[kublikhan]

The freaking joke here is you dissident. I never even mentioned a meltdown. Anytime you read something you don't like you brain shuts off and you go into 4 year old mode where you just fling insults.

Russians have been dumping nuclear waste for decades. Not just from Beloyarsk but from many other reactors.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he dumping of highly radioactive wastes at sea has been banned worldwide for more than three decades, and the ban has been expanded to other forms of nuclear waste. Now a Russian report has detailed how the Soviet Union repeatedly broke those rules, making it clear that Moscow lied in asserting that it had never dumped radioactive waste into the oceans. The document paints a picture even darker than the rumors and half-truths about oceanic dumping that began to swirl as the Soviet Union collapsed. It turns out that a vast amount of highly radioactive waste was dumped by the Soviet Union: twice the combined total of 12 other nuclear nations.

The team of 46 experts that produced the new report of Soviet violations was headed by Dr. Aleksei V. Yablokov, the top environmental adviser to the Russian President. "It's very significant," said Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who has closely followed the issue. "The report has been motivated by a realization of the scope of the problem and a realization that they're going to have to have international assistance to deal with it. The cost of risk assessment alone could be in the billions." The Yablokov report says the Soviet Union dumped 2.5 million curies of radioactive wastes, including 18 nuclear reactors from submarines and an icebreaker. A big dose by any standard, the 2.5 million curies is almost exactly twice what was previously thought to have been dumped at sea during the whole of the nuclear era. Two of the 18 reactors went into the Sea of Japan. News of the sunken reactors, which are unfueled and less dangerous, nonetheless startled Tokyo and prompted it to petition Moscow for details.

[Subjectivist]

The freaking joke is people who can't tell the difference between weapon program waste and power generation waste.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', 'T')he freaking joke is people who can't tell the difference between weapon program waste and power generation waste.

[eclipse]

The main problem with nuclear waste going into the ocean is not the radioactivity, but mobility. Is it a largely intact fuel rod that's just going to sit at the bottom and eventually get covered by silt, or is it powdered and moving around in fish? Movement is the issue. Water is a great moderator. If you swim through the middle of a deep spent-nuclear-fuel pond, you would experience less radiation than you do where you live now. Water halves radiation every 12 cms. A fatal does of radiation would be reduced to barely noticeable by a span of water roughly the height of the average person. Tom Blees, author of "Prescription for the planet", says that if the whole world was powered by breeder reactors it would only produce one barge of nuclear waste every 2 years. As long as that waste were vitrified down into ceramic tablets, and the barge had about a meter between the tablet crates and the exterior barge wall, we could drag the barge out to the deepest trenches and sink it. The water between the wall and nuclear waste crate would protect sea life, and 500 years later those fission products have burnt themselves back to safe levels. And the ceramic plates Argonne labs talk about making aren't floating anywhere.
4 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlMDDhQ9-pE

[eclipse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'I')f you want to say fast breeder reactors are the solution to the nuclear waste problem I'm not sure using Russia is a very good example. Not when they've been taking nuclear waste from Beloyarsk and dumping it in a nearby swamp.

[Tanada]

The biggest issue, and I mean this sincerely, is people continue to faithfully believe the propaganda of the anti-nuclear groups founded in the 1960's and pretend that no technology has advanced in the field since then.

Meanwhile out here in the real world we went from wall mounted landline phones with cords to a smart cellphone that sits in your pocket and goes everywhere with you. We went from barley escaping the Earths atmosphere for a few weeks to having satellites in orbit still functioning after 2 decades on the job. We went from organ transplants being cutting edge technology and patients with kidney failure lucky to survive a year to routine kidney transplants with near normal lifespans after kidney failure. Heck we went from computers the size of a warehouse fitting into your pocket on that same smart phone I already mentioned.

Yet while all that technology changed the propagandists like to pretend the only nuclear options are those we had in 1960 and we didn't even improve on those options.

I am also compelled to point out that the former USSR was a horrible environmental steward having dump great gobs of chemical waste of every description in a great many places. Using them as a yardstick for proper waste handling is like saying Ted Bundy really loved women.

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'T')he biggest issue, and I mean this sincerely, is people continue to faithfully believe the propaganda of the anti-nuclear groups founded in the 1960's and pretend that no technology has advanced in the field since then.

Meanwhile out here in the real world we went from wall mounted landline phones with cords to a smart cellphone that sits in your pocket and goes everywhere with you. We went from barley escaping the Earths atmosphere for a few weeks to having satellites in orbit still functioning after 2 decades on the job. We went from organ transplants being cutting edge technology and patients with kidney failure lucky to survive a year to routine kidney transplants with near normal lifespans after kidney failure. Heck we went from computers the size of a warehouse fitting into your pocket on that same smart phone I already mentioned.

Yet while all that technology changed the propagandists like to pretend the only nuclear options are those we had in 1960 and we didn't even improve on those options.

I am also compelled to point out that the former USSR was a horrible environmental steward having dump great gobs of chemical waste of every description in a great many places. Using them as a yardstick for proper waste handling is like saying Ted Bundy really loved women.

[kublikhan]

You are ignoring the fact that much of that old soviet era infrastructure is still running today. All of that nuclear waste Russia is importing? That's going to Mayak:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')ermany is seeking to export 951 spent nuclear fuel rods, currently held at a temporary storage facility in the country's west, to Russia – but critics have called the plans dangerous and irresponsible.

"Our position is clear," a spokesperson for Saxony's Science Ministry said recently, "as long as international conditions are satisfied, then we want to see the material put back where it belongs." As far as Saxony is concerned, 'where it belongs' is in a Russian nuclear facility at Mayak, some 150 km south-east of Ekaterinburg.

For the opposition Greens, though, Mayak is anything but a safe repository. "We know that Mayak is highly contaminated," said Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, Greens spokesperson for nuclear policy. "We also know that Mayak is not operated with anything like the same philosophy of safety that is considered standard here in Germany. So to move the waste fuel rods there is incredibly negligent." Some experts consider Mayak's environment to be more polluted than that of Chernobyl, the site of the Soviet Union's worst nuclear accident.

[StarvingLion]

Russia is a world leader in Fast Neutron Reactors that nobody wants because all it offers is much higher CAPEX, operating costs, and MASSIVE risk. Who the hell wants that in a post-peak oil world?

The only thing happening with Russia's Nuclear is that its "pal" China is copying it. I wonder what The Dissident thinks about that.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', 'T')he freaking joke is people who can't tell the difference between weapon program waste and power generation waste.

[dissident]

Trying to make post USSR submarine reactors into a "dumping into the swamp issue" is simple lies. These reactors were never a threat to the environment or to humans. Now that Russia has gotten over the worst depression in modern history (60% GDP contraction, the USA lost 25% of its GDP during the Great Depression of the 1930s), it has actually gotten the resources and EU assistance to start properly decommissioning those spent reactors.

https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/3 ... ines-leave

Nice BS in the above article about the "most dangerous place on Earth". BS. The reactors did not get a chance to corrode and experience partial meltdowns. Maybe in 50 years that would have been the case. Only racists would proceed on the assumption that this would was inevitable.

https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues ... -next-year

Even nuclear-hating Bellona admits that the submarine reactors are being cleaned up. I guess the end of the world was not nigh after all...

[eclipse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('StarvingLion', 'R')ussia is a world leader in Fast Neutron Reactors that nobody wants because all it offers is much higher CAPEX, operating costs, and MASSIVE risk. Who the hell wants that in a post-peak oil world?

The only thing happening with Russia's Nuclear is that its "pal" China is copying it. I wonder what The Dissident thinks about that.

[kublikhan]

The comment about waste being dumped into a swamp was not about the submarine reactor dump. It was about a different dump site the Russians used. This one was the Olkhovsky wetlands. And it was not submarine cores being dumped there. It was waste from the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')ussia's laws prohibit dumping of liquid radioactive waste in the open hydrographic network. Despite this, it takes place at the Beloyarsk NPP over many years. During the operation of the plant’s three units, radionuclides have been accumulated in sediments of the Olkhovsky wetland (the BNPP water dump site) and removed by the Pyshma river to 180 km downstream. In fact, the Olkhovsky wetland and the Olkhovka river have turned into an illegal dump-site of radioactive waste and become a secondary source of pollution. More than 100 Ku of long-lived radionuclides have been dumped to the Olkhovsky wetland. According to the Institute of Geophysics, in terms radionuclides content, muddy bottoms of the Olkhovka river are close to the category of radioactive waste - the concentration of radionuclides in them is more than 30 kBq / kg. Increased level of activity has led to the need for closure of the wetland area (about 40 ha).

[eclipse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'T')he comment about waste being dumped into a swamp was not about the submarine reactor dump. It was about a different dump site the Russians used. This one was the Olkhovsky wetlands. And it was not submarine cores being dumped there. It was waste from the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant.

[EdwinSm]

Back to school on nuclear waste ???

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') US middle school has closed for the remainder of the school year after authorities found it was contaminated with radioactive chemicals.

Officials say a nearby air monitor detected enriched uranium and neptunium-237 at Zahn's Corner Middle School in Piketon, southern Ohio.

There are more than 300 pupils and 25 staff at the school.

A nearby nuclear plant made weapons-grade uranium for the Department of Energy until its closure in 2001.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EdwinSm', 'B')ack to school on nuclear waste ???

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') US middle school has closed for the remainder of the school year after authorities found it was contaminated with radioactive chemicals.

Officials say a nearby air monitor detected enriched uranium and neptunium-237 at Zahn's Corner Middle School in Piketon, southern Ohio.

There are more than 300 pupils and 25 staff at the school.

A nearby nuclear plant made weapons-grade uranium for the Department of Energy until its closure in 2001.

[diemos]

We keep making better and better instruments that can detect more and more microscopic levels of radiation.

During Fukushima people would always say they wanted undetectable levels of contamination in their food not realizing that that was just as much a statement about their detector as it was a statement about the contamination. So I would hand them a pencil and say, "Here, wave this over your food and I guarantee it will never detect anything and you'll always have undetectable levels in your food."

[eclipse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EdwinSm', 'B')ack to school on nuclear waste ???

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') US middle school has closed for the remainder of the school year after authorities found it was contaminated with radioactive chemicals.

Officials say a nearby air monitor detected enriched uranium and neptunium-237 at Zahn's Corner Middle School in Piketon, southern Ohio.

There are more than 300 pupils and 25 staff at the school.

A nearby nuclear plant made weapons-grade uranium for the Department of Energy until its closure in 2001.

[dissident]

The Chernobyl fallout consisted of three modes:

1) the largest particle sizes sedimented out in the vicinity of the reactor giving us the exclusion zone

2) intermediate size particles mostly fell out over southern Belorus and this is where the most health impact has been since it was easy to inhale these particles as they were not sequestered in the soil in one pass but were advected around in the turbulent boundary layer for a non-negligible period of time (a few days). Eventually they got trapped on surfaces and in people's lungs.

3) the smallest size particles were transported similar to a plume of released gas since they sedimentation rate is too small to matter. These would have been particles in the tens to hundreds of nanometers diameter sizes. This is the radiation you heard being transported over Europe and to even more remote locations.

The trick with the exclusion zone is that coarse mode particles have a lot of mass but do not have large number densities and since they do not get re-emitted from the ground easily (of course they will together with dust under the right wind conditions, but that is not ubiquitous) they get trapped in the soil and slowly migrate (diffuse) downward thanks to rain and snow melt. The most radioactive phase would have been right after the meltdown. A year later the think layer of coarse corium particulates was no longer at the surface of the soil. If you go to the exclusion zone today, you can expose the radiation by scraping off the top soil layer.

Southern Belorus, where most of the nasty size distribution that could be inhaled landed, is where the exposure is higher than the 2.5 mSv being quoted. And it is the one-off exposure from corium aerosol inhalation that is critical. Even if area-averaged measurements show little radiation today and over the past 20 years, the damage was done to all the individuals (tens of thousands) that were exposed initially. The aerosol is a radiation vector that deposits corium into the body. This is not the same thing as being exposed to radiation through the skin.

The clowns who conducted the unauthorized experiment leading to the meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor should have been shot. There was one manager who committed suicide but I am not sure he was the key culprit. But at the same time, the hysteria being spread about the "millions" of victims is agenda-driven propaganda.

[diemos]

The data I'd like to have is air sampling measurements through HEPA filters in the Fukushima exclusion zone. Any sort of activity that would kick dust up into the air would seem problematic.