This is very bad news for radioactive waste management at #Hanford
"Hanford’s pre-treated waste might not meet Vit Plant criteria"
Much of the worst radioactive waste at Hanford is the "liquid" waste in the Tank Farms. The plan was to vitrify them (enclose them in glass). Now, looks like the Vit Plant may not be up to the task. Billions more wasted after the first Vit Plant was scuttled for safety concerns.
All of the tanks in the Tank Farm are leaking. Workers are hospitalized annually for inhaling toxic fumes working at the site. They may remain with no viable plan to process the waste into a form that is manageable.
When the mammals seen in the #Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are non-human, it is supposed to be a sign that nature is healing, the #CEZ is a wildlife sanctuary! But when they are Russian troops, they are all gonna die!! 4 legs good, 2 legs bad.
You try to get two glass beads (to the left in this photo), each with a tail so that when you get them in the holes for Hiroshima & #Nagasaki, the back end stands up like a mushroom cloud.
Mass murder triumphalism...for kids!
Photo of original item in my office here in #Hiroshima.
Wild boar in Eastern and Central Europe have remained highly radioactive since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Scientists have determined the ongoing high levels of radiation relate to the boar's preference for deer truffles. This article details how the dynamics of deer truffles and the #ecosystem they are in enhances the contamination of the #truffles, and their ongoing threat to health.
So these truffles are not just increasingly absorbing #Chernobyl#radiation, but also fallout that spread globally from nuclear weapon testing.
As the old saying goes, we know when #nuclear disasters start, but not when they end, because they don't end.
Colonialism is an essential part of nuclear testing by Nuclear Weapon States (NWS), whether that test site is domestic or in the edges of empires.
Two NWS did not test even one weapon within their own national borders (UK & France). The 3 NATO nuke states tested all of their massive H-Bombs in the Pacific (empire).
Domestic sites are always located near minority ethnic or religious communities. China tested all its weapons in Uyghur territory.
Read my paper, "Nuclear Conquistadors: Military #Colonialism in Nuclear Test Site Selection during the Cold War," (updated version in my recent book, Nuclear Bodies).
@sts This is a study that tracks the long-term low-dose exposures of #nuclear industry workers, and their later health problems, with over 300,000 participants in the study.
It is a contrast to the Life Span Study of the ABCC/RERF which studied the single high-dose exposure of those exposed in the nuclear attacks in #Hiroshima & #Nagasaki.
My last word on the #Oppenheimer film is a quote from Leo Szilard (a fleeting presence in the film, but a key historical figure who wrote the “Einstein letter” re-enacted after the war in the photo below).
Speaking in Cincinnati in January 1947 Szilard said:
“Mass murderers have always commanded the attention of the public, and atomic scientists are no exception to the rule”
Selecting the irradiated (one of the chapter titles of my book):
The US conducted 1,054 nuclear weapon tests.
88% were conducted inside the US at the Nevada Test Site.
8% were conducted in the Marshall Islands.
This chart shows that the US concentrated the much larger hydrogen bomb tests in the Marshall Islands, and that the 8% of tests there released far more blast, heat and radiation than the domestic tests.
I assume you are talking about #embodied energy and found this.
But I would say embodied energy of renewables or #nuclear is almost irrelevant as it is a one off. It's an investment so will reap a massive reward in CO2 reduction year on year.
However, cost is a real problem for nuclear. And in terms of scaling up fast, #wind & #solar seem best.
Yes, shipping in general, especially long-distance, is a huge issue. But it is only solvable through economics. A solution must be at least as effective and efficient (from a business perspective) as the current dirty oil burning, /and/ significantly better at something to overcome inertia.
My bet would be #nuclear power for that: already being done for decades (mostly military though), and the environment seems ideal (no cooling issues).
Here in Europe (yes the UK is still in Europe, brexiteers can't change geography)
Here in Europe we can help each other out and sice we have such varied #energy systems, Norway with it's #hydro France #nuclear the UK can easily pick up a few % or lend a few % when needed.
@bojacobs@sts@histodons it is mind-warping to think about how long nuclear #waste lasts, but safe locations with extremely low #seismic activity (like #Finland) can be used to safely store waste for 10s of thousands of years. This, together with how small the waste really is, is enough for me to feel safe knowing that #nuclear is part of the #energy chain.
How dependent is France on Niger's uranium? (www.lemonde.fr)