(208) 344-9161 [email protected]
  • Store
  • My Account
0 Items
Snake River Alliance
  • Home
  • Donate
  • About Us
    • Mission and Vision
    • Board of Directors
    • Staff
  • What We Do
    • Nuclear Program
      • Stop the Dirty Dozen
      • Idaho National Laboratory
      • Wrong Answer to Climate Change
      • Don’t Waste Idaho
      • Nuclear FAQ
    • Clean Energy Program
      • Celebrating Clean Energy Milestones
      • Solarize the Valley
      • Resources for Idaho’s Clean Energy Future
  • Take Action
  • News
    • Alliance News
    • Newsletters
    • Events
  • Contact Us
Select Page

Radioactive Waste

by Snake River Alliance | Jul 10, 2017 | Nuclear

 

(Gary Richardson is a former Executive Director with the Snake River Alliance, this letter to the editor appeared in the July 6th Edition of the Idaho Statesman)
 The headline — “Officials removing radioactive waste from Idaho facility” — is incorrect and misleading. The calcine, picturesquely described as “detergent-like powdered waste,” is not being removed from Idaho anytime soon —likely, never.

While the calcined waste may look like laundry detergent, believe me, you don’t want it anywhere near your laundry. It is some of the most dangerously radioactive stuff on the planet — enough to cover a football field more than three feet deep. It is concentrated from more than 7 million gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste left from reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel during the Cold War.

The project outlined in the Statesman story will not remove any of this highly radioactive material from the Idaho site. It is an important pilot demonstration to see if they can empty the storage bins, some of which were not designed to be emptied. Once they learn how to move it, and come up with containers to ship it in, it will have to be processed into an even more stable form. The calcine is safer to store than liquid waste, but it can be dissolved and would have to be treated again before permanent disposal in a repository that does not yet exist.

GARY E. RICHARDSON, BOISE

CATEGORIES

  • Alliance Publications (110)
  • Clean Energy (7)
  • Clean Energy Program (267)
  • Electric Utilities & PUC (41)
  • Idaho Energy Updates (181)
  • Idaho Nuclear Updates (27)
  • INL "Incident Reports" (48)
  • National & International News (4)
  • Nuclear (413)
  • Press Releases (97)
  • Solarize The Valley (7)
  • Spent Nuclear Fuel (27)
  • Uncategorized (6)

ARCHIVES

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Copyright © 2020 Snake River Alliance, All Rights Reserved. | Email Signup