From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Is nuclear energy "polluting"? (was Re: Is car pooling for real?
Message-ID: <-kfmyg=@dixie.com>
Date: 22 Jul 92 08:08:48 GMT

houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle) writes:

>	Yes,  but that's just the high level waste.  Properly processed,
>it can be reduced to a nice little volume of heavily radioactive stuff that
>we can afford to spend a good deal per unit volume or mass to get rid of,
>simply because there isn't very much of it.  Yet,  we also produce medium-
>and low- level wastes from different steps in the processing and handling of
>nuclear materials,  as well as from the decomissioning of reactors.  Because
>there is much more low-level waste,  it is actually a more serious disposal
>problem than the high-level waste.


No it's not.  Low Level NOS waste is harmless by definition.  Try reading
the regulations some time.  The stuff that gets planted at places
like Barnwell would much better be incinerated. The VAST bulk of
the NOS waste coming from nuclear plants is mildly or potentially
contaminated paper and cloth.  Proper health-physics procedures dictate
that any material that has been in a controlled area be disposed of in
rad waste.  Some plants try to segregate the clean and hot waste but
most don't find it economically beneficial.  The econazis, of course,
shriek at the mere thought of burning paper or cloth in an incinerator
so all this stuff gets barreled up, trucked to places like Barnwell and
planted.  What a waste.

Mid-level waste can easily be concentrated with a combination of chemical
and combustion processing.  Chem-nuclear is an example of a company
that has a very efficient process that has been developed for at
least 10 years.  Again, because of the zealotry of you fellows who
don't have much of a clue about the stuff but nontheless make lots
of noise, this stuff is getting buried in other sections of places
like Barnwell.

Repeat after me 1000 times.  This is a POLITICAL problem.  The technology
was developed decades ago.  POLITICAL, not technical. Remember that.

John