Nuclear Info Kept From Congress and the Public 309
Thermite writes "On March 6, 2006 an accident occurred at Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tennessee. According to reports, almost 9 gallons of highly enriched uranium in solution spilled and nearly went into a chain reaction. Before the accident in 2004, the NRC and The Office of Naval Reactors had changed the terms of the company's license so that any correspondence with Nuclear Fuel Services would be marked 'official use only.' From the article: 'While reviewing the commission's public Web page in 2004, the Department of Energy's Office of Naval Reactors found what it considered protected information about Nuclear Fuel Service's work for the Navy. The commission responded by sealing every document related to Nuclear Fuel Services and BWX Technologies in Lynchburg, Va., the only two companies licensed by the agency to manufacture, possess and store highly enriched uranium.' The result was that the public and Congress were both left in the dark for 13 months regarding this accident and other issues at the facility."
How do they keep a straight face (Score:2)
``I think it is important that the public recognize that we do have a very robust safety program at NFS. We live in this community and take our stewardship very seriously,'' he said.
``I think if we were to have an event like this again, we would push to make it public,'' he added. ``Clearly it would have been better to have this discussion 18 months ago than it is to have it now.''
Was that his nose growing or what?
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Uh, yes there is. He has already shown himself a liar, so I would say the likelyhood he would lie again, is pretty high. But I disagree with the notion that his actions would be evil. Such a spill would probably not be of much danger to the public anyway, and given the public outcry and scare whenever something happens that involves the magic word "nuclear", maybe it was even smart of him. Let's face it, this wasn't, and could never be, another Chernobyl.
Kee
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It was smart of him up until the part where he got caught. Seriously, for those of us who think that nuclear power would be a good stopgap energy solution to invest in, cover-ups really set back the team, probably a great deal more than the original incident would have if they just copped to it in a low-key fashion.
Re:How do they keep a straight face (Score:5, Funny)
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When did he say nothing? They did the paperwork and followed the reporting processes, it was a change in how the paperwork was classified that caused the silence. This change was unrelated to the accident and happened before the accident.
And for the record, omitting a fact is only a lie when you do so to represent the situation as something it wasn't. Not saying anything at all is an omission and certainly not a lie. I cannot understand how you could place that definition together under t
Re:How do they keep a straight face (Score:5, Informative)
Chernobyl had a lot more mass of fuel, already hot, contained in a pressurized vessel. When the reaction got out of hand, it superheated the water causing a steam explosion that blew the top off the vessel, spewing part of the reactor contents into the air and also causing a graphite fire that released even more radioactive material. Since the fuel was in solid form, the bulk of it was not easily mobile, allowing it to stay at a critical mass and density while it heated to a lava-like state and melted it's way downward into the ground while keeping the graphite fire burning.
This incident involved 9 gallons uranium and an unspecified solvent at an unspecified concentration and occurred at a processing plant, not a reactor. Had a critical mass pooled, it would have started heating up as the reaction rate increased. This would have caused the solvent to boil, mobilizing some of the radioactive particles but keeping the pool somewhat dispersed, in turn reducing the reaction rate...a sort of natural moderation effect. Actually, this is pretty much the main challenge to overcome in detonating a fission bomb. They like to sputter themselves apart before you get an effective yield.
Because of the self-moderating effect and the lack of any way to build up pressure, there could be no explosion from this spill. It might start a fire, however, which could be expected to increase the amount that becomes airborne, and of course cause additional hazards if the fire spread. A fire can be fought, by the way, although you want to take extra care not to spread the uranium to places where it's harder to clean up.
The increased radiation and perhaps irradiation from the reaction would be a hazard to anyone working in the immediate area. The NRC said there was a possibility of one worker receiving a fatal dose of radiation had it gone critical. The actual uranium that might become airborne is a surprisingly minor hazard. In fact, the wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] has a picture of someone holding U-235 pellets in their hand. It is highly toxic and this is the main threat, but you still need to get a sufficient dose to cause problems. Its radioactivity is actually very low when not in a chain reaction, with a half life of 700 million years. The bigger concern is the daughter isotopes created by its decay with shorter half lives, like radon, but these of course only form at the rate the uranium decays, so it's typically only a problem with very large deposits.
Also, if you read the article in full, you will see that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission already did an investigation (part of what was classified) and gave the company a list of required operational changes to help prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future and mitigate damage if it does.
Fscking Congress (YES this is a rant) (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a conservative and typically voted Republican, and even *I* wanted the Dems to come into power to repair the damage of Bush's administration. But on any issue involving something the DoD / DoE marks as classified, they just shrug and say, "Bush's people called it classified. I guess we can't exercise oversight after all."
I know this post will likely cost me some karma. I just wish I could spend *all* my karma on it and actually get my congressmen and senators to DO THEIR FSCKING JOBS and stop this crap.
Re:Fscking Congress (YES this is a rant) (Score:5, Insightful)
- On March 6, 2006, the Republicans were still in charge of Congress.
- How would Congress know if information was being kept from them? (Perhaps I'm missing something here.)
Not that I dispute your overall point that Congress could do even more oversight than they're already employing. You should note, however, how many pundits keep bemoaning this oversight as "witch hunts" or "fishing expeditions".Re: (Score:2)
Yes, well, the only thing they're liable to get on a "fishing expedition" is fish with three eyes. If there's a spill like this, isn't the EPA supposed to be notified? This does come under the heading of "environmental damage" or "inadvertent release of toxic chemicals" doesn't it? If so, there would be a record -- the EPA isn't the Department of Homeland Security.
s/would/should/ (Score:2)
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I think that nuclear accidents fall under the purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is also the licensing authority for nuclear facilities and sites. In this case, it sounds like they did notify the NRC, but that the NRC had decided to classify/FOUO everything that had to do with this particular site (because of its involvement with the Navy's nuclear fuels program, apparently), so their disclosure was never made public or s
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Not the ones I've worked with. Storing SECRET and above costs money, time, and labor, and has penalties if you screw up and disclose it. "FOUO" is much more common.
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Uh, because it's full of corrupt, venal, self-centered fucking idiots?
No
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The question is, are they right? If the Bushies *do* declare something classified, or within the purview of executive privilege, what power does congress have to exercise oversight? No, this isn't sarcastic or anything. I really would like to know.
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There are a few congressmen with a theoretical higher security clearance then the president has. No the office of the president overrides the clearance by the nature of the job so he isn't restricted from seeing something, but it doesn't mean he has a high clearance.
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That's really the big question. Do we want to have a government where the executive has the power to use magic words (e.g. "national security") which automatically circumvent all of the constitution's checks and balances?
Is this exploit a bug or a feature? I know what Stalin would say, but I'm more curious about the opinion of average citizens. Sometimes they say surprising things. [alibi.com]
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In theory, 2/3 of both houses could vote for a law that properly defines classified material and grants congress access to it. In practice, with our 2-party system that's carefully calibrated to maintain a near 50/50 split, it won't happen any time soon.
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In Britain, and possibly other countries, we vote for who we want in power - not vote against them, but hope they'll rescue you. Apologies if I'm not getting something obvious here.
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What you're not getting (and from outside the US, it might not even be all that obvious) is that Bush is so bad in many deeply unconservative ways that even may rank-and-file Republicans were voting across party lines to attempt to counterbalance his excesses by installing an opposition congress. In the final analysis, many believe that having something of a constitution left is preferable to having their own party in power as it drives everything straight into the ground. The irony, of course, is that th
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What the op did was something considered free speech. Weather he is a republican or not doesn't really matter. He is claiming to vote for someone who he didn't agree with because who he claims he normally agrees with have been worse then what was already in office.
Personally, I don't think he was ev
One thing is different in Britain (Score:2)
Re:One thing is different in Britain (Score:4, Informative)
(It is also worth noting that the Lib Dems control a very large number of local authorities. Pissing them off can therefore have interesting consequences. It would be most unfortunate if a new sewer had to be installed in the road... right outside an MP's house... Terrible... Don't know how that could have happened...)
Both the opposition and the third party have other weapons that do not exist in America. Either can call for a motion of no confidence, in which the Prime Minister MUST appear to answer questions. As indeed they must for Parliamentary Question Time. Although it has not been used this way for years, it used to be standard practice to use no confidence motions to force the other party to turn up for important debates, as the Prime Minister must resign if the motion passes. It is vital to that party that it can guarantee as large a majority as possible. Question Time is also important, as it creates a much greater sense of accountability. It's not perfect, but it gets better answers than subpoenas seem to be in America.
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The language a corporation speaks or listens to with sincerity is MONEY. Tell them "Don't do that!" and they'll just hide their actions better next time. Fine them and they'll correct the problem. It's only the fine, the threat of a fine, or some other "reduction of revenue" (such as canceling or non-renewing a contract) that will incur any sort of action.
As it says in TFA, the company was not fined for the spill. Making sure fines are assessed is something Congress can do, or
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Even if they don't, accountability is generally a good thing. Others merely knowing about screw-ups is generally enough to illicit measures to avoid future ones.
Nobody expects the congressional sub-committee inquisition!
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I see your point, but so many people don't understand Nuclear power or Chernobyl I like to keep a clear division.
More accidents are inevitable (Score:2)
People are fallable and make mistajes. No matter the safeguards and systems in place, people will screw up. Sure you might be able to fire them for not following procedure etc, but that won't clean up the mess.
Safety is not king. Money is. Operators are very reluctant to scram reactors or spend up huge on safety and equipment "just in case" because they really want to maximise profits. Thus, they operate in the risk zone. Bad calls are inevitable.
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If every nuclear, coal, NG, or any other plant made public all of their accidents, mass panic would ensue. And we'd never get more nuclear power plants that are needed. Not that it's on the horizon either.
And to ensure that the article is quoted properly:
" including a lea
Panic... (Score:2)
I remember this episode.... (Score:5, Funny)
FTA:
The leak was discovered when a supervisor saw a yellow liquid ``running into a hallway'' from under a door, according to one document.
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I can't even tell you how many times this happened at my old place. Damn roommates...
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Perhaps that yellow liquid was from the technician who pissed his pants when he realized what just happened.
Re:I remember this episode.... (Score:4, Funny)
At the plant...
Mike Scioscia: [pushing a wheelbarrow of glowing green goop]
Karl: [pulls up beside him with his own wheelbarrow of glowing green goop]
Hey, Scioscia. I don't get it. You're a ringer, but you're here every
night in the core, busting your butt hauling radioactive waste.
Mike Scioscia: Well, Karl, it's such a relief from the pressures of playing
big-league ball. I mean, there, you make any kind of mistake, and
boom, the press is all over you. [accidentally spills his goop]
Uh oh...
Karl: Ah, don't worry about it.
Mike Scioscia: Oh man, is this ever sweet...
Yellow Liquid (Score:3, Funny)
Highly Enriched Uranium or Godzilla's Urine?!?!? You be the judge.
Second most serious violation (Score:5, Interesting)
If I had to guess (Score:2)
Re:Second most serious violation (Score:5, Funny)
Near chain reactions shouldn't be disclosed (Score:4, Funny)
That's the Risk of Privatization (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/
Chain reaction? I'm skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
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A lot of nuclear materials can under-go a chain reaction if a significant mass is accumulated. It has to do with production versus escape of neutrons and scales as volume-to-area. So, if two sub-critical masses were combined, they could become critical. I am somewhat leary of a "spill" making something go critical, unless the mass was over-critical and the container provided some damping effect.
Fissionables in solution are weird. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the "spill" makes it more likely, not less likely.
Fissionables in solution are tricky things to deal with. Consider the following four cases:
1) Homer Simpson drops a subcritical hunk of a water-soluble U235 salt into a swimming pool. No big deal. It's a single subcritical mass of U235, and the neutrons fly straight out of it and into the surrounding water, and not enough bounce back into the mass to present a problem. Homer reaches in with a net, and pulls the chunk of salt out of the net. "No problemo."
2) A little while later, as the harmless chunk dissolves into the huge pool, there will be localized spots near the chunk, with both sufficiently-high concentration of fissionable materials and the right amount of moderating material between them for a criticality incident. "D'OH!"
3) "Aha! I'm smart! I'll prevent that scenario by dissolving it, a bit at a time, by adding it to the pool by using a salt shaker near the pump intake!" Congrats! The U235 atoms are, at all times, sufficiently widely-dispersed, that there is no criticality risk. "Woohoo!"
4) A few weeks after your swim, the place is shut down and everyone gets fired. The maintenance guy forgets to drain the pool. The water gradually evaporates, and concentrations in the remaining water begin to rise... and a few years later, some guy spraying graffiti by the abandoned poolhouse wonders WTF that blue flash was. "D'OH!" again.
I'm on a roll here, so I may as well close off the "security by obscurity" issue. There are places where security by obscurity works, and this is one of them.
The deal here is that criticality incidents, especially involving fissionables in solution are a function of degree of enrichment (in the case of uranium as the solute), nuclear properties of the solvent, local concentrations of the ions in solution, and a whole boatload of other things, in order to build cool toys, you often have to deal with them all, simultaneously. I'm not in the building-of-cool-toys industry, and have mercifully I've never had a need to know.
Some of these things are public domain, but others (particularly those things pertaining to the design of shipborne Naval reactors, which use HEU because there simply isn't enough space on all types of ships to permit the use of LEU-based designs) are classified. Given a description of an incident, however, it may be possible to place upper and lower bounds on some of the classified parameters - bounds that are narrower than the published numbers, and there are plenty of adversaries who would be delighted to deduce things about our Naval capabilities (a lot more interesting/useful than even our bomb designs), given just a few more missing puzzle pieces. The math is hard, and denying adversaries the pieces of the puzzle that they can use to derive the whole picture isn't security by obscurity, it's just good security practice.
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Given a description of an incident...
The description of the incident alarmed me. Leaking HEU running under a door spotted by someone walking down the hall...
Call me naive but I have a vision of this sort of operation that involves a bit more vigilance. Leaks can be automatically detected, particularly leaks of highly radioactive matter. In my HEU refining facility 14 different models of klaxons, 3 of them steam powered, simultaneously deafen the entire facility the instant a pressure drop or burst of radiation is detected. The two backup
Dampening effect (Score:2)
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The commission said there were two areas, the glovebox and an old elevator shaft, where the solution potentially could have collected in such a way to cause an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.
I am not a physicist, but I don't think that packing enriched uranium into a glovebox could cause a nuclear reaction. With the elevator shaft -- are they imagining something crushing the uranium under great pressure? Is that enough? This sounds very unlikely to me. Nuclear material isn't "explosive" in the typical sense. Can someone qualified chime-in on this?
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And you'd be wrong. From the wikipedia article on fast neutron reactors [wikipedia.org]: "Such a reactor needs no neutron moderator, but must use fuel that is relatively rich in fissile material when compared to that required for a thermal reactor." In essence, the fast neutrons emitted by the radioactive decay of the fuel triggers further fission, resulting in a chain reaction. Or, as the article on fast breeder reactors [wikipedia.org] stat
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The reason why nuclear weapons compress the material using chemical explosives is that the threshold mass is dependent on the density. Compressing the material lowers the threshold so that the material will cross from subcritical to supercritical => mushroom cloud.
As for the elevator shaft, there's no way that could compress the material enough to make any difference. Presumably the thing they're worried about is that t
While I'm for oversight, what would Congress do? (Score:4, Insightful)
CongressMan A: "I'm outraged at this. You stored Uranium in plain gray containers, spilled them, and then didn't buy cleanup services from my home state. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Uranium Dude: "We acknowledge that we were wrong to spill the uranium, and promise to paint the containers yellow, AND buy the yellow paint from your home state."
Congressman A: "That's damn right you will! Yellow paint and pork in one day. That's congressional leadership."
We need people with experience in handling such materials on the oversight committe - congresspeople can go off and write some vision law or national spotted insect day - in other words, what they are good at. And we need some sort of realistic expectations on what punishments would ever be meted out. I doubt we would ever ditch a uranium supplier because it's in our best interests for security to keep the number of entrants in the field small. And we wouldn't want disgruntled employees deciding to contract out.
"Almost" a chain reaction ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Almost" a chain reaction ? (Score:5, Informative)
Any container designed to hold enriched uranium would be carefully shaped so as to avoid coming anywhere near to creating a critical mass. In this incident, the risk was that the liquid would flow into the elevator shaft, where it would pool into a compact shape that could create a critical mass.
Dead wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Nuclear power and Milton Friedmann dittoheads (Score:2, Insightful)
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I definitely agree that privatization isn't the answer to every question, and that self-oversight inevitably trips over conflicts of interest.
However, I'm not sure this problem would go away if the reactor were public. A government with power spread across diverse actors l
It is NOT that they were trying to hide it (Score:2)
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Re:It is NOT that they were trying to hide it (Score:4, Insightful)
We mine it.
To mine it we release toxic chemicals into the environment, heavy metals that poison rivers, cause early deaths for mine workers, and release radon gas.
You need to look at nuclear from a total life perspective - from source (mining) to use (fission) to eventual neutrality (a few tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years).
In my state alone, many hundreds of people have died from this "cycle".
Stop trying to gin the numbers by restricting it to the input into the reactor to output from the reactor - this is a fraction of the total bykill.
Now, don't get me started on coal. And, in case you wondered, I've owned Peabody shares (IPO) so I am aware of the risk factors of that. People always underestimate the lethality of energy generation - I worked in power generation when I started my career, so I am keenly aware of who dies and from what. I have lived in mining towns. People have a way of hiding the truth from themselves about the impacts of their favority power source, to justify it in their minds. No matter WHAT it is.
Highly enriched fuel (Score:2)
Here's a photo of the facility. [citizen-times.com] That's a guard tower in the right foreground.
They kept a lid on it for 3 years. I note that this was NRC policy, as opposed to a company cover up. The NRC is typically rather open [nrc.gov] about these sort of events.
This is why there are legitimate concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not currently the case. here in the UK, we even falsified documents to show the japanese we had carried out safety procedures on their reprocessed fuel. Not surprisingly, they sent it back.
The risk of nuclear accidents is VERY small, but the potential worst case effect of one if it does happen is massive. With other forms of power like tidal, solar, wind, the worst case scenarios tend to be very very benign. As a result, I'd rather we spent the same cash investing in those technologies than one with so many potential downsides, including the leak risk, the theoretical meltdown, the security risks, potential health problems, need for uranium, centralised nature of the technology, need to be near large supplies of water, yada yada yada...
nuclear is great in theory, so is GM, but in practice, I don't vaguely think we are there yet in terms of safety.
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Miscommunication (Score:2)
Interesting history of criticality excursions (Score:2)
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/accident/critic al.html [vt.edu]
The whole "yellow liquid running into a hallway from under a door" thing is a bit Simpsons though...
Standard reporting cycle (Score:4, Informative)
"If a criticality accident had occurred in the filter glovebox or the elevator pit, it is
likely that at least one worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute
health effects or death." Keep in mind that the result of the second worst event for nuclear facilities for the year. Compare that with the coal industry or oil industry where there are multiple deaths annually.
Also this is fairly old news since it was in the NRC's "Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences - Fiscal Year 2006 (NUREG-0090, Vol. 29)". Which has a release date of April 2007. Take a look for yourself its on page 14
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nur
The information is available to congress is not notified everytime an incident occurs. Unless the accident could cause things to happen off site the public isn't notified until the annual list of inccidents, primarily because it would just create unneeded hystaria as seen by this FUD while the engineers review the facts and figure out REALLY happened. As far as the company trying to hide it. If it is not reported to the NRC within 24 hours of the event they would likely lose their license.
No big deal (Score:2)
But this isnt a big problem.
You only get a chain reaction with *compact* arrangements of fissile material. For liquids, their innate tendency is to flatten out, spread out, and head downhill. For example, if a bottle of uranium nitrate breaks, its going to fall into a less critical configuration.
Even if the stuff drains into some sump, not a huge problem. It might get more reactive, but
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, we should (Score:4, Interesting)
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Sad Times are these... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. passing ruffians can say `nee' at will to old women
2. the sarcasm in my post is not obvious as all hell.
Hey, at least I suspected it! (Score:2)
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Hence the sadness.
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Based on the same idea about rejecting "security by obscurity", would you advocate publishing on the internet, the complete blueprints and documentation of every nuclear plant in the US, hiding only private keys and passwords for access? Why or why not? How much should be freely available?
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Attempting to Hide it only make people feel secure; which leads to people getting sloppy with actual security.
People knowing how a nuclear power plant works doesn't make them able to change anything.
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So where I can I download that?
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So where I can I download that?
Congress Isn't for Everyone (Score:2, Flamebait)
The core hypocrisy of "Republicans" is how they hate the republic, preferring a monarchy whose benign neglect amounts to corporate anarchy.
This kind of Republican fraud goes well beyond the $5 word "hypocrisy" [etymonline.com]. Republicans prefer rulers to be mere actors on a political stage, fed their lines from under the platform, written by t
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First you kick off a rant with some Republican denial projection, that "Democrats are detached from reality" (complete with a stupid Republican slander word). Then you wallow in some extreme strawman you mad
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure this can be fixed. It isn't like carelessness is rampant and they sought out to hide the incident.
I guess the big surprise here is that a company is able to change classifications of certain paperwork without talking to the agencies with oversight. It should be that the classifications should be mandated by a set of guidelines and maybe some notification system to oversight panels when something happens. The government agency automatically assume one thing and marked the reports classified where even if they should be classified, the people overseeing them should stil be aware of them.
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For one thing, the comment of "nearly went into a chain reaction" is complete FUD. What is nearly? That does not even make sense. Anything done with nuclear fuel is done inside different levels of containment. Okay, maybe it spilled out of a storage container but it was contained in the handling room which has a special closed drainage system, non porous floors, and a ventilation system that is uses recirculated air that is monitored and filtered. For the purpose of FUD, ever
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We are supposed to believe that 9 gallons of enriched Uranium won't go into chain reaction but if you spill it onto a floor where it spreads out the chances of a chain reaction increases?
when Pigs fly.
Check out the Barns radius.
Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Informative)
No, we're supposed to believe that an improperly sealed transfer line could allow sufficent uranium to accumulate in two possible places over the course of multiple transfer operations.
Report PDF [nrc.gov]
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There might be an accident in January of 2008, I want the reports published now!
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There might be an accident in January of 2008, I want the reports published now!
The presidential primaries are already getting heavy coverage.
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Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Funny)
We'd glow in it.
This seems a little overblown. (Score:5, Insightful)
As an apparent unintended consequence (or a willfully accepted consequence) of the policy change to make sure that sensitive documents stopped ending u on websites, non-sensitive documents regarding safety incidents ended up being restricted as well.
But, even when the accident occurred, the regulatory commission apparently even made a point of having a special vote to make sure the party responsible for the incident was properly, and publicly, identified.
There is a definite difference between changing a policy to hide safety accidents and safety accidents not getting disclosed as well as a result of a policy change. The latter is the case here. The policy will be adjusted.
On the flip side, imagine the uproar if the policy had originally only specified that sensitive documents got restricted, and sensitive information was released anyway because someone mistakenly labeled a sensitive document as non-sensitive? It's a trade-off - and while the current policy made it harder for the public to find out about an accident, it's also true that a different policy would increase the risk of accidental release of sensitive material.
Either way, there's no reason to assign nefarious intent where apparently none is due.
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Tin-foil hats aside, the US government has a rather heinous [wikipedia.org] track record where nuclear safety and civilians are concerned...
To paraphrase that general from Armageddon: "I wouldn't trust that lot of morons with a potato gun..."
Re:This seems a little overblown. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Perhaps the details of the delivery dates, times, routes and security guards is sensitive, but the quantities of nuclear fuel being used by the Navy doesn't seem to me to tell anybody anything much that's strategically sensitive - refuelling happens so rarely that it doesn't have much to do with strategic situations. Frankly, information about what
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