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KING-TV reports that "a tunnel full of highly contaminated materials collapsed" in a reprocessing facility at the Hanford nuclear site. An official said "The facility does have radiological contamination right now but there is no indication of a radiological release." The U.S. Department of Energy released statements (archived copy) saying that employees were "told to shelter in place" and that non-essential employees were sent home.
additional coverage:
- Susannah Frame of KING-TV via Twitter (photo)
- Tri-City Herald (video)
- Western Journalism
- Yakima Herald-Republic
- Washington Post
- Seattle Times
- Popular Mechanics
- USA Today
- Fox News
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Tunnel Collapses at Hanford Nuclear Reservation
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
...his disciples lead him in; he just does the rest.
-- The Who, "Tommy"
(Score: 4, Informative) by tftp on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:04AM (5 children)
idiots come crying out of the woodwork in defense of nuclear "BEING A SAFE ALTERNATIVE TO COAL!!1"
Hanford site was built and operated by and for the military. Plenty of shortcuts were taken. The waste in question was produced when they were making the bombs. Civilian nuclear reactors run on Uranium, as I understand, not on Plutonium. Heaping sins of Cold War and of reckless military management onto the modern industry makes no sense.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by idiot_king on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:14AM (1 child)
....right on cue.
Thanks for proving my point.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 11 2017, @03:42AM
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Thursday May 11 2017, @05:07AM
> Civilian nuclear reactors run on Uranium, as I understand, not on Plutonium.
Military reactors convert uranium-238 into plutonium-239. The fuel rods are removed quickly ("low burn-up") before the plutonium-239 has a chance to absorb additional neutrons and become plutonium-240, plutonium-241 etc. which are undesirable for bomb-making. In civilian reactors, the fuel rods are left in place longer ("high burn-up") so that more of the fuel may be used up. For military use, the fuel rods are chemically processed, separating the uranium from the plutonium, and removing other fission products. That reprocessing is what used to be done at the PUREX plant that this story is about.
(Score: 3, Informative) by rleigh on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:24PM
> Civilian nuclear reactors run on Uranium, as I understand, not on Plutonium
Some use mixed-oxide fuel (MOX), which is both plutonium and uranium blended together. It's been used to reduce the size of plutonium stockpiles for weapons. Russia sold a lot of its plutonium to the US for power generation use, and here in the UK MOX fuel rods are also manufactured for power generation, presumably using our Pu stocks and reprocessed fuel. Sounds like a sensible way to reduce the vast quantities of Pu created in the Cold War.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Friday May 12 2017, @08:43AM
Well.. yes, no, and no.
* Yes - standard fuel bundles ship with uranium only, so a fresh core is uranium normally
* No - Advanced fuels are U/Pu mixes (for instance MOX-fuel is 4% to 11% (avg ~9%) Pu, depending in the isotopic purity of the Pu [military Pu is the lower, the higher is high-burnup civilian Pu])
* No - breed ratio matters, over the course of the 3-4 years fuel spends in an civilian LWR-reactor about 30% of the energy released are from in-situ bred Pu (60% in a CANDU)