U.S. Energy Department Cannot Account for Nuclear Materials at 15 Locations

[ensho]

http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090224_7895.php


A number of U.S. institutions with licenses to hold nuclear material reported to the Energy Department in 2004 that the amount of material they held was less than agency records indicated. But rather than investigating the discrepancies, Energy officials wrote off significant quantities of nuclear material from the department's inventory records.

-snip-

Auditors found that Energy could not accurately account for the quantities and locations of nuclear material at 15 out of 40, or 37 percent, of facilities reviewed. The materials written off included 20,580 grams of enriched uranium, 45 grams of plutonium, 5,001 kilograms of normal uranium and 189,139 kilograms of depleted uranium.

"Considering the potential health risks associated with these materials and the potential for misuse should they fall into the wrong hands, the quantities written off were significant," the report says. "Even in small quantities normally held by individual domestic licensees, special nuclear materials such as enriched uranium and plutonium, if not properly handled, potentially pose serious health hazards."

Auditors also found that waste processing facilities could not locate or explain the whereabouts of significant quantities of uranium and other nuclear material that Energy Department records showed they held. In another case, Energy officials had no record of the fact that one academic institution had loaned a 32-gram plutonium-beryllium source to another institution.
-snip-
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this is criminal!

[Demeter]

1. Some of It Would Disappear Naturally Via Radiation

but I suspect not as much as all that.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Gee, ya think?

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Nonsense: The half life of enriched uranium is 704 million years.

Highly enriched uranium contains the isotope 235U to the extent of at least 20 percent, the remainder being primarily 238U. The 235U decays by alpha decay and also emits a number of conversion electrons and some x rays and gamma rays. The most dominant gamma ray has an energy of 185 keV and occurs in about 54 out of every 100 disintegrations. The major reason that significant masses of 235U may be handled with relatively little external dose hazard is because the half-life is quite long, namely 704 million years.

The radioactive decay rate of the uranium is inversely proportional to the half-life; thus, for the 3.5 ounces that you mention, if it were 100 percent 235U, the total 235U activity would be about 0.21 millicuries, which represents a decay rate of about 8 million disintegrations per second. While this number seems high, it is not a very large amount of activity from a hazards standpoint. Thus, even at a distance of 1 cm from the uranium, if there were no attenuation of the gamma radiation within the uranium itself and the uranium were concentrated in the form of a very small sphere (in reality, a sphere containing this quantity of uranium would have a diameter of about 2 cm), the soft tissue dose rate would be less than 7 mSv/hr. In actuality because of considerable self-shielding of the gamma rays by the uranium material, and because of source geometry effects, the actual gamma dose rate would be appreciably less than this.


While the activity is high enough to be detected at reasonably close distances by most detectors being used for homeland-security purposes, it is not high enough to present an acute radiation hazard to a smuggler who might carry the material in his pocket. Most of the alpha radiations and electrons emitted from the uranium are absorbed within the source material and those that escape from decay events near the uranium surface are attenuated heavily by any material around the uranium and by clothing. The 238U present has a half-life about six times greater than that of the 235U and emits very few weak gamma rays, and it would not be an exposure problem.

The low exposure threat of highly enriched uranium is further demonstrated by the fact that such material has been in use as fuel in many research and test reactors throughout the world. When new fuel assemblies are fabricated and sent to such reactors for use, the external radiations present no appreciable threat to workers, who commonly handle new fuel elements directly with no special external radiation protection, generally simply wearing gloves to prevent possible skin contamination and to prevent transferring foreign material to the fuel elements. A shipment of such fuel may contain well over a kilogram of 235U.

Compared to some other radioactive materials, uranium is not extremely radiotoxic if taken into the human body. If the uranium is present in either a metallic form or in a refractory oxide form (common for uranium), its threat as an internal hazard is rather easy to control. Even keeping the material in a closed plastic bag can prevent any significant loss of the material and internal contamination can be minimized. Again, because of the long half-life, an intake large enough to represent a severe hazard would represent a macroscopic quantity large enough that it would be very unlikely that such an intake could occur.

George Chabot, PhD, CHP



Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,110 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239


http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q6134.html

[GoCubsGo]

10. Furthermore...

They DO factor decay into their calculations when they make these types of estimates.

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. dupe n/t

[avaistheone1]

3. As Randi Rhodes has said "America will never be destroyed from the outside. It will be destroyed

from thje inside".

This incompete, sloppy handling of nuclear material underscores that much.

[arcadian]

6. Bottom of the ocean.

Some dubious contractors found a way of disposing of this stuff that doesn't fall within federal statutes. Hey, It's America. We all have to make a buck, right?

[ThomWV]

7. I worked in this area for about 7 years - its not what you think

Some of those numbers look too low, some look too high, and one of them is irrelevant. Here is where you'll find most of that 'missing' material. Its lining the inside of pipes in processing equipment, it is embedded in softer materials as it passes though processing. Some is lost to erosion, some to corrosion and of the former a good bit of that was likely disposed of as the contaminant in low level waste. There is another sort of source too, and that is that the original records are insufficient to know the actual starting amounts of some materials. Add to that the scant records in what was disposed of at some of the larger sites - those with considerable tank farms - and the problem compounds.

All that said, one of the worst reasons can be summed up with this. You could not pay me enough to eat a fish that came out of the Columbia river anywhere down stream of Hanford.

[ensho]

8. so noted and forewarned - thank you

nt

[GoCubsGo]

9. I wonder how much of it is in the water tables...

...below these sites. Like you pointed out, corrosion, leaking tanks, etc. There is also uptake in the plants and wildlife that live around the disposal sites, especially those with heavy leakage.

(I worked 20 years at one of these facilities, BTW.)

[ensho]

11. how is your health and the health of your work mates?

if you don't mind my asking.

[ThomWV]

13. I was at Hanford one time standing at the gate of a Tank Farm

Of course its high desert out there and the water table is deep. Anyway I recall one visit out there (my job took me to all the sites) and in the afternoon I was admiring the river view about a mile down slope from the tank farm, then I had to go see the nuclear submarines in the desert - another spot you can see from the river from. Later that night I was back in Pasco as the local TV news was reporting on plutonium contamination of the river water and sediment while out the window I could see the jumping fish not ten miles down stream from where I had been standing earlier.

River sediment. That shit never goes away.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Oh my goodness! And we are just so worried about Iran's nukes, and want to

get all inspectiony on them!

Could this be how Bush, Cheney & brethren got immunity from impeachment and prosecution? Was that "the Deal"? They've got nuclear materials stashed somewhere?