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REPORT COPYRIGHT VIOLATION IN REPLY
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Message Subject
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NUCLEAR ALERT @ PADUCAH - TORNADO DAMAGE & RAD RELEASE
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Poster Handle
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RadChick |
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Post Content
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Article starts out: Company work crews and state and federal officials on Monday continued to inspect storm damage to the shut-down Paducah nuclear fuel factory that was struck by an apparent tornado Sunday, officials said.
One of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant’s four enrichment production buildings was damaged, as well as adjacent cooling towers and a nearby electrical switch yard, said Jeremy Derryberry, a spokeswoman for plant operator, USEC Inc.
Quoting: RadChick Just out of curiosity, how long has it been shut down? The place enriches uranium by gaseous diffusion. No plutonium produced or stored there. Get your facts straight people! Their entire stock is still onsite...where else would it be. They just aren't processing. All the crap is still there.
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) enrichment facility moves to decontamination and decommissioning
(D&D). The PGDP cascade is made up of several components such as compressors and converters, along with
miles of associated piping. These components are constructed of monel, copper, nickel-plated steel, aluminum,
and other valuable materials. If these components are treated as waste, they will consume volumes of space in a
disposal cell. In cases where the technology is not currently available for decontamination, the materials should be stored onsite.
Alternately, an option for disposition of volumetrically contaminated assets could be restricted reuse of the
reclaimed assets by DOE-authorized nuclear facilities, the commercial nuclear industry, or Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) licensees authorized to possess the material. Nickel currently stored at Paducah and Oak
Ridge, along with the volumes which will be generated during the D&D of the PGDP." [ link to www.pgdpcab.energy.gov] Here's a pdf from the DOE stating it will takes billions to clean the gigantic mess they have there: Finally, even when the planned cleanup has been carried out, billions of dollars and many years will be needed to address areas at the Paducah site that are not in the
cleanup plan. For example, almost 500,000 tons of depleted uranium will need to be converted to a more stable form and removed from the site. In addition, the plan
excludes nearly a million cubic feet of waste and scrap in areas known as DOE Material Storage Areas (DMSA) and 16 unused and inactive buildings and structures.
Some of the waste and scrap material pose a risk of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction that could threaten worker safety. Such a reaction produces a burst of radiation that
generally lasts several hours; it is, however, a localized event that would not result in an explosion or release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. The additional
materials, buildings and structures are excluded from the plan not because they require no action but because they fall under the purview of a different departmental
program. [ link to www.gpo.gov]
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