Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 1 Overview

(Originally posted June 3, 2019)

To discuss my experience with mitigating nuclear hazards, I like to say that I am the only person I know of who has worked on almost every aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle. Please let me know if you know anyone else making such a bold claim so perhaps we can gain their perspective? Groups that gave me this experience include the University of Wyoming, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as well as several consulting assignments.

Ironically, in the U.S. we do not have a complete nuclear fuel cycle so a person would need to work with the French on reprocessing spent fuel to go full circle. The examination of the nuclear fuel cycle for mitigating hazards is relevant to nations and taxpayers under the construct of Conserve & Pro$per on many levels that will be discussed.

As shown on the figure, the nuclear fuel cycle is the process necessary to generate electric power (as well as medical isotopes) in a reactor. The cycle begins with mining, involves several steps to produce and burn fuel rods, store spent fuel, then ultimately burial in a engineered-geological repository. As discussed on my blog post about the Green New Deal, we all use nuclear energy, which accounts for about 20% or one-fifth of our electricity generated in the U.S. So even for the anti-nuclear activists, we all must be aware of the risks and costs involving the nuclear fuel cycle including the fact that we must properly deal with existing nuclear waste.

I will need many blog postings to explain my experience with the nuclear fuel cycle and provide examples of mitigating nuclear hazards. Here is my proposed outline to be provided in upcoming blog posts:

1. Overview

2. Uranium Mining

3. Uranium Mills and Clean Up

4. Yellowcake Conversion, Enrichment, and Fuel

5. Nuclear Reactors - Operations, Relicensing, and Decommissioning

6. Spent Fuel Storage

7. High-level Waste Disposal

8. Accidents

Thanks for your support and interest!

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 5, Reactors

Nuclear reactors are used to generate electricity, make isotopes for medical diagnosis and to fight disease, and for research including space exploration and environmental science.

According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 454 operating nuclear reactors world wide and 54 under construction. In the U.S., according to the Energy Information Agency, 98 nuclear reactors operate in 30 states and 2 reactors are under construction in Georgia.

In addition to reactors still operating, many plants have retired or been dismantled, which is known as “decommissioned.” Again, according to the World Nuclear Association, 115 power reactors, 48 experimental reactors, and over 250 research reactors have been retired or decommissioned.

Uranium fuel pellets contained within rods and assemblies allow for the nuclear chain reaction of U-235 that releases neutrons and produces heat to boil water producing steam that turns a generator to produce electricity. The first nuclear reactor was built by Enrico Fermi known as the Chicago Pile-1 on December 2, 1942. The first commercial nuclear power plant to operate in the U.S. was built in 1958 near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since 1961, NASA with support from DOE used radioisotope heat decay to power deep space rockets such as the Cassini mission to Saturn.

The most common radioisotope used in medical diagnosis is technetium-99 (Tc-99), with some 40 million procedures per year, accounting for about 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures worldwide. I had this “Tech-99” test done many years ago to see how well my digestive organs function, including gall bladder, as a result of Celiac disease that’s been alleviated by my becoming gluten free.

Between 2003 to 2005, I served NRC as a Project Manager on relicensing nuclear power plants. I coordinated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews for license renewal applications of nuclear power plants. Here is a list of license renewal applications completed by NRC. For example, I led the team to produce environmental reviews of the D.C. Cook plant on Lake Michigan near South Bend, Indiana. We compared the environmental and socioeconomic costs and benefits of continued nuclear operations as compared with all other potential sources of power generation and environmental impacts. Getting inside the nuclear power plant for inspections was a highlight.

One of the environmental impact issues that I raised concerned releases of tritium into groundwater, that were evident at D.C. Cook because Michigan state laws required groundwater monitoring of tritium. But at the time not all states required tritium or other groundwater monitoring which eventually became required by NRC. After citizens complaints, the Associated Press investigated in 2011 and NRC began requiring quarterly groundwater monitoring all all nuclear power plants and for industry to provide annual reports. Radioactive effluent and environmental monitoring reports are discussed by NRC. Here are two annual reports, A and B, provided for the D.C. Cook plant by Indiana Michigan Power.

According to NRC, “The list only includes leaks or spills where the concentration of tritium in the leak source, or in a groundwater sample was greater than 20,000 picocuries per liter (pCi/L). A tritium concentration of 20,000 pCi/L is used as the threshold for inclusion in the list because it is the drinking water standard in EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act…. Ten sites are currently reporting tritium, from a leak or spill, in excess of 20,000 pCi/L.”

Recently, I coauthored a paper on using the fission track method for identifying naturally-occurring uranium in soil by exposing thin section samples in a USGS research reactor. Here is link to the abstract.

Several new advanced reactor designs “Gen 4” are being proposed to be safer and produce less waste. On June 4th of this week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing about advanced nuclear technology being developed world wide.

If you have basic questions about nuclear science and technology or live near a nuclear facility, here are some useful educational websites from NRC and EPA, and feel free to contact us at info@conserve-prosper.com.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 2, Mining

Today, the National Mining Association (NMA) and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are holding the second day of their annual Uranium Recovery Workshop in Denver, Colorado. The meeting brings together mostly industry consultants and government officials to provide a status of uranium mining in America. Uranium production within the U.S. mostly comes from in-situ recovery (ISR) uranium mines located in Wyoming as well as one operating mill in Utah; however, because the U.S. only holds about 1% of the world’s supply, the bulk of the uranium needed to fuel nuclear power plants comes from other countries.

Worldwide about half are conventional mines (open pits and underground workings) and half are ISR mines. Australia holds about 30% of the world’s supply but currently only produces about 10% according to the World Nuclear Association. The largest supplier of uranium in the world is the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan which produces about 39% of the world’s supply of uranium. The other big producer is Canada providing about 22% of world uranium supply.

In 1984, I completed my Master’s of Science geochemistry thesis at the University of Wyoming on the in-situ recovery (ISR) process to extract uranium ore using groundwater well fields. The ore is typically found in sandstone deposits within confined aquifers where uranium was deposited in the absence of oxygen in contact with carbon and removed with ISR by injecting oxygen and chemicals to change the acid or base content as measured by pH. This is depicted in the Wyoming Geological Survey figure as yellow oxidized sandstone and the darker colored reduced-zone ore deposit. The ISR mine injects chemicals to remove the uranium. What I found based on laboratory testing was that the ISR process to remove uranium seemed quick and efficient; however, great effort would be needed to restore the aquifer back to pre-mining conditions and that rock-water-gas interactions must be understood. Here is what EPA currently says about mitigating hazards at ISR mines.

In 2007, the price of uranium spiked due to low supply and increasing demand (as well as stock market speculation) to prices around $136 per pound, an increase of about 20 times in four years. This resulted in a resurgence of mining applications and NRC prepared a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS). I had worked at NRC just two years prior and was very familiar with the regulatory process for reviewing license applications. At that time as an independent consultant, I wrote a journal article to provide my public comments on mitigating hazards for ISR mining and aquifer restoration. I advocated the need for site-specific EIS reports to which NRC eventually agreed! Here is link to the blog and article and background information on the importance of the National Environmental Policy Act. I shared this article at the 2008 NMA Uranium Recovery Workshop in Denver to create discussions on both sides of industry and regulators.

On March 11, 2011, the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Japan devastated coastal communities and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The nuclear disaster also sent shock waves through the industry initially causing demand to be cut, uranium prices to fall, and declines in mining production. However, as I will discuss in an upcoming blog on nuclear power, demand for uranium is rising as a source of zero-carbon energy production.

In January 2013, the U.S. Congress directed my office at the Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management (DOE-LM) to evaluate old uranium mines that were operated by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from about 1948 to 1970. I took on responsibility for managing the report on location and status of mines; based on permit records we found 4,225 mines that we reported to Congress. This report, delivered in 2014, spurred a new program to field locate and assess hazards at federal uranium mine sites. Hazards might include physical safety hazards from open shafts or chemical and nuclear hazards from hills of waste rock and low grade ore deposits. Here is a 2017 DOE-LM fact sheet on the process and preliminary results.

In December 2016, I took on an additional assignment at DOE-LM as program manager of the Uranium Leasing Program. AEC reserved 25,000 acres on public lands in Colorado for uranium mining. My efforts involved resolving a lawsuit filed under NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. Here is an article by the environmental litigants that sued DOE in 2011 and the case was resolved by the U.S. District Court in March 2018, just one month before my retirement! This appears to be a win-win solution for both sides.

During my 35-year career and currently renewed opportunity to express my independent opinion, I’ve observed very strong views of people in favor of uranium mining and nuclear power as well as strongly opposed anti-nuclear activists. Information coming from both sides is often skewed and obtaining the true facts is opaque. I’ve attempted throughout my environmental science career to stay neutral and find ways to improve the environment and public health by joining others to take positive actions. The most important action in resolving differences could be through more transparency and debate such as using NEPA public meetings before going to court to consider the benefits and risks of uranium mining worldwide. Mitigating the hazards of mining uranium in the U.S.and other countries might well be worth the risks of having (or not having) a dependable domestic supply of uranium needed for nuclear power generation of electricity. Public support for increasing regulatory oversight will cost more to consumers but is greatly needed to increase environmental protections and prevent or mitigate nuclear hazards.

Please share your views in the comments or send email to info@conserve-prosper.com.