ScribbleLive

Morning Dean!

@dean dang. Didn't they take the reactor from TMI to Hanford out of a lack of any other option?

@dean Ah. What do they do with the RPV when they decommission a reactor? The one here at Pathfinder got hauled off somewhere.

I was thinking of Pathfinder, it went to Hanford. news.google.com

The spent fuel was transferred from cooling pools to 34 concrete and steel storage casks in 2003. [12]

In 2005, the reactor vessel and other radioactive equipment were removed from the Trojan plant, encased in concrete foam, shrink-wrapped, and transported intact by barge along the Columbia River to Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, where it was buried in a 45-foot-deep (14 m) pit and covered with 6 inches (150 mm) of gravel, which made it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole.[13] The spent fuel is stored onsite in 34 dry casks[14]. It was awaiting transport to the Yucca Mountain Repository until that project was canceled in 2009[15].

The iconic 499-foot-tall (152 m) cooling tower, visible from Interstate 5 in Washington and U.S. Route 30 in Oregon, was demolished via dynamite implosion at 7:00 a.m. on May 21, 2006. This event marked the first implosion of a cooling tower at a nuclear plant in the United States[citation needed]. Additional demolition work on the remaining structures continued through 2008. The central office building, and the reactor building were demolished by Northwest Demolition and Dismantling[16] in 2008. Remaining are five buildings: two warehouses, a small building on the river side, a guard shack, and offices outside the secured facility. There is also extensive underground infrastructure still to be demolished. It is expected that demolition of the plant will cost as least as much as its construction.[

correction.. trojan was in oregon... duh.. .I had forgotten

It sounded like initially NSP thought they were going to bury pathfinder parts in SD. I think that was the motivation for the nuclear waste ban in SD

yes @ lilly, he was thinking that Japan's estimates were lower

the soil alone is 23 tokyo dome stadium's worth. I don't know if that includes all of these pockets of concentration they are finding outside of the 20-30km zone. They were finding levels as high as chernobyl's evac zone in Gunma over 200km south and west of the plant.

@Peter I would imagine gathering leaves in the mountainside cedar forests in Gunma would be a huge undertaking. But it sounds like the best way to head off worse long term contamination. I think the enormity of the impact on Japan is finally starting to be realized. There was an article earlier in the week that the roads may be heavily contaminated. Then the info that Gunma has high levels 200km from the plant

perhaps the prefectures should locate incinerators in strategic locations and then coordinate to burn as much as possible

ajw.asahi.com the global concern for waste shipment routes will change as evident in this article.. no one will want waste unless the sender puts up tons of cash. so starving countries may end up with trash just for money to bolster their economies

@Peter Yokohama was dumping their radioactive ashes into a landfill area in the bay. Ex-SKF was all over it for a few weeks. It really seemed like an ignorant action.

@dean There was a bit in the NRC letters where Sec of State Clinton told the press how everything at Fuku was going to be ok because they are so technically superior and their safety is so good. :-)

@lilly, I do believe Japan's technology is good in many areas but for this issue it's like no one could ever imagine a problem would occur that is outside their thinking so because of their culture they don't waste time worrying about severe accidents.

@dean they also had a big stake in cultivating the illusion of near perfection and technical superiority. There were some back and forth conversations with the IAEA where they rebuffed advice because acting on that advice would have been an admission they didn't have all the answers. I think what was there wasn't challenged enough (even if it was good) and the lack of real oversight with teeth allowed all the problems to grow. That being said, what I have seen of lax behavior at TEPCO still looks highly disciplined compared to what I have seen of Ft. Calhoun. but Ft. Calhoun is also on the NRC naughty list for a reason.