¹⁴⁴Ce, ¹⁰⁶Ru and ⁹⁵Zr were removed respectively from the radioactive solution. The whole amount of the resulting radioactive sludge per 1000 ml of the original radioactive solution was 130～190 mg