Oil Spills and Mudlogging

In 1974, during a high school summer vacation, my parents took me on a cross-country drive from D.C. area to California. I fell in love with driving the car and scenery, especially when we visited Grand Tetons -Yellowstone National Parks. I got an early interest in geology by reading Geology of the National Park System. But my joy turned to sorrow when we visited Santa Barbara, California by finding the beaches were still covered by the black tar oil spill that occurred five years earlier.

Here are some specifics on the Pacific Ocean oil spill:

  • A blowout on a Union Oil Co. well happened on Jan. 28, 1969.

  • The well was under under Platform A, roughly 5 1/12 miles off the coast.

  • An estimated 3.3 million gallons of oil spilled.

  • The well was capped on Feb. 7, but oil continued to vent from cracks in the sea floor for months.

  • On Jan. 31, the oil slick was reported to be 30 square miles.

  • Oil was spotted onshore from Pismo Beach to the U.S.-Mexico border.

This event contributed to public outrage that resulted in the EPA begin created in 1970 and several new laws including the National Environmental Policy Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, Clean Water Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act, all within a three year period.

My interest in college focused on environmental science issues but there were few prospects for jobs. After graduating with a geology bachelor’s degree in 1980, I found a job from a newspaper advertisement in Denver to work for an oil service company as a “mud logger.” The first day on the job we meet at the office at 8 am and spent the day gathering supplies. It was January, got dark early, and we didn’t leave town until late in the afternoon. I recall driving on Interstate 70 West, up past Eisenhower tunnel, and then heading north to the oil drilling rig site. We arrived around midnight and my “mud logging boss” said I must collect samples in bags off the shaker every 30 minutes and he would show me the next day what to do. He went to bed and I kept working along with the drilling crew that kept going 24/7. So my first day on the job I worked 24 hours straight. But I also learned that first night to drink lots of coffee to stay warm causing me to became wired. I learned the drilling site was an exploratory well to see if economical oil or gas existed by drilling over one mile deep at a cost of over $1 million.

We examined the samples making a descriptive log and checking for natural gas under an ultraviolet light. The primary environmental impacts included road construction and drilling pads, drilling solutions added in the well, diesel exhaust, noise, salt water disposal wells and mud pit wastes, This job lasted about two weeks and then we moved on to the next site. I worked in several Rocky Mountain states, eventually becoming the boss so I could work daytime and sleep nights. Working in the Rangely Basin in northwestern Colorado, I learned that the well field became highly fractured so many new wells would be needed to recovery oil. I also heard stories that earthquakes were caused by oil companies injecting water which USGS confirmed that close to 1000 minor earthquakes occurred in the 1960’s.

I worked “mud logging” for seven months before returning to graduate school at the University of Wyoming and knew that I wanted a career involving water quality more than working in the oil fields.

A great book to read about the many hazards of the oil and gas industry is by Steve Coll, Private Empire: Exxon-Mobil and American Power published in 2013.

I will write more about my direct and indirect experiences in coming blog posts.

Electricity Grid Cyber Insecurity

A cyber attack on the electricity grid is being considered as one possible reason for power lost to tens of millions of people in five South American countries this weekend. When the lights went out, so did train transportation, water supply pumps, food refrigeration, voting machines, and more.

Nearly coincidental is a report from the New York Times that the U.S. is becoming more offensive in cyber attacks of the Russian power grid. DHS and FBI issued an alert last year that Russians have been attacking nuclear power plants, water stations, and other critical infrastructure, “Russian government actions (are) targeting U.S. Government entities as well as organizations in the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.”

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission takes prime responsibility for grid operations in the U.S. including mandatory cyber security reliability standards. The challenge is developing an interconnected smart grid to improving digital efficiencies while preventing cyber attacks.

The SmartGrid is being developed by Department of Energy to fulfill the promise by President Obama in 2009, "It will make our grid more secure and more reliable, saving us some of the $150 billion we lose each year during power outages. It will allow us to more effectively transport renewable energy generated in remote places to large population centers, so that a wind farm in rural South Dakota can power homes in Chicago. And by facilitating the creation of a clean energy economy, building this 21st-century energy infrastructure will help us lay a foundation for lasting growth and prosperity."

I can still recall the 2003 blackout in the Northeastern U.S. which also affected air travel in many countries. Some trees hit powerlines causing the fault on the grid. When this happens, power plants may need to shut down to stop producing electricity as supply must equal demand. You can read about this event and some of the largest that occurred in India (affecting over 500 million people) and other countries on the Wikipedia page.

Happy Father's Day

Today to celebrate Father’s Day in the U.S., I thought how can I link this occasion with my series on mitigating nuclear hazards? What came to mind is one of many books I just borrowed from the library titled The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age. I’ve not read it yet but will let you know what I learn. Here are the notes from the Amazon book page (see update below):

“Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called the Pope by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions.

This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the relationship of science to politics. Fleeing Fascism and anti-Semitism, Fermi became a leading figure in America's most secret project: building the atomic bomb. The last physicist who mastered all branches of the discipline, Fermi was a rare mixture of theorist and experimentalist. His rich legacy encompasses key advances in fields as diverse as comic rays, nuclear technology, and early computers.

In their revealing book, The Pope of Physics, Gino Segré and Bettina Hoerlin bring this scientific visionary to life. An examination of the human dramas that touched Fermi’s life as well as a thrilling history of scientific innovation in the twentieth century, this is the comprehensive biography that Fermi deserves.”

Have a Safe and Happy Father’s Day where ever you are!

Updated June 24, 2019:

I read and can recommend the interesting book about events leading to the Italian immigrant Enrico Fermi and many other scientists discovering atomic energy and subsequent Manhattan Project that ended WWII and proceeded to the Cold War. The biggest takeaway to me, beyond the interesting scientific discoveries, are the values of freedom that America and our allies fought against fascism and imperialism. Many scientists of Jewish decent or marriage escaped to America as Hitler rose to power in 1932. How different the world would be had Hitler developed atomic weapons? Fermi conducted the first nuclear self-sustaining chain reaction experiment (called Critical Pile-1) that directly created nuclear power and atomic weapons. However, he and other scientists strongly argued against themonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs called the “Super”) developed in 1950’s by Edward Teller at Los Alamos. As cited by the Atomic Heritage Foundation, Fermi wrote:

"A decision on the proposal that an all-out effort be undertaken for the development of the "Super" cannot in our opinion be separated from considerations of broad national policy...necessarily such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes. By its very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide..."

More to come in future blogs to share experience about nuclear energy and weapons.

Climate Commitments by BlackRock

Yesterday’s announcement by the Vatican on carbon pricing as a control on climate impacts included BlackRock, Inc., the largest asset management company in the world. They hold over 6.5 trillion dollars in assets for institutions and individual investors. They created iShares exchange-traded funds (ETFs) which holds stocks like an index mutual fund that are traded as stocks with low management fees. They also manage U.S. federal employee retirement pensions in the Thrift Saving Plan.

First for full disclosure, I own stock in BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) but it has not performed well in the past 52 weeks, down 15%. The yield of over 3% is attractive and has a low price to earnings ratio (P/E). They have 70 offices in 30 countries but recently needed layoffs to control costs.

According to the BlackRock history webpage, eight people created BlackRock in 1988 (including the current CEO Larry Fink) “to put clients’ needs and interests first.” They became a public company in 1999 and have tremendous influence on other companies and investors.

In September 2016, BlackRock issued a statement on climate change: “Investors can no longer ignore climate change. Some may question the science, but all are faced with a swelling tide of climate-related regulations and technological disruption. We show how to mitigate climate risks, exploit opportunities or have a positive impact.”

In January 2019 they announced the BlackRock Investment Stewardship’s approach to engagement on climate risk, “As part of its investment process on behalf of its clients, BlackRock assesses a range of factors that might affect the long-term financial sustainability of the companies in which we invest. We have determined that climate change presents significant investment risks and opportunities that have the potential to impact the long-term value of many companies.”

Therefore, BlackRock is taking a leadership role in the climate change debate by showing business sustainability must consider short and long-term risk factors. Climate change poses the greatest risk to humanity so businesses cannot afford to ignore science realities despite the noise and confusion coming from some sectors of government and industry.

Climate Commitments by Big Oil

Today, the Associated Press reports that, “Some of the world’s major oil producers pledged Friday to support “economically meaningful” carbon pricing regimes after a personal appeal from Pope Francis to avoid “perpetrating a brutal act of injustice” against the poor and future generations.”

The AP quotes Pope Francis stating, ”Faced with a climate emergency, we must take action accordingly, in order to avoid perpetrating a brutal act of injustice toward the poor and future generations.”

The article also provides the joint CEOs statement, “Reliable and economically meaningful carbon pricing regimes, whether based on tax, trading mechanisms or other market-based measures, should be set by governments at a level that incentivizes business practices ... while minimizing the costs to vulnerable communities and supporting economic growth.”

Big Oil cannot hide the truth any longer about our climate crisis which affects us all. Climate change is both a local health issue, such as gasoline engines and coal-fired power plants emitting carbon dioxide and many other air pollutants, as well as a global crisis affecting life on our planet. See what the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences says about health impacts from air pollution causing climate change.

Pressure continues to mount on taking climate action and is affecting Main Street and Wall Street, school children, and all life, knowingly or unknowingly. Two years ago I wrote a blog on Auden Schendler ‘s 2009 book Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution (see Products page). Last October, he and Andrew P. Jones wrote an opinion column for The New York Times titled, Stopping Climate Change Is Hopeless. Let’s Do It. Mr. Schendler was kind enough to share the link upon my request this week for his latest work. They state in the article, “It begins with how we live our lives every moment of every day.”

I totally agree and sincerely hope that all available resources, including Conserve & Pro$per, can help to make a difference! Please share your comments or send an email at info@conserve-prosper.com

Reduce Overconsumption

When Madonna sang Material Girl: Living in a Material World, in 1984, it was all about glamour and not garbage! Given the material world we live in, especially here in the U.S., we need more awareness - including Pop Culture music - for the peril that we’re all in! Just in the U.S., we overconsume the world’s resources and generate too much waste affecting our shared Planet Earth. Just like intoxicated alcoholics, most of the commericals advocate we need more STUFF to make us happy.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency EPA, “With less than 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. was responsible for about one-third of the world’s total material consumption in 1970-1995.” This report continues that the U.S. consumes: 33% of paper, 25% of oil, 15% of coal, 17% of aluminum, and 15% of copper. In addition, the U.S. produces the largest percentage of waste.

The key message of Conserve & Pro$per, is to show how we can do with much less material consumer products in our lives by making the most of what we have which brings more happiness!

While I claim no great expertise about garbage, waste and recycling, I’m just another concerned citizen of the world we live in by wanting to express my opinion. I never gave much thought much about garbage until I attended Guilford College (1976-1980). In 1979, I got a summer job at a waste water (sewer) treatment plant in Greensboro, North Carolina to perform lab chemical analyses. The City municipal landfill existed on the adjacent land just downstream of the water treatment plant. I learned that water pollution coming from the landfill was entering the same river that had just been cleaned up! I wrote a senior thesis and presented my results at a professional conference — they were amazed at what a college kid could learn! I took my results to EPA in D.C. and they were surprised I had access to get samples when they were being blocked by local governments. This made me question how effective EPA regulations would be in solving waste generation and disposal problems.

Also, around this time my oldest brother, a mechanical engineer, showed me his home trash compactor in 1979. This became replaced with garbage trucks that compacts trash.

Plastic waste is especially problematic. I visited India in 1995 and learned that many foods sold on the street had been for centuries wrapped in banana leaves but that plastics were being introduced causing a huge litter problem. In addition, to the U.S. overconsuming materials and products, we’ve been sending lots of waste and recycling to Asia and as China says they will no longer accept plastic this is putting pressure on Southeast Asia! The news is full of stories about plastics in the ocean affecting marine life and washing up on beaches.

I believe that we need a national campaign and grassroots organizations, like Alcoholics Anonymous AA, to fight consumer intoxication and waste in the form of Public Service Announcements. We need to find ways to reduce and reuse material items.

Perhaps companies should be responsible for recycling shipping containers and boxes when items are purchased by consumers. I take recycling to the local municipal center (combined with other trips to town) rather than paying extra for monthly pickups. It became a hassle that the company wanted every type of item separated in separate containers before pickup. A group called Recycling Across America has a great idea to improve recycling where you can purchase labels for each bin.

Please share your comments or send us an email on this or other topics.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 8, Accidents

**It Happens! While the risk of nuclear accidents are rare compared to other power industries, like coal or oil and gas, when accidents do occur they make worldwide news. People must evacuate or shelter-in place. Plumes of radioactive fallout particles can enter the atmosphere and circle the planet spreading contamination in air, soil, food, and water that can last decades or longer. The photo shows the 1986 Chernobyl site after that accident. Reactor core meltdowns can leave the area around the nuclear power plant uninhabitable for generations. The current HBO series Chernobyl is generating tourist attention and today BBC reported on separating fact from fiction.

Union of Concerned Scientists provides a brief summary of 7 major accidents over the past 60+ years.

In addition, there have been many major safety incidents or lapses that could have caused major catastrophes, like the incident at Davis-Besse nuclear power plant located along Lake Erie between Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio. I was working for NRC when this occurred in 2002 and heard from several experts as well as later at commission hearings about the serious event that was discovered during an inspection. Corrosion of the reactor head vessel could have caused a meltdown. Fines of over $30 million were levied by the government against the utility, FirstEnergy. They are currently in bankruptcy and Davis-Besse is set to close next year.

The International Atomic Energy Agency tracks accident and incident information provides a scale from 0 (not significant to safety) up to 7 (like the Chernobyl accident) called the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, INES. Here is a list of INES accidents and incidents “events” for the past 6 months with information from 74 participating countries rated between 1 (normal) to 3 (serious incident). These events include use of x-ray machines for medical and well field applications that caused harm to the operators.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 7, High-Level Waste

I’ve spent most of my 35-year professional career directly involved in, or as an interested observer of, the nuclear waste crisis. This could be one of the biggest and most dangerously expensive problems for humanity to resolve worldwide as it has direct implications for the health and safety of communities, affects the military’s ability to use nuclear powered ships, as well as necessity of operating nuclear power to limit climate change impacts. Let me give a brief overview to provide my insights.

The issue is what to do with highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel that is now high-level waste (HLW) that it will be a problem for hundreds of thousands of years. In fact, a federal court required EPA to require calculations of future dose amounts up to one million years in the future!

The waste currently is filling up wet and dry storage capacity at existing nuclear power plants as well as military sites that are close to population areas. The risk of accidents or terrorist activity only increases over time so something must be done as soon as possible.

In 1984-85 working for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), I joined a technical group reviewing nine environmental assessments for potential locations to store and dispose HLW. Department of Energy proposed and NRC agreed with three sites for characterization (bedded salt in Texas, basalt in Washington state, and volcanic tuff in Nevada) but Congress decided only one site would be characterized at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The extreme dry desert conditions seemed ideal for HLW disposal. However, working at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1998 on site hydrology, I learned the southwestern U.S. had been a very wet site during the Pleistocene epoch about 15,000 years ago. The water table had risen 300 meters and altered clay minerals. Several underground experiments in the 7 kilometer tunnel indicated much more water was present than anticipated which flowed through fractures and could pose a problem for building a repository to hold HLW.

I kept working on the Yucca Mountain project at NRC from 1999 to 2004 to evaluate geologic interactions with HLW. One of my first assignments in 1999 at NRC was to review the Environmental Impact Statement by Department of Energy on the proposed Yucca Mountain repository site. It became obvious that leaving the used fuel in current locations near population areas is much riskier than getting the waste moved to remote desert location(s). The greatest projected risk would be to miners creating the underground repository from being exposed to naturally-occurring radon.

We looked at many issues (risk scenarios) and developed performance assessment methods. As with everything we found pros and cons for the site but no other alternatives were considered. I gained confidence in the site by looking at multiple natural and engineered barriers such as the two billion year old Oklo nuclear reactor that occurred in nature so we can look at how far radionuclides migrated. I also got to tour underground walking through the seven kilometer experimental studies facility the day after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the Mojave Desert and shook Las Vegas. Underground I became surprised to learn there were no fallen rock or damage.

I left NRC in 2005 to become an environmental consultant then joined DOE in 2008 at the Las Vegas office to answer NRC questions on the Yucca Mountain license application and we made very good progress overall. However, after spending 20 years and $11 billion or so, President Obama ended the site program in 2010.

A book published this year by a former NRC Chairman, Greg Jaczko, describes his rise to power. After earning a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics, he went to work in Washington on a AAAS fellowship with Congressman Ed Markey and then states, “In March 2001, I joined Senator Reid’s staff…to help him fight the Yucca Mountain project.” He describes the powerful Nuclear Energy Institute and cites his concern for the nuclear industry having too much control over the regulatory environment. With Reid’s support, he became Commissioner of NRC for four years then was appointed Chairman with the election of President Obama. He cites a conversation with chief of staff Rahm Emanuel who said, “…the president wants to address climate change and he needs to have nuclear power as part of that program.”

However, support for nuclear energy did not include Yucca Mountain for storage and disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Jaczko states, “…I pushed to make good on the president’s promise to end the program to store nuclear waste in Nevada. The administration had bungled the effort to close down the Yucca Mountain project, so I stepped in, using my full authority of my office to finish the job.” Later in the book he states, “Yucca Mountain was, after all, essential to the industry’s success. Without a permanent depository for used nuclear fuel, it would continue to face challenges to its effort to operate and possibly even expand.”

Jaczko (in my opinion) coldly describes what happened next, “In February 2010…DOE closed down the Yucca Mountain site. Thousands of contractors and federal workers were terminated.”

A blue-ribbon commission (BRC) confirmed that geologic disposal in required. Despite any technological progress that had been made, there is no political willpower to resolve the HLW crisis. The BRC listed their recommendations:

“The strategy we recommend in this report has eight key elements:

1. A new, consent-based approach to siting future nuclear waste management facilities.

2. A new organization dedicated solely to implementing the waste management program and empowered with the authority and resources to succeed.

3. Access to the funds nuclear utility ratepayers are providing for the purpose of nuclear waste management.

4. Prompt efforts to develop one or more geologic disposal facilities.

5. Prompt efforts to develop one or more consolidated storage facilities.

6. Prompt efforts to prepare for the eventual large-scale transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to consolidated storage and disposal facilities when such facilities become available.

7. Support for continued U.S. innovation in nuclear energy technology and for workforce development.

8. Active U.S. leadership in international efforts to address safety, waste management, non-proliferation, and security concerns.”

In addition, the U.S. government agreed in 1982 to take HLW from the industry by 1998 so the feds are paying industry for not taking HLW. A report in 2015 stated that the federal government will pay utilities an estimated $27 billion assuming they can find a storage site by 2021.

The DOE made several failed attempts to get consent-based siting including in North Dakota and a storage site in New Mexico does not have local support either.

On June 7, 2019, Congressional Representative Harley Rouda, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, held a field hearing in Laguna Niguel, California on “Examining America’s Nuclear Waste Management, Storage, and the Need for Solutions with the following takeaways:

  • The Chairman, Ranking Member and all witnesses recognized that the disposal of nuclear waste is a bipartisan issue and stressed the need for a bipartisan solution.

  • Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center testified that it will be necessary to have multiple repositories in several locations across the country, not just a single facility located in Yucca Mountain,  as the Trump administration proposed.  

  • Reprocessing nuclear waste is not a long-term solution for America’s nuclear waste storage problem.  Nuclear waste disposal will be needed for the foreseeable future.

  • Chairman Rouda focused on the need to provide economic incentives to encourage communities to consider hosting long-term storage solutions.  Siting long-term nuclear storage facilities must take into account environmental and health impacts as well as safety concerns.

Other countries including Finland, Sweden, and France are making much more progress with finding solutions to nuclear waste storage and disposal. In Finland, according to World Nuclear News, a First in the World full scale test is planned this summer for underground disposal of spent fuel which needed to obtain an operating license.

Concert at Former Uranium Mill Site

Saturday night we enjoyed the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra playing with Imagine Beatles tribute band in a concert at Las Colonias Park Amphitheater. This fun event involving 1000’s of people would not have been possible without the 30 year revitalization of the area! This site serves as a worldwide testament to many local people who cared enough and persevered through incredible obstacles to turn a horribly polluted site into a wonderful multi-use business park.

There is one person in particular who I believes deserves special recognition for this achievement and I thought of him, at least during the concert, as the Fifth Beatle! First, let me set the context with some interesting site history involving many cultures and generations. City of Grand Junction employees took great care to preserve the history of the site by including signs at the park in collaboration with Colorado Mesa University (CMU). According to the CMU history project,

“Above all, the story of Las Colonias Park is the story of different people coming together to form communities. From the Spanish and Ute traders to the Hispanic migrants who built lives and homes on its banks to the more recent community-wide efforts to restore and preserve the riverfront, this stretch of land has been a convergence point for people and culture. After nearly 30 years of work, the land is poised to enter into a new era as a developed city park, but it is important that its history not be forgotten in the transition. The history of the Old Spanish Trail, the sugar beet industry, the uranium years, and the remediation and restoration of the land are all vital to the story of Grand Junction: these themes demonstrate both the various cultures and the economic changes that have shaped the Grand Valley.”

In 1950, the Climax uranium mill began operating to produce yellowcake uranium but with the byproduct of over two million tons of waste tailings. This process is described on my recent blog mitigating nuclear hazards for production. The uranium mill operated for about 20 years and then became an auto junk yard.

The State of Colorado began in the early 1970’s to deal with radioactive mill tailings that became used in concrete construction as the mill had offered “free sand.” In 1978, Congress passed the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA) and the program identified over 4000 vicinity properties around the Grand Junction area that needed to be cleaned up. Department of Energy built a new disposal site to remove the tailings away from the Colorado River. However, DOE could not remove the junk autos but instead provided funding to the State and City for removing non-radiological waste. More on the revitalization efforts are available on the DOE-LM, State CDPHE, and City websites.

After site remediation in 1994, the land was vacant for 20 years until the City obtained many sources of funding support to enable redevelopment. They are building the park in phases — I’m most proud of contributing to the City Park Phase 2 Amphitheater by providing permit reviews and a federal grant to support redevelopment of the former mill processing site as well as interpretive historical signs.

Now for my view of the most important person in this redevelopment process! Mr. Bennett Boeschenstein served Grand Junction as the Mesa County Planning Director and held various positions over his 40 year career including City Council and most recently as acting Mayor before his recent retirement.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 6, Spent Fuel

As a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission project manager, I took tours and inspected several nuclear power plants for how utilities handle spent fuel. The fuel rods are very hot and extremely radioactive after being used in the reactor. The U-235 fuel produced heat energy as well as radioactive isotopes (elements that have the same number of protons but different number of neutrons) which are called fission products. For example, water is well known by the chemical symbol H2O with two hydrogen protons. Tritium is called heavy water because of an extra neutron and designated as H3. Radioactive substances give off three types of radiation: alpha, beta, and gamma which can all be harmful without proper protection.

There are three ways to protect against radiation: time, distance, and shielding. Radiation decreases over time following half-lives of radionuclides. For example, tritium (also mentioned in the previous blog) has a half life of 12.4 years so concentrations dissipate quickly as compared to strontium-90 which takes about 30 years for amounts to decrease by half or plutonium-239 with a half-life of 24,000 years. The more distance provided will decrease exposure to radioactivity as well as using metal and concrete for shielding.

If you look at a periodic table, calcium and strontium are in the same group 2 alkaline earth metals. They behave in similar ways, so the big concern would be that Sr-90 substitutes for Ca and gets into milk products or bones! That is why testing of the environment around nuclear power plants is so important to prevent exposures.

At the power plant, spent fuel is commonly kept in steel and concrete lined pools in water about 40 feet deep for at least five years. Some utilities have transferred older fuel to “dry cask” storage located at the power plant. I understand that the spent fuel will never be useful for reprocessing as is done in France and must be stored or disposed in a geological repository which is the subject of the next blog.

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 4, Fuel

I rejoined NRC in 1999 until 2005 and got involved with nuclear waste disposal, uranium mill tailings sites, relicensing nuclear power plants, the 9/11 response to terrorism and the incident response operations center (IROC). Supporting the IROC involved conducting exercise drills to simulate various threats and potential to actual emergency situations involving numerous federal and state agencies. I provided maps using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to show nuclear facilities, roads, population information and more. The center became an exciting place for observing how natural events like hurricanes could create storm surges hitting nuclear power plants which either kept operating or needed to shut down. One time while we were practicing a drill, we got a call from a facility that a truck driver transporting uranium hexafluoride (UF6) was missing. We launched into emergency mode for about an hour trying to obtain information on the transportation routes until the driver called into to the facility to say he had overslept on the side of the road!

So what is UF6 and how does processed uranium U3O8 “yellowcake” (as described in the previous blog) become fuel that is needed to operate nuclear reactors? Yellowcake is sent in 55-gallon drums to conversion plants to remove impurities and is converted to UF6 gas. The process is described by NRC and the World Nuclear Association with conversion plants located worldwide. The primary hazard is potential chemical exposure to inhaling the gas. Waste byproducts are produced and sites have contaminated groundwater, such as at the Sequoyah Fuels site in Oklahoma. NRC has reviewed and approved several license applications to construct new conversion plants that are on hold.

The UF6 canisters are then sent to a fuel enrichment facility where U-235 isotopes are concentrated from about 0.7% to up to 5%. The gas centrifuge process is currently the preferred method and only one plant operating in the U.S. is located in southeastern New Mexico.

A major byproduct of uranium enrichment is called “depleted uranium” (where the material contains about 0.3% U-235). According the the NRC, ”if an enrichment facility processes 1,000 kilograms (kg) of natural uranium to raise the U235 concentration from 0.7 percent to 5 percent, the facility would produce 85 kg of enriched uranium and 915 kg of depleted uranium.” Depleted uranium is used for military and aviation applications.

The 9/11 terrorist attack of crashing 747 airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, horrified the world. From our office in Rockville, Maryland at the NRC — we could see the fire from the Pentagon. I was the acting technical assistant to the Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards (NMSS) office director and immediately became tasked to join a committee to review all protective measures, such as at nuclear power plants. I was not aware that depleted uranium could have be used as ballast in aircraft and felt more incredibly shocked when the EPA Administrator told first responders that it was safe to breath the air at ground zero!

Here is an interesting article on the IAEA website about the properties, uses and primary concerns of breathing depleted uranium. U-238 follows a decay chain of radioactive daughters including radium and radon that is hazardous to breath where it comes from natural or refined sources.

There is a tremendous amount of depleted uranium waste byproduct requiring disposal. Hundreds of thousands of metric tons are stored at enrichment plants in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky. GAO advocated for DOE to sell depleted uranium back to industry for use as a fuel which competes with uranium supply, causing downward pressure on prices, which is generally opposed by industry. Recently, DOE Secretary Perry agreed to limit supplies of domestic and Russian non-proliferation materials provided to the open market.

The enriched uranium is then sent to fuel fabrication plants to produce uranium dioxide powder that is compressed into pellets inserted into Zircoloy tubes for the fuel assembly.

Overall, there is significant processing and transportation required to produce nuclear fuel and most of the risks are chemical rather than radiological. The fuel rods do not become radioactively “hot” until they are used for starting the nuclear chain reaction at the reactor as will be described in the next blog.

Mitigating Nuclear Hazards - Part 3, Production

Tomorrow afternoon on June 6, the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Legacy Management (DOE-LM) in Grand Junction, Colorado will be conducting a ribbon-cutting ceremony for opening an interpretative center. Processing uranium began in 1943 at this location during the World War II Manhattan Project due to the proximity of nearby uranium ore deposits, ample sources of water, and railroad access. Various chemical extraction methods were tested to develop the milling process. Initially uranium was produced for the atomic weapons program and in 1953 President Eisenhower delivered his Atoms for Peace speech at the United Nations to find peaceful uses of atomic science and technology. This site became the field office for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to promote and develop uranium resources which was later split into DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Uranium (U3O8) “yellowcake” can be refined by taking ore from conventional mines to a mill or at an above ground processing plant located near an in-situ recovery (ISR) mine, as described in Part 2. According to the Los Alamos National Lab website, “Uranium and its compounds are highly toxic, both from a chemical and radiological standpoint. Finely divided uranium metal, being pyrophoric, presents a fire hazard. In nature, U(VI) forms highly soluble carbonate complexes at alkaline pH. This leads to an increase in mobility and availability of uranium to groundwater and soil from nuclear waste repositories which leads to health hazards.”

Mitigating nuclear hazards at uranium processing sites are very different depending largely upon the method used to create yellowcake. A conventional mill produces large quantities of waste tailings (fine sand containing radium and metals) as well as liquid waste retained in ponds. Liquid wastes leaked or flooded many sites spreading surface contamination. In addition, mill tailings were used for construction materials like cement for communities near mill sites which can pose a radon exposure problem without proper remediation. Over 4000 “vicinity” properties were cleaned up in Grand Junction by DOE and the state program is currently managed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Uranium mill tailings could continue to pose challenges in the U.S. and other countries, such as in Canada at Port Hope, for a 1,000 years.

In general, most of the hazards at mill sites, in addition to tailings management, are near surface issues affecting shallow groundwater and soil. By contrast, ISR mines inject chemicals into deeper groundwater zones that must be restored. In the U.S., all uranium production is controlled by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission or their Agreement States. According to NRC, “There are 37 Agreement States that regulate approximately 17,000 radioactive material licenses, or approximately 86% of all licenses nationally.”

Currently, the only operating uranium mill in the U.S. is the White Mesa mill operated by Energy Fuels at Blanding, Utah and regulated by Utah DEQ. Information on mills and ISR mines is available from several organizations including the non-profit Wise-Uranium.org.

My first professional employment after graduate school in 1984 was with the NRC assigned to oversee clean up uranium mill sites under the 1978 Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act (UMTRCA). The law directed U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to remediate older, shut down mill sites (Title I). For active mills, NRC and Agreement States regulated the industry under the Title II program.

In 1985, I inspected the first mill site to be approved by NRC for remediation in Canonsburg, PA as mill tailings were being placed onto a synthetic and clay liner. I toured most of the other 21 mill sites under the UMTRCA Title I and II programs at various stages of remediation or closure as well as reviewed and approved environmental assessments and remedial action plans. The primary objective was to control radiation hazards by capping tailings in place or moving tailings to a new disposal site. Initially, groundwater cleanup at mill sites did not become a priority until about a decade later. One technical issue that I identified at Canonsburg was the importance of understanding clay mineralogy in natural and remedial designs in addition to hydraulic permeability considerations for limiting pollution migration at disposal sites.

From 2012 to 2016, I managed a dozen UMTRCA sites for DOE-LM including conducting groundwater investigations at Riverton, Wyoming and other sites and managing the three Grand Junction sites: the office (former Manhattan and AEC-DOE site), processing site that became Las Colonias Park, and the active disposal site. I’m most proud of contributing to the City Park by providing permit reviews and a federal grant to support redevelopment of the former mill processing site!

In summary, with adequate regulatory oversight and inspections, processes to produce uranium can be done safely and protect the environment.

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.

What Get's Your Attention?

What’s popular that gets your attention? How do children develop their interests? Would you agree it largely depends upon home and school as well as what medium, such as books, TV or the internet, gets our interest and attention? When interviewing people for jobs, I’ve often asked what would they be doing if making money was NOT a priority? This helps reveal their true passion in life! My childhood developed my passion for becoming an environmental scientist and luckily my liberal arts education as well as science degrees gave me well-rounded interests.

So what gets your attention the most now and when you were a child? For me, I’ve been spending a lot of time recently looking at news feeds from my LinkedIn groups where I currently have 1,272 professional connections around the world. I’m also connected to LinkedIn news from very large user groups including the Project Management Network with over 860,000 members, Sustainability Professionals with close to 190,000 members, and Water Pros with over 47,000 members. So in total currently I’m able to reach over a million people through LinkedIn. Social media is having an incredible reach, which I’ll discuss more in a moment.

Looking back, what influenced you the most that got your attention to shape your education and professional interests? Growing up, I was lucky that my Mom’s brother Uncle Allan lived with us and subscribed to the National Geographic magazine — living in the Washington D.C. area I got to meet one of their photographers who attended our church who shared exciting stories about his world travels. The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was by far my favorite TV show as an adolescent which influenced me to become a natural scientist. His show ran from 1966 to 1975. What a thrill I had in 1984 seeing John Denver perform in D.C. on board the Calypso while docked on the Potomac River with Mr. Cousteau and his family!

The final episode last month of the 12-year Big Bang Theory series, as of May 21st, 2019, attracted 23.4 million TV viewers and the final season was the most watch show of the season (excluding sporting events).

You can probably guess the most watched TV shows. The Super Bowl generates the largest TV audience with the 2015 match between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks attaching the most viewers in TV history with 114 million people! However, viewership has been dropping in recent years with the 2019 game being the lowest in a decade with “only” 98 million according to CNBC.

Incredible are the number of people watching YouTube videos. Several music videos are seeing billions of viewers like Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You with over 4 billion views!

So these days to attract the youth and get their attention maybe we will need to learn to sing and dance?

Planning for One Grand Junction, Colorado

I attended a public meeting last Tuesday night April 9th with an estimated 200 residents at the Two Rivers Convention Center to discuss the One Grand Junction comprehensive plan. Fortunately, this first meeting is only the beginning of many conversations to come about what we want this naturally beautiful area to look like in the next 10 to 20 years. The project website contains a social map to share ideas for where you live and find out the City-County boundary lines.

At the public meeting we shared our issues, concerns, and suggestions for future actions. The majority of the people identified Smart Growth as their #1 issue. Within in the city limits, we’re seeing a housing boom increasing over the past three years with corn fields getting converted to closely spaced single family tract homes, typically with eight houses per acre. There appears to be a lack of infrastructure planning to widen roads, build sidewalks and bike paths, create new neighborhood parks and preserve open space to keep the small-town feeling.

I felt surprised that water and drought issues did not rank very high on the concerns list. I brought it up to a few people who thought that they did not see people wasting water. There is much more work to be done to communicate water issues to the community!

The biggest obstacle I currently observe is the need for proactive jurisdictional partnerships. To put it simply, all the various government officials need to develop a unified plan of working together. About 75% of the land in Mesa County is federal. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is being proposed to move its headquarters to Grand Junction but this did not come up at the planning meeting. The State controls funding for school districts and Mesa County is very poorly funded compared to more affluent areas of Colorado. Due to different tax rates, there are big differences between city and county services. So fulfilling the vision of One Grand Junction will take a lot of people finding and sharing common ground!

If you want more information on these activities, contact David Thornton, AICP Principle Planner with the City of Grand Junction, 970-244-1450, davidt@gjcity.org

Electric Bicycles for Enjoyment and Commuting

Electric bicycles (e-bikes) are gaining in popularity and becoming more affordable. Several bike shops in Grand Junction are adding e-bikes into their inventory of road and mountain bikes. For a great website showing reviews of e-bikes check out Electric Bike Reviews. I’ve been watching and test riding e-bikes for several years and have not been ready to spend $3,000 to $5,000 yet. I’m hoping prices will continue falling, just like with other technology, as the bikes become more popular. I’ve also been thinking if I got an e-bike it would be mostly for enjoyment to keep up with my son who can ride for longer distances as I get winded easily. The bikes are especially becoming popular with seniors who need the extra energy boost for an enjoyable ride. Buyer beware - there are some “cheaper” e-bikes coming from China for around $1,500 that lack in quality and reliability.

A friend of mine at work just purchased an Easy Motion (BH Bikes Emotion). Previously, he occasionally rode a regular bike from his home which is mostly downhill about six miles. But he found riding home discouragingly strenuous. So the e-bike is helping with the commute rather than driving his SUV. He purchased the Emotion bike for about $3,000 from Colorado E Bikes that specializes in building, selling, renting, and repairing quality e-bikes.

Yesterday, I rented an e-bike for this weekend. Colorado E Bikes charges $70 per day - however, I got the bike on Saturday afternoon and since they are closed on Sunday, I will take it back on Monday morning spending the one day charge.

The rental bike is made by Haibike. I rode the Sduro model home along the lovely Colorado River front trail with the top speed of 20 mph. The bike motor kicks in with pedaling to the speed of the bike and automatically slows down on curves and disengages when hitting the brakes. When I arrived home and after taking an hour break, my son and I rode together for about three hours. His top speed is about 10 mph and needs to walk up the hills. I found the Velo Plush saddle not fitting very comfortably and the handlebars lower than I would like.

Another friend recommended Populo Bikes and Commencal for bikes, parts and accessories.

So it’s great to experiment with various products and only buy something that we will really need!

Nordic Ski Track next to Powderhorn Mountain Resort

Twice last week I visited the Odin Nordic Ski trails! As some of our family and friends enjoyed downhill skiing at Powderhorn Mountain, located only 40 minute drive from Grand Junction, some others of us got outdoor exercise at the adjacent Odin Nordic Ski facility.

Last Saturday, Odin sponsored a cross-country ski race! While I enjoy the peacefully quiet outdoors, I’m also amazed by talented people who are in such tremendous shape to be able to race!

The Odin Recreation LLC owner really deserves our support for contributing to this healthy sport by working with nature to create this resort, sponsor the 2nd Annual race, and facilitating us getting our Rocky Mountain High in nature!