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RE: Plutonium Program May Be Dangerous
As part of their licensing basis, plants are required, by 10 CFR 100, to
calculate the dose expected to be received by Offsite personnel and
Plant Operators. With such a high visibility issue, it is doubtful that
changes to those calculations would be over looked or neglected.
A point to remember is that commercial power reactors already burn
plutonium. U-238, the bulk of the fuel since U-235 only makes up about
5% of the fuel when it is new. U-238 is converted by neutrons from
fission to Plutonium, among other things, the Plutonium subsequently
fissions, just as the Uranium, to generate power. From my Senior
Reactor Operator course materials, I find that at the end of the useful
life of a load of fuel, power generation is as follows :
37% Pu-239, 49% U-235, 7% U-238 and about 7% from Pu-241 for a total of
about 44% from Pu fission.
The actual health benefits, emissions reductions and resultant reduced
respirator distress related mortality, vastly out weigh the potential
risk associated with the power generated by plutonium.
...mine and mine alone ...
Ron LaVera
lavera.r@nypa.gov
-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy Perle [mailto:sandyfl@earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, January 22, 1999 8:47 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Plutonium Program May Be Dangerous
Friday January 22 1:59 AM ET
Plutonium Program May Be Dangerous
WASHINGTON (AP) - A plan to use civilian reactors to get rid of
plutonium from old nuclear weapons has been controversial from
the start. Now critics are rallying around a report suggesting
thousands of additional deaths could result if a major reactor
accident occurred using such fuel.
A private nuclear watchdog group, the Nuclear Control Institute,
produced a study Thursday saying the Energy Department severely
underestimates the safety risks of using civilian power reactors to
dispose of plutonium that the government no longer needs because
of post-Cold War arms reductions.
The department, which contends the plan would not compromise
safety, is expected to issue a contract next month to a consortium
to dispose of more than 36 tons of plutonium over several decades.
The group comprises two Southern electric utilities, Duke Power
Co. and Virginia Power Co., and the French nuclear fuel
manufacturer Cogema. The utilities would burn the fuel at six
reactors in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
Energy Department officials and spokesmen for the utilities said
they remain convinced the so-called MOX fuel poses no additional
safety risk compared with the low-enriched uranium normally used
in commercial reactors, even if a severe radiation release should
occur.
A DOE spokesman said the department would review the report,
but so far officials only have seen a summary. ``We do take issue
with many of the basic assumptions,'' spokesman Matthew
Donoghue said.
Joe Maher, a spokesman for Duke Power, said the National
Academy of Sciences has endorsed such disposal of plutonium.
Richard Zuercher, a spokesman for Virginia Power, said the utility
has been assured that using MOX fuel would ``pose no added risk
to the employees or the public. That's a safe thing to do.''
The $2.3 billion plan, which surfaced in 1997, has been criticized
by advocacy groups worried about worldwide nuclear proliferation.
These groups, including the Nuclear Control Institute, argue that
the government should maintain its traditional separation of military
and civilian nuclear programs.
But the institute's new analysis raises questions for the first time
about direct safety risks to areas near reactors burning such fuel.
Edwin Lyman, an energy physicist and the study's author, used
the government's own calculations and risk-modeling techniques.
He concluded twice as many cancer deaths could occur from a
severe accident using MOX fuel than if conventional uranium were
in use.
He said the fuel, processed from plutonium, would release a much
larger burst of highly radioactive and toxic materials known as
actinides - including plutonium, americium, cesium and curium.
As a result, ``the number of latent cancer fatalities after a severe
reactor accident will be significantly greater,'' he said. The report
estimated from 1,430 to 6,165 additional cancer deaths depending
on the type of severe accident that occurred and the amount of
MOX fuel in use.
The report conflicts sharply with the findings of the Energy
Department. In a draft environmental impact analysis, the agency
concluded that even such a severe accident would cause at most 8
percent more - and possibly fewer - cancer deaths. That compares
with the 27 percent to 96 percent increase calculated by Lyman.
Lyman said the DOE study assumed an unrealistically low release
of actinides and use of an advanced-design reactor not yet built
instead of reactors that actually would be used. ``They didn't ask
the hard questions,'' he said.
Paul Leventhal, the institute's president, acknowledged that
Lyman's findings assume the severest of nuclear accidents - one in
which the reactor's steel and concrete containment dome is
breached and allows radiation to stream into the environment.
Such an accident, he said, would be ``highly improbable,'' but must
be taken seriously by federal regulators weighing public risk.
In America's worst nuclear accident, at Pennsylvania's Three Mile
Island power plant in 1979, the containment vessel remained intact.
The world's worst civilian nuclear accident at Chernobyl involved a
reactor without a containment dome.
If the DOE contract is issued next month as expected, Cogema
would build and run a MOX processing plant at the Savannah River
weapons complex near Aiken, S.C., and the utilities would provide
the six reactor to burn the fuel.
Duke Power has said it would use two reactors at the McGuire
plant south of Charlotte, N.C., and two reactors at Catawba plant
near Rock Hill, S.C. Virginia Power plans to use its two reactors at
the North Anna plant near Mineral, Va.
The first MOX fuel shipments likely would not be produ
------------------------
Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205
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