Tronox Bankruptcy raises questions about uranium cleanup

[bananas]

http://www.bhpioneer.com/articles/2009/01/13/breaking_news/doc496cd1c07a056293485285.txt

Tronox Bankruptcy raises questions about uranium cleanup
By Brandon Bennett
Black Hills Pioneer

HARDING COUNTY - Tronox Incorporated announced on Monday that it and certain of the company's subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

That raises questions about its obligations in Harding County in northwest South Dakota with regard to reclaiming land formerly used for uranium mining.

The land had been mined in the 1950s by Tronox's predecessor, Kerr-McGee, and was left in poor condition.

<snip>

The company began the reclamation and environmental cleanup in 2007 after an unusually large number of cancer cases were reported in the Riley Pass area of the Cave Hills.

<snip>

[Bobbieo]

1. Why am I not surprised about the large numbers of

reported cancer cases in the area?

[GliderGuider]

2. Back before I realized an economic crash was on its way

I figured the major risk to nuclear power safety in the future would be from the loss of our ability to maintain the technical infrastructure needed to preserve the integrity of reactors and their safety systems. At the time I was unable pr present a convincing argument for how this might happen. Now, however, it's clear that the proximate cause of this loss of capability could be the current global financial catastrophe. You have to wonder how many companies at the pointy end of the nuclear stick will start to cut corners as the cash runs out, regulations and conscience be damned.

Nuclear power requires an immensely sophisticated system of interlocking activities to remain productive and safe. As in any complex system, single points of failure proliferate as efficiencies are sought. Someone (individual or organization) is responsible for making sure that each failure point is safeguarded. As their ability to do that becomes compromised the risk of system failure increases. Other stakeholders may not realize the situation until it's too late, because transparency is compromised at the same time as capability. A bankruptcy is visible, but a gradual degradation of capability or commitment may not be.

[madokie]

3. And that is part of the problem I have with building more and more nuclear power plants

the stuff last too long for anyone to be able to say with any certainty that we can protect you from this. The planet itself is too unstable to leave it to it to protect the future inhabitants, ie Yucca mountain depository.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1525/is_n5_v77/ai_12512186

Why don't we admit its not a good solution to any of our problems and move on, spend those resources on developing alternatives

The more I learn about nuclear energy the more I feel I was right in opposing it in the beginning. If they would have adopted the burning of coal with a gasifier rather than the direct burn most use we wouldn't have global warming on the scale it is today. By using a gasifier and without any other modifications there is a drop of 50 to 60% less co2 produced which would have kept us from boiling our planet as we are starting to do today. I don't like coal but we could have done it more responsibly.
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/gasification/index.html

But what do I know I'm not a nuclear physicist, nor am I a bible thumper for that matter, so I don't have Armageddon to cover for my stupid ass decisions made today. What else explains the acceptance of nuclear energy use today? I ask

[GliderGuider]

4. What else explains the acceptance of nuclear energy use today?

Here's my philosophical take on that question.

Nuclear power is the crown jewel of the human narrative. That narrative insists that our intelligence gives us complete freedom from, and mastery over, nature. What better evidence could there be for the truth of this story than the fact that we have delved to the very core of matter itself, and by manipulating it have bent even the fundamental building blocks of the universe to human purposes?

This evidence of our total dominion over nature gives nuclear energy a talismanic power in the human psyche –- the fact that we can do this validates our self-image as the masters of the universe. Giving up on nuclear power would require us to admit that we are not as omnipotent as we told ourselves we were. This is a painful admission for a species whose self-image rests on a foundation of intellectual and technological mastery.

[madokie]

5. And in the end it very well could render this globe of rock and water

uninhabitable for years to come. Nuclear proliferation is well on its way to be a real problem for our future. This genie should never have been let out of the bottle to begin with.
With knowledge comes responsibility, except in this case, sad.

[GliderGuider]

6. Oh, I think carbon dioxide is going to win that race quite handily.

The thing about nuclear waste is that it tends not to migrate very easily, so it stays localized. Even fallout settles fairly rapidly and doesn't migrate around much once it hits the ground. Nuclear explosions can ruin your whole day if you're nearby, but even their effects are localized. Of course they tend to be localized near large population centers...

I have yet to see a mechanism by which nuclear power or bombs could damage the entire planet that I consider credible, either technically or sociologically. There is no possibility that the entire global arsenal of nuclear weapons could be unleashed at once (it's logistically impossible given the counter-battery targeting policies of the superpowers). Portions of the earth could be rendered unfit for human habitation, but not the entire habitable surface. A supervolcano eruption or asteroid strike could do it, but not man-made nuclear energy.

CO2 is a whole other story, IMO. I believe climate change has the potential to unleash global weather disturbances that could rival a supervolcano or small asteroid strike in their effect on human life. Unlike the nuclear waste or fallout, CO2 diffuses readily throughout the atmosphere, making its effects ubiquitous rather than localized. And the probability that we will see such climatic effects appears to be approaching unity.

[madokie]

7. I'll take my chances with alternate energy sources, thank you

like I said if they would have gone about the process of burning coal with a little different approach we would not be in the boat we are in today as badly as we are. But we're not going to talk about that any are we?

[GliderGuider]

8. We are where we are.

As pilots say, there's no point worrying about the amount of runway behind you.

One question keeps nagging at me, though. Say we had started burning coal more effectively 30 years ago, and had been able to cut the CO2 emissions due to coal by 50%. That means we would have cut CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by 15%. How much would that have helped? The remaining 85% would still have been floating around in the air.

It seems to me that the problem we have as a species and civilization goes much deeper than whether we choose more or less technically astute approaches. What makes us burn fossil fuels in the first place? Wouldn't the rational, forward thinking decision have been to leave the rest of it in the ground once Arrhenius had done his calculations?

We have never been able to voluntarily limit fossil fuel use without being forced to. What does that fact say about the inevitability of our predicament?

[madokie]

9. It doesn't say much for us for sure

I just don't think that we need to continue on a path with nuclear that is shaky at best. Live with what we've learned and learn from what we've lived and build on that, start putting our efforts in alternate ways of making our energy. Coal isn't it neither is nuclear. Natural gas best I remember is on pretty much the same level as gasifing coal, co2, so thats out. So we need to put more efforts into the known alternates at the same time as we continue to look for others. We can and must do better.
Fusion would be a good place to concentrate a lot more effort.

Thats what I think

[GliderGuider]

10. Conservation first.

I'd like to see us put more effort into reducing the energy we use -- conservation is the cheapest form of energy there is.

There may not be enough capital and political will for major R&D efforts like big fusion over the next couple of decades. so unless we get lucky with small fusion like the Polywell I don't see much hope for that source.

Overall though, I'd like to see the general level of human activity decline, and that goal isn't compatible with increased energy production.

[madokie]

11. I agree with conservation being our biggest bang for the buck

we've cut our electrical usage by a quarter or so these last few years by buying new energy star appliances, new lighting and just plain old turning the durn things off when its not used. A couple years ago I bought a kill-a-watt meter and it helped us in identifying where we were wasting energy. That one item made it easy to see where the money was going. Our son has it now doing the same thing, identifying what was using how much energy.