Nuclear Derailment

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

Wonderful, some nitwit is going to irradiate me because somebody responsible is too cheap to spend money on maintainance or too lazy to report it; one or the other-likely the first one.

If I turn into Kermit the Frog and grow an extra arm, I know who to sue then I guess.[:D]

Think of the music you could write that could only be played by a three-legged frog![;)]

[Eddystone]

I remember reading an artical in National Geographic magazine a few years ago on nuclear energy. One of the things I remember reading was that things such as aircraft, cars, and trucks are required to be tested until they are destroyed to be certified by the government. But the spent fuel containers were not, they had a picture of a FM Trainmaster that had a rocket motor mounted in it hitting a container on a flatbed tractor trailer filled with water, they said it did'nt leak. For the fire test it was only required to be in a 1000 degree fire for like 30 minutes, but propane, gasoline, diesel, and other chemicals that travel and cross railroad tracks burn at much higher temperatures. Just something to think about.

[88gta350]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mark_in_utah

People get all in a tizzy about spent fuel and radiation, but I have yet to see what the big deal is.

Let just suppose that SOMEHOW sombody rips one of those casks in half and spills the radioactive fuel assemblies all over the tracks. What would happen?

Well, lets see how they're constructed: A bunch of steel & boron tubes with solid (metallic) fuel pellets stacked in the tubes. Break a tube and the pellets shoot out like BB's from a straw. How do you clean up the mess? Get a bunch of guys in lead suits with tongs to walk around and pick them up. The steel tubes are also a bit radioactive because of all the radiation they've been exposed to. Gather up all of the metallic pieces and hault it away.

Would it be a pain in the hiny? Sure. Would thousands die? Maybe from a terror-induced heart attack, but not the radiation.

The government was looking at reprocessing the fuel back in the 80's, but the "radiation" politics killed it. Too many fears about creating plutonium, a byproduct of the normal operation of a reactor. If they reprocessed the fuel they could remove over 90% of the waste before it had to be stored, and what was stored would be radioactive for less time.

The French do it all the time. If the French can do it, CERTAINLY the U.S. can do it, right?

Mark in Utah

Spent fuel rods are extremely radioactive, depending on how long they've been out of the reactor. Typically the ones being shipped in casks are older, less lethal rods, but still quite radioactive. Spent fuel rods could give a lethal dose in under 5 minutes, again, depending on how old they are. Cleaning up after an accident of that nature would not be as simple as walking around picking up the pieces. Contamination would likely be spread everywhere, but it's the radiation eminating from those rods while they are exposed that's the real hazard.

[88gta350]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

I didn't think the underground storage in Nevada was available yet. Yucca Mountain, right? I thought it was still mired in red tape.

Yucca Mountain is not active yet... several years away. If you read the article, the fuel was sent to Idaho, not NV. Idaho has accepted nuclear waste for decades. That labrotory in Idaho was where material and equipment from the TMI accident in '79 was sent for study.

[Junctionfan]

Another leg?!? They don't sell a trio of shoes....

[chad thomas]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

Wonderful, some nitwit is going to irradiate me because somebody responsible is too cheap to spend money on maintainance or too lazy to report it; one or the other-likely the first one.

If I turn into Kermit the Frog and grow an extra arm, I know who to sue then I guess.[:D]

Mabee you'll get lucky and grow an extra leg, then you could kick some serious a$$.[;)]

[Junctionfan]

Wonderful, some nitwit is going to irradiate me because somebody responsible is too cheap to spend money on maintainance or too lazy to report it; one or the other-likely the first one.

If I turn into Kermit the Frog and grow an extra arm, I know who to sue then I guess.[:D]

[Anonymous]

People get all in a tizzy about spent fuel and radiation, but I have yet to see what the big deal is.

Let just suppose that SOMEHOW sombody rips one of those casks in half and spills the radioactive fuel assemblies all over the tracks. What would happen?

Well, lets see how they're constructed: A bunch of steel & boron tubes with solid (metallic) fuel pellets stacked in the tubes. Break a tube and the pellets shoot out like BB's from a straw. How do you clean up the mess? Get a bunch of guys in lead suits with tongs to walk around and pick them up. The steel tubes are also a bit radioactive because of all the radiation they've been exposed to. Gather up all of the metallic pieces and hault it away.

Would it be a pain in the hiny? Sure. Would thousands die? Maybe from a terror-induced heart attack, but not the radiation.

The government was looking at reprocessing the fuel back in the 80's, but the "radiation" politics killed it. Too many fears about creating plutonium, a byproduct of the normal operation of a reactor. If they reprocessed the fuel they could remove over 90% of the waste before it had to be stored, and what was stored would be radioactive for less time.

The French do it all the time. If the French can do it, CERTAINLY the U.S. can do it, right?

Mark in Utah

[Anonymous]

What I don't understand is why it was routed via CSX? Hasn't anybody at DOE heard about the legendary CSX track maintenance issues?

LC

[Anonymous]

Good thing this did not get on CNN. Combined these two words "Nuclear" and "Accident" will probably evoke memories of 3 mile island... some of which still "Cooks" to this day.

[rrnut282]

QUOTE: Originally posted by chad thomas

QUOTE: Originally posted by Limitedclear


The cause of the collision is under investigation by CSX, the National Transportation Safety Board, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Railroad Administration, Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory (Pittsburgh), Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (Schenectady) Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and state and local agencies.

I don't think there are enough agencys involved [:D]

Where's the National Idiots Making Businesses Yearnforthegoodolddays otherwise known as NIMBYs??

The story is of note only because an accident involving those casks is so rare. They've been in use in one form or another for over twenty years, yet can you think of another incident?

[blhanel]

Thanks Chad, that pretty much confirmed my suspicions.

[Anonymous]

Speaking slightly off-topic, but I've heard that if the average American family will turn off its computer if not to be used in the next hour, get a high-efficiency refrigerator and a hybrid car, that family's energy use goes down twenty-five percent. Notice that this is before the first passive solar panel, turning down thermostats, etc....If demand were to be stalled but the economy remain healthy, and if nukes do not dwindle as a percentage of all energy use, we basically wouldn't need PRB...or so I've been told.

[chad thomas]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

I didn't think the underground storage in Nevada was available yet. Yucca Mountain, right? I thought it was still mired in red tape.

Yucca mt. is certainly a long ways away from becomeing a reality. Here is the latest:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nevada files opposition to Yucca rail corridor land restrictions

The federal Energy Department hasn't laid the proper groundwork to justify restricting public land use along a proposed railroad corridor to Yucca Mountain, Nevada argues in a statement opposing the plan.

"It's poor planning and the wrong agency is in charge," Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said Tuesday of the Energy Department plan to build a railroad to haul radioactive waste across the state.

Loux filed a seven-page letter Friday opposing the Energy Department proposal to withdraw 308,600 acres from public use across parts of Lincoln, Nye and Esmeralda counties. Public comments end Wednesday.

"Apart from causing impacts and disruption to existing land users, the proposed action has the potential to negatively affect the environment, grazing allotments, mining and energy development activities, property values, the economy, important cultural resources and more," the state said.

The state also argued the Energy Department should let the Bureau of Land Management and the federal Surface Transportation Board conduct the needed studies, and called on the department to withdraw its assessment and conduct a full environmental impact study.

The department held public hearings this month in rural Nevada, and as of Monday had received 30 comments on its proposal, Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said.

The plan is to remove from public use a mile-wide swath stretching 319 miles, dubbed the Caliente Corridor. The Energy Department proposes to forbid new mining claims and prevent the BLM from selling property on the parcels that would be withdrawn for 10 years.

Federal officials have said current mining claims, grazing permits, water rights and public access would not be affected.

In its environmental assessment, the Energy Department projected minimal disruptions from the land withdrawal. It said engineers plan to photograph land features and conduct field surveys to narrow specific routes for the nuclear waste railroad.

No rail line currently runs to the site the Bush administration and Congress picked in 2002 to entomb 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste now stored at nuclear reactors and military facilities in 39 states.

The Energy Department announced in April 2004 that it intends to build the rail line from Caliente, a small town 150 miles northeast of Las Vegas, to the Yucca Mountain site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Department estimates have put the cost at $880 million.

Arguments are scheduled Oct18 in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on a state request to halt planning for the rail line until more studies are done. - The Associated Press, The Las Vegas Sun, courtesy Larry W. Grant

[jchnhtfd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tomtrain

Why aren't spent rods recycled here like they do in France and Japan? Wouldn't that reduce significantly the amount that would need to be shipped and buried in Nevada?

In one word: POLITICS.

They could be. They should be. But there are enough folks out there for whom the term 'nuclear' or 'radioactive' produces absolute flat out panic (defined as an unreasoning and uncontrolled terror of the unknown) that it would be political suicide to suggest it in the dear ol' USA.

[larsend]

Many of those cars show up here in Idaho at the INL, or Idaho National Laboratory. On several occasions I have seen these cars parked in Blackfoot Idaho awaiting transit to the INL, out in the desert west of Idaho Falls where the radioactive material is processed for storage in Nevada if it ever opens. Meanwhile it is all being stored in Idaho!

[Anonymous]

I've seen one of those cars, at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, VA. It's on my list of things to model, in that magical 'sometime'. They mentioned it in some of the training, but nothing particular on it. Just that it's heavily sheilded (with lead), which accounts for the weight, and that the aircooling fins on the side are enough to dissapate any heat that may be given off during transit. it looked like a 40ft flatcar with a pot in the middle.

James

[Tulyar15]

Some years ago to allay fears about the consequences of a derailment, British Nuclear Fuels and British Rail did an experiment where they crashed a class 46 diesel loco (the heaviest diesel ever to run here, weighing 140 tons) into a nuclear flask at 100mph. The loco was a write off, as were at least 2 of the passenger cars it was pulling but the flask was hardly scratched.

According to BNFL's official website, if all power was produced by nuclear then the amount of harmful waste produced per person in a lifetime would only be 1/3 rd the szie of a soccer ball. Still with 60 million people living here that would be 20 million balls - a real load of balls!

[blhanel]

I didn't think the underground storage in Nevada was available yet. Yucca Mountain, right? I thought it was still mired in red tape.

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tomtrain

Why aren't spent rods recycled here like they do in France and Japan? Wouldn't that reduce significantly the amount that would need to be shipped and buried in Nevada?

But then how would the strip in Vegas glow?

[Anonymous]

Why aren't spent rods recycled here like they do in France and Japan? Wouldn't that reduce significantly the amount that would need to be shipped and buried in Nevada?

[chad thomas]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Limitedclear


The cause of the collision is under investigation by CSX, the National Transportation Safety Board, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Railroad Administration, Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory (Pittsburgh), Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (Schenectady) Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and state and local agencies.

I don't think there are enough agencys involved [:D]

[Anonymous]

The consequences of a radioactive container breach are too great to engineer against--the system simply must not let it happen at all. It sounds like the boo-boo above lends credence to DOE's belief that spent nuclear fuel is so well protected it can shuttle from all parts of the USA with reactors, to Nevada, with no possible mishap.

Well, never say never, but I feel strangely cheered by the fact that the container didn't crack -- that's DOE's business. But as for the derailment occurring in the first place -- that's the RR's. Perhaps DOT should give subsidies for smoother roadbed, heavier rail, etc., on the routes most likely to ship radioactive tailings to Nevada.

[Anonymous]

Nuke waste container derailment: No leaks, no casualties

Early this morning, two freight trains in CSX’s Frontier Railyard in Buffalo sideswiped each other, causing a railcar carrying an empty nuclear waste container to topple onto its side. The 320,000-pound container, which was enroute to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, from the Department of Energy Naval Reactors Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, was not damaged. It had been emptied of spent nuclear fuel from a U.S. Navy submarine.

No one was injured, and the DOE Pittsburgh Naval Reactors Office said the container had no visible damage. Testing confirmed no radiation was released. The cause of the collision is under investigation by CSX, the National Transportation Safety Board, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Railroad Administration, Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory (Pittsburgh), Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (Schenectady) Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and state and local agencies.

According to the DOE, the type of nuclear waste container involved in the derailment “provides extensive shielding, so the radiation levels outside the shipping container are extremely low, a very small fraction of the Department of Transportation limit.” Tubular in shape, the container has 14-inch-thick stainless steel walls and is built to withstand collisions, falls from bridges, fire, and water immersion.

The DOE called the derailment “highly unusual.” One industry observer said it is evidence that rail is the safest way to carry nuclear waste.

From Railway Age 9/22/05