Bradwell Power Station nuclear discharge 'experiment' fear

[DavidofMersea]

You are saying "BANNG's website and they do indeed claim to have asked the questions but had no reply as far as I can tell". I have asked BANNG what Magnoxs response was to BANNG's request for info, and BANNG has

Replied to me confirming they had a reply from Magnox and when I asked what Magnox said, BANNG asked me "Why do you need to know?"

BANNG's reluctance to tell us Magnox's response leads me think that it was an assurance that is not compatible with BANNGs objectives of encouraging conspiracy theorists, and creating doubt and enhancing the belief that Magnox have something to hide, and generally whipping up hysteria

 

[timd-j]

in response to DavidofMersea on my CV and qualifications:

I’ve been working on marine radioactivity issues since 1983. I’m a graduate (BSc Hons: 2.1) of Cardiff University, where I read a modular options degree in marine sciences, designed to produce “marine managers”. I chose to study the marine pollution management pathway and opted for the following modules for my in-depth studies: Marine Pollution, Marine Environmental Sciences, Ocean/Atmosphere Systems and Marine Anthropology. I also completed an Honours research dissertation on “The Sea to Land Transfer of Marine Pollutants”. Subsequently, my major interest and speciality has been the short, medium and long term behaviour and fate of pollutants once they enter the marine environment. This work is informed and up-dated by my ongoing study of the relevant peer reviewed journals and the outcomes of the latest independent academic research.

As a Marine Pollution Consultant I’ve worked for the all of the UK’s major environmental NGOs and a number of the major internationals and covered some of Europe’s major marine pollution incidents. I’ve also worked extensively for UK and Irish citizens campaign groups like BANNG, and a few in the US, Australia and Europe.

I certainly have no financial axe to grind by opposing the discharges of nuclear wastes into our coastal waters, as most of the marine radioactivity work I do (although representing about 60% of my work time) is on a “vocational” basis and generally nets me no more than travelling expenses. Campaign groups such as BANNG cannot afford the fat wages and fees paid to pro nuclear researchers. The majority of my income comes from environmental journalism, though I’m also a working musician and artist and have held fee paid posts such as Marine Science Syllabus Co-ordinator and Senior Examiner to the International Baccalaureate Organisation. I currently act as Consultant/Advisor to the UK and Irish Nuclear Free Local Authorities on a (largely) expenses only basis.

Having looked closely at the CVs and work of nuclear scientists and spokespersons from the UK and International Nuclear Industry, the UK pro-nuclear government’s regulatory bodies, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and those bodies tasked with commenting on radiological health issues, I can confirm that, although they may be very well educated in specific fields related to the nuclear industry, they are (in the overwhelming number of cases) very poorly educated in the behaviour and fate of pollutants (including radioactivity) in marine and other environments.

My studies and field researches have observed and reported flaws and weaknesses in areas such as the understanding of the fate of radioactive wastes discharged to the sea, marine radioactivity monitoring and sampling and dose estimation: these observations are augmented by a series of anomalies regarding the official reporting of radioactivity in UK waters. These observations and anomalies are best detailed in my most recent submission to the House of Commons Environment Committee, which can be found at (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenergy/117/117vw17.htm).
It’s a simple fact that, as a result of these flaws and anomalies I have been asking the UK nuclear industry and its pro-nuclear government’s official regulators a series of searching questions, which as of yet they have been unable( or unwilling) to answer. It’s evident to me that they prefer to take the position adopted by DavidofMersea and attempt to discredit the questioner rather than providing answers to the questions!!!!!!!

 

[timd-j]

Content of FED dissolution liquid radwaste dischaarges to sea

Content of FED Dissolution liquid radwastes discharges to sea.
In the context of some apparent debate and uncertainty about the content of the radioactive waste discharges to the Blackwater/Colne estuarine system, I offer interested parties some excepts from recent work I have completed on behalf of the UK and Irish Nuclear Free Local Authorities.

In response to the lack of detailed information about the potential environmental outcomes of FED dissolution, the UK Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) submitted a complex FoI request to Magnox Ltd and after several months a response was received.

The Magnox Ltd response provided a “List of expected constituent/individual radio nuclides in the proposed liquid discharge stream”. This list consists of 20 named radio nuclides including such nuclides of concern as Tritium, Cobalt 60 Strontium 90 and also the alpha radioactivity emitting transuranics such as 2 nuclides of Plutonium (Pu 240 and Pu 241) and one of Americium (Am 241).

The Magnox Ltd response to the NFLA’s FoI request also offered a small table purporting to provide “Estimated quantities of each consistent radio nuclide in the liquid waste stream” of an FED plant. However (putting aside the contextually inexplicable use of the word “consistent”) there were other anomalies/flaws in this table as follows:
a: it only actually named 2 radio nuclides : Tritium and Caesium 137.
b: Cs 137 had NOT been named in the previous “List of expected constituent/individual radio nuclides” : so it’s appearance in the table of “Estimated quantities” remains un-explained and unjustified and directly contradicts the Magnox Ltd responses 20 strong “list of expected constituent/individual radio nuclides….”
c: the remaining 19 (un-named) nuclides were simply classified as “other” and their estimated quantities aggregated into one figure, a policy which has successfully avoided providing specific detail on the volume of Pu 240, Pu 241 and Am 241.

Increased discharges of radioactivity due to FED dissolution.
Tritium:
The Magnox FoI response stated that the predicted, actual discharges of Tritium to sea would be around 6.55 TBq (1 TBq = 1 trillion Bq=1,000,000,000,000 Bqs). On this basis, at the proposed Bradwell FED dissolution site, annual discharges of Tritium will be about 260 times higher than the current discharges from the reactor site, and ten times higher than discharges prior to the closure of the reactors (as reported in annual RIFE monitoring reports). This represents significant elevations of discharges of tritium, which since the later 1990s has increasingly been shown to be of far greater public health radiological significance than had previously been thought.

Despite the growing body of academic and independent (non nuclear industry/non government regulators) reporting of the evidence of potential environmental and human health impacts of tritium nothing can be done to reduce the discharges because there is simply no functional tritium abatement/reduction process. This is why ALL UK nuclear new build (reactors, FED plants etc) inevitably entail proposals to release large quantities of tritium atmospherically (through stacks and chimneys) and to sea via pipelines.

Alpha emitting transuranics
Another issue of particular concern is the fact that FED will have been substantially contaminated with a broad range of alpha emitting transuranic radio nuclides such as Plutonium, Americium and Curium. The degree of such contamination has not yet been quantified.

It is well known that Magnox fuel elements have, in the past, suffered from the problem of “tramp” Uranium arising on the exterior/interior surfaces of Magnox alloy fuel cladding as a result of flaws/weaknesses in the magnesium oxide cladding. Such flaws have been identified as occurring during both manufacture of new fuel elements and during (wet or dry) storage of used elements. Additional “tramp” uranium contamination of fuel element cladding may occur as a result of physical contamination of otherwise undamaged cladding during the manufacturing process.

Magnox Ltd has confirmed that, during the process of “de-splitting” or removing the magnesium oxide cladding from the fuel elements while still in the cooling ponds, the fuel elements themselves may have been damaged and hence pieces of fuel may be broken off the elements and transferred to the FED storage vault along with the FED debris.

As a result of irradiation during nuclear fission such tramp uranium generates a number of fission products including the transuranics and others, this material will then contaminate the magnox cladding prior to its removal for storage.

Additionally, if, during storage in vaults, used fuel should develop fuel pin and cladding weaknesses it is to be expected that a similar range of fission products originating from the uranium based fuel will also be produced and contaminate the magnox cladding and the associated fuel pin cladding debris.

In this context it is highly relevant to note that, at the Dungeness nuclear site, the marine monitoring programme changed dramatically when the Dungeness FED dissolution plant began work in 1988. Prior to that year there had been no regular reporting/analysis of alpha radioactivity emitting, transuranic nuclides in the Dungeness marine environment.

Following the commissioning of the Dungeness Magnox FED dissolution plant a regular programme of monitoring for transuranic alpha emitters has been reported in the annual monitoring reports (originally the MAFF AEMRs and, since 1995, the annual RIFE reports).

This analysis has been carried out since 1988 for three Plutonium nuclides (Pu238, Pu 239 and Pu 240), 3 Curium nuclides (Cm 242, Cm 243, and Cm 244) and one nuclide of Americium (Am 241).

The Dungeness site is a-typical of the UK reactor sites since it is one of relatively few UK reactors sites built on a headland projecting into relatively deep water, with a generally coarse sediment, adjacent inter tidal and coastal environment not well suited to the re-concentration of transuranic nuclides.

The annual AEMR and RIFE monitoring reports record the fact that the nearest and most regularly monitored marine inter tidal sediments are sampled at Rye Harbour and are described as sand and mud. This generally describes a relative coarse inter tidal sediment, not characteristic of those where the highest re-concentration of sea discharged transuranics is known to occur

However, even at the a-typical Dungeness site, where FED dissolution has proceeded at a very slow rate over many years (compared to the 18 month cycles proposed for the current FED dissolution plants such as Bradwell), there is some evidence to indicate that concentrations of the 7 transuranics have increased since 1988.

In contrast to the Dungeness site, the other proposed UK FED dissolution plants, Bradwell on the Blackwater Estuary and Hinkley Point in the Bristol Channel, are immediately adjacent to very large areas of coastal, inter tidal and sub tidal fine sediment deposits such as estuaries, salt marsh and mudflats where alpha emitting transuranics are widely known to re-concentrate to very high levels relative to their concentrations in ambient sea water. At sites such as these, any additional discharge of Plutonium, Curium and Americium would be expected to give rise to high enrichment factors of transuranics in regional fine sediments, with the finest sediments holding highest concentrations.

A further concern is the proposed discharge of Plutonium 241, which decays to produce the much more intensely radioactive Americium 241 with a much longer half life.

The failure of Magnox Ltd to provide any data about the quantities of Plutonium, Curium and Americium they expect their FED dissolution plants to discharge is a matter of deep concern which plainly militates against any serious scientific assessment of the environmental and public health impacts of the proposal.

In the context of the developing understanding of the potential impacts of marine discharges of Tritium (enormous bio-accumulation and enrichment factors through certain marine, inter tidal and coastal food chains) the proposed massive increase in tritium discharges from such sites has not been addressed by Magnox Ltd or by the NDA with the gravity it deserves.

In the context that the Nitric Acid FED Dissolution process is
a: similar in some respect to some of the historically un-reliable reprocessing activities at Sellafield
b: offers the prospect of 250 times + increases in the discharge of radioactive tritium
c: offers the prospect of increased discharges (and subsequent rising environmental concentrations) of long lived highly radioactive nuclides of Plutonium, Curium and Americium
d: characterised by a range of as yet uncertain parameters (how much transuranic contamination of FED? Lack of Environmental Impact Assessment, and so on)
e: will generate multiple road and rail transports of Intermediate Level Wastes : thus breaching elements of the Proximity Principle…which says that exposure of the public to man made radioactivity(including by transports) should be kept to the minimum

it is strongly advised that all new FED Dissolution proposals should be subject to fully detailed Environmental Impact Assessments and Public Inquiries into their Public Health and Environmental Implications.


Tim D-J
Marine Radioactivity Consultant: June 13: 2014/

 

[tillergirl]

Isn't that worth a letter to Mersea Life? Some public interest group that is.

 

[Burnham Bob]

FoI letters will have to wait until next week (we're off in the caravan as the forecast is a bit too wet to go sailing!). As far as I know Magnox have answered every question asked of them in the past but are now in 'oh no not again' mode and have realised that wahtever they say BANNG won't believe it.