NEWS: Nuclear Plant Spills Concern Illinois Citizens, Lawmakers

Recent disclosures of spills from Exelon Corp.'s Braidwood, Dresden, and Byron twin-reactor nuclear plants have fueled serious concerns among those who live near these Illinois nuclear facilities. The spills date back as far as 1996 and some are concerned that the latency of reporting might be indicative of a systemic cover-up. Some have even suggested complicity between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the the plant owners. U.S. Rep. Edward Markey has been highly critical of President Bush's plans to build a new generation of nuclear power plants, calling the plans "misguided."

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There seems to be a huge controversy brewing over these disclosures and that most of the spills involve tritium, which is a form of hydrogen that becomes radioactive when it contacts the atmosphere, but tritium releases are not required by law to be reported. Clearly, there is a huge disconnect between what government regulators and industry officials deem hazardous and what the public feels comfortable with and the lax oversight and reporting delays are not making anyone feel any more at ease.

[edit on 2006/3/4 by GradyPhilpott]

[edit on 2006/3/4 by GradyPhilpott]

Tritium may not be "all that dangerous" on its own - but the real problem with evironmental pollution is that different contaminants interact with one another.

And that can be VERY dangerous.

Okay damocles - no problem.

Great addendum.


Does anyone here have quick access to references/links or the time to research possible interractions between tritium and common environmental particles, components and contaminants? ...I don't.

damocles - that sheet is NOT for tritium - it's for a product that uses tritium.

Here are some other links:

EPA; the text was last updated on Sunday, March 5th, 2006. Ahem.

Wikipedia

Global Security


NOTE: None of the sites consider interractions with other contaminants or pollutants.

You know what's weird? Is that I live only about 40 miles from the Byron plant. I've even played against their high school's scholastic bowl team, so I've been in their high school. And yet this is actually the first I've heard of this. Might just be me not paying enough attention, but locally this story doesn't seem to have spread around very much.

I'm betting that a few higher ups are trying to keep this quiet.

Clearly, the issue here is not so much the material being leaked, but the fact that there are leaks and they are not being readily reported, leaving the public in the dark, so to speak.



However, there are those who are concerned about the levels of radiation that the public is exposed to.



And, of course, there is always the specter of conspiracy and cover-up.



Not to mention, a little demagoguery.

In my personal opinion the "Anti-Nuke Power" groups in the U.S. and around the world have suceeded in making just about everyone a little bit paranoid concerning any kind of radioactivity. The simple fact is that nuclear power is far cleaner and poses much, much less of a public health risk than conventional power generating plants. The problem is that risks associated with nuclear power generation tendf to be concentrated in one small area (relative to conventional power generation). This makes building a nuclear power plant at a specific location significantly more difficult than a conventional plant.

Most people will readily agree that nuke power is cleaner and poses less risk to the public's health than conventional power; however, they don't want the nuke plants built anywhere close to where they live because of their irrational fear of radioactivity. It does no good to cite the overall safety record relevant to nuclear power generation relative to conventional power generation because people have a gut feeling that something is going to come out that will make them sterile, or cause mutant monsters to be born, or cause them to lose their hair & get cancer. In this respect the anti nuke lobby has been very successful.

Tritium is a gas and it glows in the dark. Chances are your watch may have tritium vials embedded in the hands. Tritium can be dangerous if concentrated enough and gets ingested or breathed, but the amounts created during nuclear power generation are not large and mostly they can be released into rivers without any harm to anyone. Further, the half-life of tritium is relatively short (about 10-12 years), so it doesn't stick around in the environment for decades or generations the way many people think.

[edit on 5-3-2006 by Astronomer68]

My real concern with nuclear power is waste disposal. Global warming doesn't scare me. Smog doesn't do much more than irritate my eyes and lungs and I can take measures to control the symptoms, but the waste issue nags at me every time it comes up. I think every byproduct of our progress is reversible in the geologic short term. Nuclear waste, however, is a whole 'nother subject, not that I'll be around long enough to actually experience the outcome.

What light can you shed on that Astronomer?

None really. Nuclear waste (in the form of spent fuel rods mostly) is dangerous scary stuff. A good deal of research has been done over the last decade or so concerning containing such nuclear waste in ceramics, glasses, metals, and plastics and progress at creating better containment vessels has definitely been made. None of the current plans though are 100% safe and the same irrational fear of radioactivity that haunts the building of new nuke power plants haunts the creation of a waste storage facility somewhere.

The whole concept of storing nuclear waste is based upon the perceived need to get the stuff off site and away from concentrations of people. It is assumed that the technology to deal with the stuff will come about in the future if we just keep plugging away at it--and it probably will.

For now, any proposed solutions would only sound like science fiction. For example, if our rockets could be made to be super reliable we could just send the stuff into the sun, or if and when we ever get a space elevator we could also send it into the sun without any risk to the inhabitants down on the surface of Earth, etc., etc......

One thing we should all remember though is that it takes a long time to build a nuke power plant and if we wait until fossil fuels are just about gone we probably will not be able to build enough of them fast enough to satisfy the power requirements of our country.

For those who fear a repition of the 9/11 scenario (i.e., planes flying into the plants), the containment walls of a nuke plant probably would not even know they had been hit. I can get you a link to a video showing an F4 slamming into a section of one at 500+ mph with no apparent damage to the wall.

[edit on 5-3-2006 by Astronomer68]

Well, I wouldn't call a fear of "dangerous scary stuff" irrational, but I guess the reality is that either we go ahead with nuclear power or we decide to go back to a more primitive existence.

It is irrational in the sense that we have containment materials right now that we know will hold the stuff sealed inside for a couple of hundred years even if its storage site got flooded. Hell in a couple of hundred years we will have a much better containment vessel available and can redo it. But no, people want something right now that will guarantee its containment for the next 10,000 years or so. If we could take our best containment material now and build a big pyramid (like in Egypt) with it, it would barely show any wear over the same lifetime the pyramids have been around.

[edit on 5-3-2006 by Astronomer68]

Well, I think what people want is something that will contain the material for the length of time that the radioactivity is at dangerous levels, which I think is on the order of 10.000 years. A couple of hundred years could yield better containment methods, but what if they don't? Two hundred years is a long time in human events, considering all the turmoil our species produces, but two hundred years is nothing when you're talking about radioactive material.

But, I can only speak of such things in hypothetical terms, as I have no stake in the future beyond my own lifetime and beyond the power vested in me by our Constitution, I have no control over such matters, so while all the methods of disposal sound recklessly insane to me, I'm not going to give it much thought from now on, as long as I can be assured that the material will be isolated for my lifetime.

[edit on 2006/3/5 by GradyPhilpott]

If a couple of hundred years don't yield better containment vessels then they don't, but with the rate of progress in nanotechnology and everything else around I can't believe such would be the case. Besides, unless we go solar, with orbiting power plants, what real alternatives do we have? The human race is very power hungry and becoming more so all the time.

I certainly don't have any answers and we certainly do keep increasing our dependence upon electricity, so I guess we really don't have much choice. All those who complain about nuclear energy now will most certainly be the ones who complain the most when the computer, TV, and the refrigerator cease to function.

RIP:
EPA (has lost reputation since 1992)
FDA (has sold out to cattle and GM food producers)
NRC (apparently no longer the hard A** that they used to be)

Many more soon to be added...
wow, our letters are dieing faster than we can put them together in capitalized abbreviations...

compromising values/safety for money/policy, or moderating worries with knowledge/logic...

I am thinking the former...

Look further... You would be surprised...
the facts are plain, but you have to consider everything...
it is way cheaper to invest the same dollars in Wind, vs coal, or any other type.

The payoff comes at the end. Most American companies are not built to survive for 10-20yrs before a noticable profit... even if the profit is 100-200% than 10yrs of profit for a coal/other operation.
For our country to NOT do this, would require the government not having faith that America will be here in 20yrs... or just plain greed for the money now, than later...
Maybe a smart and greedy person will come along, and be put in charge of energy policy for the next decade... better than that... make it a 20yr office, so that long term thinking can become an option.
As it is right now... it was decided by Cheney and all his power/energy buddies... and unfortunately... none liked wind.

Not something I want to hear, Im only about 30 miles form byron and I am downwind from the plant. Well, I guess I can pack up my daughters nightlight

Media coverage of problems with nuclear power operations is dropping, now that the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) is increasingly using "deferred prosecution agreements" rather than public trials to resolve even very serious mismanagement in nuclear power plants. For example, the following link reports a January 20, 2006 story in the Corporate Crime Reporter where just such a "remedy" was applied by the DOJ after proving misrepresentations were made to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company concerning the safety of its northern Ohio Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station:

www.corporatecrimereporter.com...