Preliminary examinations of the Galapagos site were made last June and July to determine the most likely locations of hydrothermal activity. The spot will be relocated in February with the aid of acoustical beacons left on the ocean floor during the earlier summer expedition. The team of investigators, made up of scientists from Woods Hole Océanographie Institution of Massachusetts, Oregon State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the U.S. Geological Survey, will make about 15 dives using the research submersible Alvin, operated by Woods Hole Océanographie Institution. During each dive, two scientists and a pilot will be housed in a 6foot-radius pressure sphere at the front of the submersible. The researchers will take photographs, measure temperatures and flow rates, and—with the aid of an outside claw—collect rock, sediment, and water samples. "We'll have to proceed with caution to avoid exposing the submarine to waters that are very hot," says Corliss. Water temperatures at these depths near the vents can go considerably above boiling point at sea level. D
Fire losses jump, especially from arson In the past two or three years, the flow of melancholy reports of deaths and property losses from fires in chemical and other process industries has seemed to increase considerably. Now, confirmation of such an increase, especially in suspicious fires, comes from the National Fire Protection Association in Boston. NFPA puts out annual surveys on estimated fire losses in both industry and other areas based on reports from fire departments. NFPA's new detailed survey for 1975 shows that, in a process industry category of drug, chemical, paint, and petroleum plants, there was a 146% increase in fire losses from $74 million in 1971 to $182 million in 1975. At the same time, the number of fires for this group has jumped 71% from 3100 in 1971 to 5300 in 1975. On both counts, these process industries suffered relatively much more than did manufacturing as a whole during this period. For all manufacturing, NFPA reports, fire losses rose 92% from $333 million in 1971 to $641 million in 1975. The number of fires went up 48% from 35,000 in 1971 to 51,700 in 1975. From 1974 to 1975, the total number of industrial fires went down, but 8
C&ENJan. 10, 1977
Nuclear waste disposal plan gets NRC okay
Process industries' fire damage rises steeply $ Millions 2001
100
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
Note: Process industries include drugs, chemicals, paints, and petroleum. Source: National Fire Protection Association
the dollar loss still increased. For the process industry group, the number of fires dropped 400 from 1974 to 1975, but the dollar loss went up $10 million. Similarly, for all manufacturing fires, the number decreased 1300, but the dollar loss went up $56 million. This means that the process industry group's percentage of all manufacturing fires edged up from 9% in 1971 to 10% in 1975. However, in terms of dollar losses, the process industries' percentage rose from 22% in 1971 to 28% in 1975. No other industry category comes close to the process group in dollar damage, and only one, metal and metal products, had a greater number of fires in 1975 (5700). In fact, of the total 46 categories in NFPA's report covering all building fires in the U.S., only two others topped the dollar loss figure from the process industry group. These two were one- and two-family dwellings with $854 million and apartments with $338 million. All told, building fires in the U.S. in 1975 numbered 1.3 million with dollar losses of $3.4 billion. The grand totals for all U.S. fires, including nonbuilding fires, show the number at 3.1 million, up 4% from 1974. Total dollar losses in 1975 were $4.2 billion, up 9.5% from 1974. Total fire deaths increased to 11,800 in 1975 from 11,600 in 1974. This human loss gives the U.S. the highest fire death rate of any industrialized nation, NFPA notes. In its rundown of the causes of U.S. fires, the latest NFPA report underscores the fast-rising problem of suspected arson. Overall, the number of incendiary and suspicious fires rose 25.5% in 1975 over 1974. D
The Energy Research & Development Administration's plan for storing high-energy radioactive wastes in stable geologic formations has received the endorsement of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's independent Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. Noting that the first one or two storage sites will retain the option to retrieve the wastes if anything goes wrong, the committee says that NRC should establish appropriate criteria for licensing and regulating such facilities at an early date. In its report to NRC, the committee says that there is a need for better understanding of the long-range risks associated with the disposal of highlevel radioactive wastes. It points out that after a thousand years' decay, the relative hazard of the total quantity of long-lived transuranic nuclides in the wastes would not be more than a few times that of the original uranium ore. And because the wastes would be in a solidified form and would be deeply buried in a carefully selected geologic structure, the actual hazard likely would be even less. Potential health problems associated with the disposal facility, the committee says, would be primarily of a chronic, low-level nature and would decrease substantially during the first few hundred years of decay. It adds that it isn't able to postulate any event in such a disposal facility that would be comparable to a serious nuclear power plant accident. And the committee points out that the option of retrievability will greatly facilitate the application of corrective measures to any programs that might develop, since there would be months or years available in which to respond to the problem. In developing its criteria for licensing disposal facilities, the committee says that NRC should include a definition of the forms of waste acceptable for storage and required conditions of waste durability and integrity through some stated minimum period, at the end of which retrievability must still be possible. Consideration also should be given to the volumes of waste that it might be necessary to retrieve and actions to be anticipated following such retrieval, including contingency plans for storage of the wastes. The committee adds that there is a need to continue research on the long-term transport of transuranic elements in geologic structures and on the uptake and retention of such radionuclides by plants and animals. Π
