ES&T
LETTERS Nuclear waste disposal Dear Sir: I read the Outlook article, "Nuclear waste disposal: A case of benign neglect?" which appeared in the May 1982 issue of ES&T with much chagrin. Bette Hileman has succeeded in confusing the issue of disposal of nuclear wastes to a greater extent. She has decided that the nu clear power industry is the sole source of radioactive wastes (as per her defi nitions on p. 27 3A); Τ believe it would be appropriate to point out that highlevel radwastes are also generated by the nuclear weapons program and low-level radwastes are also generated by medical facilities. The reprocessing issue is handled very one-sidedly. The statement "A possible advantage of reprocessing would occur 100 years later, when the radioactivity. . ." (emphasis mine) is very misleading. The definite and real advantages of reprocessing are the isolation of the high-level wastes ( H L W s ) , reduction in volume of the H L W s , and the reuse of the nuclear fuel as a nuclear fuel. Hasn't Hileman ever heard of mixed oxide fuels? Plu tonium isn't used only for weapons. The idea that a reprocessed fuel ship ment might be damaged or stolen dis plays a real naivete with regard to such operations. How do you move and hide several hundred tons of shipping casks? Where do you put your repro cessing plant once you've hijacked the shipment? The monetary investment in such a venture would be astronom ical; it would be cheaper and less time-consuming to mine and enrich your own uranium. Thus, the possi bility of hijacking is a ludicrous argu ment against reprocessing of nuclear fuel. The following statement regarding repositories is also very misleading: "If groundwater were to enter a salt bed repository and dissolve radioactive materials . . ." Dissolution does not occur instantaneously (as the above sentence implies). Water would have to eat through the liner, the overpack, and the canister in order to get to the vitrified material. The leach rate of such material is easily measurable only when the vitrified material is ground up into a state such that there is a maximum surface area to mass ratio. This is not a realistic representation of a contained waste. The leach rate is
also time-dependent after contact oc curs, decreasing with time after initial liquid-solid interaction. The ultimate solution to the problem of disposal of all radioactive wastes is not simple, but it is achievable. There are considerable advances being made in this area by countries all over the world, many of which are performing fuel reprocessing and vitrifying their H L W s . A balanced view of the bene fits and drawbacks of nuclear power production will assist an informed public and government in choosing the appropriate methodologies for radwaste disposal. Robert Litman Chemistry Training Instructor Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant Nashua, N.H. 03062 Dear Sir: The article "Nuclear waste disposal: A case of benign neglect?" (ES&T, Vol. 15, No. 5, pp. 2 7 1 275A) provided a fair and compre hensive overview of the various ques tions surrounding this volatile issue. After reading this article, other ES& Τ readers may also be interested in knowing that a means toward a so lution involving geologic repositories is, in fact, a reality. They may also be interested in knowing that the usual "confrontation" between the opposing camps has been replaced with a spirit of cooperation within that means. The means is actually a series of at least 10 standards documents that can be used for such things as uniform geologic site selection and even oper ations monitoring. The documents have been under development for al most one year through an organization known as A S T M [American Society for Testing and Materials]. To date, geologists, mining and civil engineers, utility physicists, government agencies, and academicians have contributed equally to develop these documents, which focus on rock properties for de termining the behavior of various rocks contemplated for storage of nuclear waste in underground chambers. The program began in 1981, thanks to a request and grant from the Nu clear Regulatory Commission, and has expanded into 10 documents, as of this writing, that are currently under con sideration within the A S T M fullconsensus standards development system. Amazingly, this concentrated effort has not been a major expendi ture for any of the parties involved, and it offers a unique opportunity to ES& Τ readers. Those persons inter ested in this subject have the oppor tunity to join the A S T M committee responsible for the standards and to contribute to and comment on the
draft documents. A S T M is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1898. Pamela Bateman Whiteaker ASTM Philadelphia, Pa. 19103 EPA's fiscal 1983 budget Dear Sir: After reading the guest edi torial in the August issue of ES& T, I am compelled to offer a rebuttal to Dr. DiGiano's interpretation of EPA's fiscal 1983 budget for research and development. DiGiano claims that reductions in EPA R & D funding contravene congressional mandates for achieving a clean and safe environ ment. During my seven years as a se nior manager in EPA's Office of Re search and Development I have seen clear and continuing congressional mandates—mandates to achieve en vironmental results, not to spend in creasing amounts of money. EPA's fiscal year 1983 research budget en sures the attainment of environmental results, with a reduction in resources. The program is structured to focus directly on the agency's regulatory programs and on the country's most pressing environmental problems. Specifically, we will emphasize im proving the scientific basis for permits and regulations, meeting all re search-related statutory deadlines, and providing state and local government with useful research information and technical support. While it is true that the resources for the research program have been reduced, much of this re duction was possible because mature research programs have produced the outputs for which they were originally designed. The water and energy re search programs are especially good cases in point. DiGiano stated that "a severe blow is being dealt to water quality re search." He fails to recognize that re ductions in water quality research funding reflect EPA progress and completions in a number of areas. These include: completion of the water quality criteria for the 65 priority pollutant classes, in which we have invested $25 million since 1979; the Great Lakes research program, for which $31.5 million has been spent since 1971 ; successful development of water monitoring techniques; research support to the effluent guidelines program; and demonstration projects on the land application of sludge. We oriented the water program to focus more directly on the highest priority research areas rather than on a larger number of lower priority subject areas and looked carefully at our manageEnviron. Sci. Technol., Vol. 16, No. 12, 1982
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