The View From Around Los Alamos

The Obama Administration’s Federal Budget for FY 2013 was made public recently, with some fanfare ( www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget ). Suggested total federal spending will be $3.8 trillion; of this amount,  $27.2 billion (0.72%) has been assigned to the Department of Energy (DOE) and of this, $11.5 billion will be expended by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA.) Quoting from the Budget:

“The Administration proposes $7.6 billion for Weapons Activities, an increase of $363 million or 5% above the FY 2012 enacted level, to maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent as described in the Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) of 2010. This Budget meets the goals of the NPR by continuing nuclear weapon life extension programs— such as upgrades to the W76 and B61 nuclear weapons—by improving and replacing aging facilities —such as increasing investments in funding for the Uranium Processing Facility [at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)]—and by sustaining the existing stockpile through underlying science, surveillance, and other support programs. However, to meet the NPR goals, but still stay within the discretionary spending caps,  NNSA and Department of Defense (DOD) are reducing and stretching out the schedule of several weapons life extension programs and are restructuring plans for maintaining plutonium capabilities [at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)]. As a result, the 2013 Budget provides $372 million less for Weapons Activities than the Administration projected in last year’s request and reported to the Congress in the Section 1251 Report on nuclear weapons plans.”

In keeping with what seem to be the Obama Administration’s views on the U. S. nuclear weapons industry, NNSA’s new budget also:

1) “Positions the Environmental Management program to meet its legally enforceable cleanup commitments at sites around the country.”

2) “Continues investments to maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear weapons stockpile in support of the planned decrease in deployed U. S. and Russian weapons under the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.”

3) “Strengthens national security through funding for securing, disposing of, and detecting [of] nuclear and radiological material worldwide.”

Each of these three focus areas have important implications for ongoing programs at LANL, as well as for other U. S. nuclear weapons sites.

1) Overall, the EM program will take a small hit, with spending in FY 2013 of $5.650 billion, reduced from $5.711 billion in FY 2012, and below its FY 2011 level of $5.665 billion. However, at LANL, reductions are projected to be more extreme: this has been the subject of much recent agonizing among EM staff and managers at LANL. See my previous blogposts on this subject. Apparently, some “legally enforceable cleanup commitments” are seen as being more demanding than others; e.g., especially those at ORNL and at Hanford, Washington. Moreover, a business oriented New Mexico Governor, expressing  congenial attitudes toward the nuclear weapons industry in New Mexico, has agreed to delays in elements of the ongoing cleanup at LANL, even though the cleanup schedule (embodied in the 2005 Consent Order Decree) was legally binding on NNSA; the Governor chooses to not enforce parts of that Order.

As described in the Budget:

“The Budget includes $5.65 billion to ensure our Nation’s legacy of nuclear wastes from the production of weapons during the Cold War are processed, secured, and safely disposed of in a timely manner. The Environmental Management program continues to clean up waste and contamination, focusing on its legally enforceable regulatory commitments. The program’s cleanup actions include removing radioactive wastes from underground storage tanks, decontaminating and decommissioning old production facilities, and installing groundwater monitoring wells primarily at sites in Washington, South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and New Mexico.” [Nevertheless, the new Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department says that, by agreement with NNSA/LANS, no more regional monitoring wells will be drilled into the regional aquifer below LANL.]

2) Start-up of the CMRR-NF construction project at LANL (> $5 billion) has been delayed for five years. This enables NNSA to defer annual spending of ~$0.5 billion. However, NNSA must now reassign some plutonium related work to sites outside of LANL; this may involve necessary (perhaps, less costly) development of those other sites, and cancellation of the entire CMRR-NF project at LANL has now emerged as a distinct possibility. In the past, NNSA has threatened to remove all plutonium work from LANL if they were to ever meet with any check to their ambitious plans.

3) The “securing, disposing of, and detecting [of] nuclear and radiological material worldwide” is an important part of the Obama Administration’s non-proliferation initiative. Also, the disposition of surplus plutonium, taken from nuclear weapons that are being removed from stockpiles (U. S. as well as Russian) is an ongoing concern and the subject of ongoing negotiation between NNSA, Russia  and the U. S. communities that harbor nuclear weapons R&D facilities and/or factories.

“The Budget includes $2.5 billion, a $163 million or 7% increase above the FY 2012 enacted level, which reflects completion of accelerated efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear materials within four years, the President’s stated timeframe. This proposal fully funds Administration priorities to secure and dispose of nuclear material, to develop technologies to prevent, deter, or detect nuclear proliferation, and to implement international nonproliferation treaties, regulatory controls, and safeguards. DOE will have removed more than 4,300 kilograms—over 170 nuclear warheads worth—of vulnerable nuclear material from sites around the world by the end of 2013.”

The Huffington Post opined (www.huffingtonpost.com ): “Obama's [Budget] proposal has almost no chance of being approved by Congress, where Republicans control the House of Representatives. Tough decisions on the budget likely will be put off until after the November elections, but the spending plan will certainly be used as a campaign document for Obama and a key target for Republicans.”

As an interesting sideline, yesterday, in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on emerging threats to U. S. national security interests, testimony was solicited from the Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, and the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, Jr.

This testimony was rich in detail, but in no degree alarming. Nevertheless, during the ensuing period of questions and answers, several Republican Senators tried to insinuate degrees of alarm into the Congressional Record. In this regard, particularly patronizing and smarmy were the questions and statements of Sen. Lindsey Graham.

But, not to be outdone in the realm of insinuation was Sen Larry Inhofe who referred to a recent Associated Press report of studies being conducted by the Pentagon of future directions for nuclear arms control ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/apnewsbreak-us-weighs-options-for-cuts-in-deployed-nuclear-weapons-including-80percent-reduction/2012/02/14/gIQATFkvDR_story.html ) which, he said, were cause for his great personal concern.

Of course, Sen. Inhofe had fought long and hard to oppose passage of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians. In this, he was aided by ten former U. S. nuclear weapons laboratory directors who, at his request, signed a letter attesting to their grave concerns at restrictions being placed on the future R&D of U. S. nuclear weapons.

Never given to self-doubt, no one of these ten former nuke lab directors has ever publicly questioned his signature on that letter.

Nevertheless, and perhaps while attempting a bit to explain himself, former LANL Dir. Sig Hecker has written (Physics Today, Readers Forum, February, 2012) that his signature on that letter only attested to his disagreement with “certain Treaty language.” And, he labeled as “misguided” my characterization of his support for that letter as deriving from a desire to promote the health of the nuclear weapons industry. From either his present perch at LANL (as a guest of LANS-LLC), or while in his current office at the Hoover Institute (a bastion of traditionalist thinking), he considers the notion that he might harbor any such desire to be “nonsense”, to which he takes “strong exception.”

Admittedly, and to his credit, in the early 1990’s and while still LANL Dir., Mr. Hecker promoted extensive exchange programs with former Soviet nuclear weapons workers at Arzamas-15. These efforts may have helped to bridge chasms of mistrust, between American and Russian nuclear weapons workers, built up over decades of Cold War experience. Partly, for this and partly for his recently having obtained and disseminated information relating to the North Korean nuclear weapon program (apparently, at the behest of the North Koreans), Mr. Hecker, although not a physicist,  has been honored with fellowship status by the American Physical Society.

Pu Pits Made into MOX Fuel?

Yesterday, Friday, February 3, 2012, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) hosted a public meeting at the Cities of Gold Conference Center, in Pojoaque, NM; the meeting was a necessary step in the NEPA process (National Environmental Policy Act.) According to rules set forth in NEPA legislation, NNSA is required to publicly explain its most recent plans to turn 7 tons of pit plutonium (Pu), declared surplus from the nuclear weapons program into Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel, to be burned in commercial nuclear power reactors; this would be in addition to the 34 tons tons of pit Pu and 6 tons of non-pit Pu declared surplus in 2003. (The term "pit plutonium" refers to Pu that has been fashioned into "pits", or triggers, for inclusion in nuclear weapons.) NNSA must also offer the public an opportunity to comment on its plans, and to suggest alternatives to these plans.

The meeting began with a ~1 hour long poster session, in which NNSA sketched out its surplus Pu to MOX plans, while NNSA experts were present to answer questions. This was followed by a ~1/2 hour long talk, on the same topic, by the NEPA Document Manager, S. McAlhaney. Perhaps the most gripping info to be conveyed during these presentations was that NNSA retains the option of sending all of its surplus Pu pits to LANL, where they will be transformed chemically into Pu oxide powder, for eventual shipment to Savannah River Site (SRS), there  to be converted into MOX fuel; i.e., 34 tons, or more, of Pu might be added to the large Pu inventory already present at LANL.

Nevertheless, given the time allotted, only a brief outline of the topic could be conveyed by the NNSA presenters. More information is available on the world-wide web, and I'll quote here relevant sections taken from the website of the World Nuclear Association (WNA), a trade group "representing the people and organizations of the global nuclear profession"; http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf13.html. This material also gives a sense of the politics involved, and suggests the financial interests that may be in play.

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“PLUTONIUM and MOX”

“Disarmament will give rise to some 150-200 tons of weapons-grade plutonium (Pu). Weapons-grade plutonium has over 93% of the fissile isotope, Pu-239, and can be used, like reactor-grade Pu, in fuel for electricity production. Options considered for it included:

•           Immobilization with high-level waste - treating plutonium as waste,

•           Fabrication with uranium oxide as a MOX fuel for burning in existing reactors,

•           Fabrication with thorium as a fuel for existing Russian reactors,

•           Fueling fast-neutron reactors.

In 1994 the USA announced that 52.5 tons of its military plutonium stockpile was surplus to military requirements. This included non-pit material, and about 20 tons of it was of such quality that it might not be possible to utilize it for MOX.

In June 2000, the USA and Russia agreed to dispose of 34 tons each of weapons-grade plutonium by 2014. The US undertook to pursue a dual track program (immobilization and MOX), self-funded, while the G-7 nations were to provide some US$ 2.5 billion to set up Russia's program. The latter was initially MOX-oriented for VVER reactors, the high cost being because this was not part of Russia's fuel cycle policy. A revised agreement signed in April 2010 allows the Russian plutonium to be used in BN-800 fast neutron reactors, and stretches the timeline to 2018. However, the G7 funding is not available on this basis and Russia will fund most of the program, with the USA contributing $400 million. The 68 tons of plutonium in both countries is equivalent to about 12,000 tons of natural uranium.

Weapons-grade plutonium entering the civil fuel cycle needs to be kept under very tight security, and there are some technical measures needed to achieve this.  MOX fuel made from it should degrade it so that Pu-239 cannot be extracted.  As it became clear that this could be achieved, the USA dropped its immobilization plans for most military plutonium, and this is reflected in the April 2010 agreement with Russia.

After environmental and safety reviews, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized construction of a MOX fuel fabrication plant at the DOE Savannah River site in South Carolina by Duke, Cogema, Stone & Webster. Construction started in August 2007, by Shaw Areva MOX Services.  It will make about 1700 civil MOX fuel assemblies from depleted uranium and at least 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, unlike other MOX plants which use fresh reactor-grade plutonium having around one third non-fissile plutonium isotopes.  US reactors using the fuel will need to licensed for it.  Shaw Areva MOX Services is under contract to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which will own the plant, expected to be in operation from 2016.  The high cost of the plant - $3.5 billion plus $1.3 billion contingency and $183 million per year to operate - is justified on non-proliferation grounds.  Annual cost will be offset by revenue.

The following is a comment on this US situation from Dr C. Wolfe, former chairman of the Technical Advisory Panel to the Department of Energy's Plutonium Focus Area, whose task had been to advise on technology to enable the disposition of the excess plutonium: In discussion with Russia, ‘the USA often emphasized elaborate technology schemes to immobilize the plutonium in a proliferation-resistant state. These included grouts, synthetic rock, glass and co-disposal with spent nuclear fuel. The Russians were astounded. They couldn't believe that we were willing to take this material, which we had spent billions of dollars producing, and just throw it away. Not only throw it away, but spend a lot of additional money to get rid of it. The Russians saw it for what it was: a tremendous energy resource. The US eventually came to the same conclusion and opted for converting 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into MOX fuel to provide electrical energy for the US economy.’ (Aiken Standard 10/8/09)

In June 2005 the first four fuel assemblies with mixed oxide fuel made from US military plutonium (plus depleted uranium) started generating electricity in Duke Power's Catawba-1 nuclear power plant in South Carolina, on a trial basis. They incorporate 140 kg of weapons-grade plutonium. The plutonium was made into 2 tons of pellets at the Cadrache plant and then fabricated into fuel assemblies at the Melox plant in France. This trial was concluded satisfactorily.

In September 2007 the Department of Energy announced the release of a further 9 tons of weapons-grade plutonium from dismantled warheads (cores, or pits). This will be made into MOX fuel at Savannah River. It brings to 61.5 tons the amount that is surplus to defense requirements and available for recycling into civil reactor fuel (leaving some 38 tons in the US nuclear weapons program.)

DOE is moving all its surplus non-pit weapons plutonium - reported to be 12.8 tons - to Savannah River by 2010. Once the material is consolidated there, the Department's plans for disposing of it involve the use of three Savannah River site facilities: the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (under construction) for 7.8 tons, the existing H-Canyon processing plant followed by a proposed new small-scale plutonium vitrification plant for the balance of 5.0 tons. The H-Canyon facility is the last such US plant able to treat used Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) fuel and similar materials still operational.

H-Canyon dates from 1955 and originally recovered uranium, neptunium and plutonium from used military and research reactor HEU fuel. Since 1998 it has recovered HEU from degraded materials and spent fuel, to recycle it as Low Enriched Uranium (LEU). This program will continue to 2019.

Following the September 20007 addition of 9 tons of plutonium to the MOX program, NNSA decided that the Savannah River plant might also produce starter fuel for advanced fast reactors, part of the advanced fuel cycle initiative program.

Meanwhile the US has developed a 'spent fuel standard.' This specifies that plutonium should never be more accessible than if it were incorporated in spent fuel and thus protected from interference by strong gamma radiation. The plutonium immobilization plant, if and when it is eventually built, would thus incorporate the Pu in a version of Synroc ( artificial rock), and encase small discs of this in canisters of vitrified high-level radioactive waste. Alternatively, plutonium would be mixed with fission products and vitrified at the small plant proposed for Savannah River.

Europe's well-developed MOX capacity suggests that weapons plutonium could be disposed of relatively quickly. Input weapons-grade plutonium might need to be mixed with reactor grade material or blended with Pu-238, but using such MOX as 30% of the fuel in one third of the world's reactor capacity would remove about 15 tons of warhead plutonium per year. This would amount to burning 3000 warheads per year to produce 110 billion kW-hr of electricity. [Thus, the electrical energy needs of ~10 million homes could be satisfied for a year. But, ~10 large nuclear power reactors would probably be needed to burn so much nuclear fuel.]

Over 35 reactors in Europe are licensed to use MOX fuel, and 22 French reactors are licensed to use it as 30% of their fuel.

Russia intends to use its plutonium to fuel fast neutron reactors such as its BN-600 and BN-800, and later BREST at Beloyarsk.  The USA earlier insisted that it duplicate US plans to make it into MOX fuel for late-model conventional reactors, and for this Russia insisted that the USA pay all costs.  But after announcement of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in 2006 with its proposals for use of fast reactors, US objection to Russian plans disappeared. The 34 tons of plutonium initially available for MOX would have been enough for 1350 fuel assemblies for light-water reactors, but will now go into MOX fuel for BN-600 and BN-800 fast reactors - the former with one third MOX core and the latter with full MOX core, and accounting for most of the usage. The USA has agreed to contribute US$ 400 million towards the cost of this - much less than for the MOX option in VVER reactors.

Burning the plutonium in the BN-600 reactor is to commence in 2012, with the breeding blanket of depleted uranium removed and replaced by stainless steel reflector assemblies.  The BN-800 reactor now under construction will have a uranium blanket but will operated as a net plutonium consumer for the life of the disposition project.  Jointly they are expected to burn 1.5 tons of this weapons plutonium per year. The USA and Russia intend to continue cooperative development of a gas-cooled high-temperature reactor (GT-MHR) in Russia 'which may create additional possibilities for speeding up plutonium disposition from about 2015.

The 2000 US-Russian agreement precludes the reprocessing of MOX fuel using military plutonium if the plutonium is separated out, so such reprocessing will be either to give plutonium plus uranium or plus actinides.  Russia is said to have 40 tons of separated reactor-grade plutonium already from reprocessed fuel.”

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Next, ~1  1/2 hours were given over to public comments, with each member of the public allowed 4 minutes to speak. Remarks were recorded both electronically and by stenographer.

Two members of the public criticized the Pu to MOX plan as being very unwise and volunteered specific alternatives: T. Mello suggested that Pu pits be “filled with wire and then buried”; J. Coghlan thought that the Pu pits should be “chopped up and the pieces buried.” But, it seems that these comments were made tongue-in- cheek.

An impassioned hour-long condemnation of the nuclear weapons program, and the nuclear power industry, was then presented by C. Montaño, aided by a group of 15 like-minded and “shy” individuals. However, rather than attempting to summarize these interesting and poetic views, I'll quote similar thoughts taken from the website of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NRIS), an advocacy group opposed to both nuclear weapons and nuclear power; www.nirs.org. (In contrast to C. Montaño, the NIRS does not go so far as to condemn all forms of radiation; viz., without the prodigious amounts of radiation coming to us from the sun, life on planet earth would probably be impossible.)

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“PLUTONIUM PROLIFERATION AND MOX FUEL”

“The Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to mix 34 or more metric tons of plutonium from nuclear weapons with depleted uranium into a mixed-oxide fuel for use in commercial nuclear reactors is a direct reversal of decades-old U.S. policy aimed toward non-proliferation of nuclear weapons materials. A plutonium fuel program will increase the risks of nuclear terrorism and the international proliferation of plutonium.

A decision on the part of the U.S. government to engage in a large scale civilian plutonium program would encourage the continuation of the messy and dangerous reprocessing programs in Europe and Japan. A plutonium fuel program would destroy any leverage the U.S. might have to influence non-weapons states from creating their own civilian reprocessing programs.”

“PLUTONIUM ECONOMY”

“The U.S. plutonium fuel program would create facilities and financial interests based exclusively upon the use and spread of plutonium. The corporation most involved in a potential U.S. plutonium fuel program is the French reprocessing company Cogema. This company has teamed up with Duke Power and Virginia Power to create a new consortium, and would be responsible for the storage, safeguarding, and some processing of weapons-grade plutonium.

This industry structure builds an economy upon the false and dangerous notion that plutonium is an asset. The involvement of these corporations places the responsibility of these deadly materials in the hands of corporate entities whose single goal is the generation of profits.”

“REPROCESSING”

“Reprocessing is the chemical process of separating plutonium and uranium from other fission products in the irradiated fuel from a nuclear reactor. The separated materials can then be made into a mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) which is reused in a reactor. Since the 1970s, the U.S. has had a policy of not allowing reprocessing, and instead treating the nuclear fission products as the high-level atomic waste it is. This policy is based primarily on non-proliferation grounds, and is met to discourage countries from engaging in the separation of plutonium and uranium—since these substances—once separated—can also be used to build nuclear weapons.

Even now, the Department of Energy says that its proposed MOX program will only be a "once-through" program, meaning that once the plutonium from nuclear weapons has been processed into MOX and used in civilian reactors, no further reprocessing would be allowed. But the industries involved in the plutonium fuel program will have a vested interest in the possibility of a U.S. commercial reprocessing industry as part of waste management policy. And the necessary infrastructure—including construction of all the need facilities—would be in place.”

“THEFT AND DIVERSION”

“In recent years the US has seen a surge in devastating terrorist activities on its own soil. The knowledge necessary to create a nuclear weapon is available to the public. The best policy toward the prevention of nuclear terrorism is to ensure that the materials necessary to make a nuclear bomb cannot be obtained. The US plutonium fuel program would increase the risks of theft of weapons grade plutonium. The process of fabricating plutonium fuel involves the handling of bulk amounts of plutonium. This process makes accurate accounting of plutonium extremely difficult, which leaves measuring disparities that could be an open invitation for diversion of the plutonium for weapons purposes. In some cases it may be impossible to know whether plutonium has been stolen or is simply left in residues at processing facilities without an expensive clean-out. Once the plutonium fuel has been made, it would then have to be transported to commercial reactors where safeguarding of that plutonium will be the responsibility of the utility. This also makes the plutonium vulnerable to theft or diversion.

Irradiating weapons plutonium in a reactor does not make the plutonium unusable for weapons purposes. The U.S. government proved with a nuclear test in 1962 that so-called ‘reactor grade’ plutonium can be used in nuclear bombs. Using weapons plutonium in reactors does not effectively safeguard plutonium, and it undermines disarmament efforts.”

“PROLIFERATION WORLDWIDE”

“A U.S. plutonium fuel program would send a clear signal to other countries: the U.S. government approves of separated plutonium fuel programs. This would undercut the government's ability to discourage reprocessing in other countries and may encourage other countries to pursue plutonium programs. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Director John Holum explained the situation clearly in a memorandum to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary:

‘U.S. decisions on plutonium disposition are inextricably linked with U.S. efforts to reduce stockpiles as well as limit the use of plutonium worldwide. The multi-decade institutionalization of plutonium use in US commercial reactors would set a very damaging precedent for US non-proliferation policy.’

The alternative, to encase the plutonium in ceramics or glass (immobilization), will not affect the government's non-proliferation goals, nor encourage civilian reprocessing in the U.S. or elsewhere. Immobilizing plutonium will send the proper signal that plutonium is a dangerous waste and needs to be treated as such.”

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The Framework Agreement

Thursday 1-5-12/

NMED officials and NNSA/LANS/LANL managers met this evening in the Cities of Gold Conference Room in Pojoaque, NM for a polite and public exchange of views regarding LANL's cleanup of waste from the ongoing US nuclear weapons program. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board.

Appearing for NMED were Secretary David Martin, Resource Protection Division Head Jim Davis, and Ryan Flynn from the Office of General Counsel. Among the NNSA/LANS/LANL participants were Associate Director for Environmental Programs Michael Graham and Assistant Manager for Environmental Operations George Rael. There were also ~15 NNMCAB members in attendance.

As described by Sec. Martin, NMED has determined that its highest priority for future work will be the protection of New Mexico's ground and surface water, as well as its air. With that in mind, NMED has asked LANS to expedite the removal of TRU waste, now being stored aboveground in tents at LANL's TA-54 (Area-G). Sec. Martin noted the public concern expressed about the possible release of radioactive material by wildfires that might burn over TA-54, engulfing the TRU waste being stored there. He said that, considering the near catastrophic consequences for the environment of last June's Las Conchas wildfire, it is of the utmost importance that TRU waste stored aboveground at Area-G be removed as soon as possible. On the other hand, removal of  TRU waste currently stored below ground at Area G will not be a priority for NMED. [1-11-12: As pointed out by Wren Abbott in this week's SF Reporter, NMED's intent to prioritize the removal of TRU waste stored aboveground at Area-G may be at variance with the 2005 Consent Decree, which mandates the removal of all TRU waste from TA-54 by 2015.] 

Quoting from LANL's magazine National Security Science (http://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/issue3_2011/story5full.shtml): "Of great concern to the public and media during the Las Conchas wildfire, the 63-acre site (Area-G at TA-54) is the main waste storage and handling area for Laboratory-generated low-level and transuranic radioactive waste. Currently, Area G stores 10,000 55-gallon drums and other containers of waste above ground, under 10 domes made of fabric stretched on metal ribbing. Another 6,000 drums are buried in underground storage." 

George Rael agreed that the removal of TRU waste from TA-54 should be a high priority. However, he also said that it will be difficult for LANS to pursue this priority while complying with the cleanup timetable set forth in the 2005 Consent Order; i.e., especially since large cuts in the LANL cleanup budget are being anticipated. Therefore, Rael asked that the Consent Order's timetable be renegotiated. NMED managers countered that, although they appreciate the problems being experienced by LANS, they were not yet ready for this renegotiation. They said that perhaps in a year or so, they'd be ready, but not now. Explaining further, NMED's Mr. Flynn said that an agreement now to renegotiate the Consent Order might be seen by Congress as a reason to cut LANL's cleanup budget even farther than was now being planned. Two NNMCAB members objected, saying that this seemed to them to be a poor reason for NMED to delay start of a renegotiation, one adding that her own view should carry special weight since she was a member of an old New Mexico family.

Several LANS speakers pointed out that, with a part of the ARRA funding received by LANL, ~20 new monitoring wells had been constructed. But, NMED’s Davis noted that LANL’s program of  construction of new monitoring wells may be at an end. He added that the collection of large amounts of contaminant data from LANL’s very extensive network of monitoring wells may have reached a point of diminishing returns, and that NMED would, in the future, emphasize efficiency of data collection and interpretation instead of volume. A NNMCAB member opined that there were already too many monitoring wells, and that these wells might themselves provide a route for contaminants to move from surface water down into the aquifer.

Evidently, the views expressed at this meeting were well known beforehand to most of the participants, having been the product of prior talks between NNSA/LANS and a reorganized NMED under the new Gov. Martinez; e.g.., the so-called Framework Agreement (http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/documents/LANL_Framework_Agreement.pdf.) By contrast, the 2005 Consent Decree was the product of protracted discussions between NNSA and NMED under the then Gov. Richardson. Whereas the Framework Agreement has no legal standing, the Consent Decree continues to have the force of law.

N. Korea in the News

Dec 27, 2011: Appearing on the LANL website (www.lanl.gov) under the heading "Media Coverage" (normally  containing only LANL-related news) is an entry entitled "N. Korea closer to nuclear-tipped missile: U.S. expert". This is a reprint of an article appearing on the Reuters website (www.reuters.com), written by the Reuters national security correspondent Jim Wolf. In turn, Wolf quotes from a "recent" publication by the Congressional Research Service's Larry Niksch who opined that N. Korea may be one to two years away from being able to place a nuclear weapon atop an intermediate range ballistic missile. Ostensibly, LANL is reprinting Wolf's story because it mentions LANL ex-Director Sig Hecker and his trip, ~1 year ago, to N. Korea. But, it seems to me that by carrying this story LANL engages in some unsavory self-promotion. That is, by calling attention to Wolf's interpretations of Niksch's ruminations, LANL places itself in the position of seeming to advocate for more support for its own R&D on nuclear weapons, the management of which, as we know, has become a lucrative for-profit business.

Interestingly, the most recent article on N. Korea by Larry Niksch, listed on the CRS website (opencrs.com), is dated Feb. 24, 2009. Is this the article to which Jim Wolf referred? If so, then Niksch's predictions are hardly "recent". What's more, according to the Federation of American Scientists, Larry Niksch has not worked for CRS since Feb., 2010.

Accidental Fallout from LANL?

  

Although contrary to today’s festive spirit, let's think for a bit about possible future releases of radioactive material from LANL, as a result of earthquake and/or wildfire. How much radioactive fallout would be experienced by local residents? Could this radioactive fallout constitute any sort of health hazard?  Could a retired physicist like myself, with no particular knowledge of environmental science, have anything sensible to say about such questions? Well, let’s see!    

 A release of Pu-239 from PF-4, or the still to be built CMRR-NF, could occur sometime in the future. In the event of a major earthquake (>7 on the Richter scale) followed by fire, there might be a release from either of these facilities of Pu-239 in dust form, or in the form of fumes from burning Pu-metal. Since many tons of Pu-239 is expected to be stored at PF-4, and/or at the CMRR-NF, one might imagine that a release of >1 ton Of Pu-239 could be possible. [1 ton, or 1000 kg of Pu-239 corresponds to 73,000 PE Ci.]

 Such a possibility was said last week, at a meeting in Santa Fe, NM, by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board Chairman, Dr. Peter Winokur, to be “not far-fetched.” (The DNFSB is a group of scientists and engineers tasked by the US Congress to provide advice on safety practices, at US nuclear weapons facilities, to the US President and to the DOE Secretary.)

 A wildfire burning over Area-G might have serious consequences. Currently, there are 10,000 barrels of TRU-waste stored above ground at Area-G, and these are only poorly protected against the effects of  wildfire. Each barrel contains ~10 PE Ci of actinide residue, mainly Pu. If these barrels were to burst during a wildfire, ~100,000 PE Ci could go up into the air. (At the DNFSB meeting in Santa Fe last week, DOE/NNSA manager Anderson testified that the las Conchas wildfire  "was very scary" and that "if the wind hadn't shifted when it did, LANL might have been consumed by fire.")

 Thus, there are at least two different scenarios that might result in the release of ~100,000 PE Ci into the air over LANL.

 If a bad accident at LANL, accompanied by a hot fire, were to release 100,000 Ci of Pu-239 into the atmosphere, and if the ensuing fallout exhibited circular symmetry with an activity decreasing exponentially with distance r from the source, over a characteristic distance R (that is, if r=R, then the concentration at r would be  1/e = 0.37 of its value at the source, according to the law C(r) = C(0) * exp( -r/R), where C(r) is the activity per unit area, at r, in units of Ci per square meter, or Ci/m**2) then the activity of Pu-239 deposited on the ground at a distance r, and for R = 1.0 mile, would be:

                        Table 1

         r (miles)              C(r)  (Ci/m**2)

         --------            --------------------

          0.01                     30.7

  

          0.10                     0.307

 

          1.00                     0.00113                     

          5.00                     8.28 * 10**(-7)

          10.0                     1.39 * 10**(-9)

          20.0                     1.59 * 10**(-14)

If, instead, R = 5.0 mile, then:

                       Table 2

         r (miles)             C(r) (Ci/m**2)

         --------            --------------------

          0.01                     30.7

  

          0.10                     0.307

 

          1.00                     0.00307                     

          5.00                     4.52 * 10**(-5)

          10.0                     4.16 * 10**(-6)

          20.0                     1.41 * 10**(-7)

 For a small fire, one would expect fallout to be concentrated over and around the facility which was burning, with the density of fallout and, therefore, of activity, both areal and volumetric, decreasing with distance from the facility; i.e., as described by the numbers in Table 1.  For a hotter and more extensive fire, Table 2 might instead pertain. But, if the fire were both very hot and very extensive, such that the hot gases being generated rose up into the stratosphere, then the fallout would be distributed over larger distances than those indicated in the Tables, and the fallout pattern would  elongate along the direction of the prevailing winds. In such a case, both Tables would need to be modified. (The Fukushima-Daiichi disaster exhibited a pattern of fallout that extended in the northwest direction over a range ~10 times that of its width. Since the damaged nuclear reactors were located on the eastern seacoast, strong prevailing sea breezes blew the fallout away from the coast and towards the northwest. In May, 2000, smoke from the Cerro Grande wildfire extended from its source in the Jemez Mts., through Los Alamos, and towards the northeast, over the town of Española, and over the pueblos of  Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh, again blown by the prevailing winds. The length of the smoke plume was ~3 times its width, and it extended all the way into Oklahoma.)

 But, to continue:

 Let's estimate the amount of Pu-239 that would be deposited in the lungs of a local resident over the ~1 year's time that it would take for all of the fallout to come to earth. Let's assume that the amount of Pu-239 suspended in the air, during that 1 year's time, remains at a constant value and is distributed evenly in a vertical air column up to an altitude of 1000 m. (One could object to this number since, as we will see, it plays a critical role in our calculation; however, as a rough value I think that it may not be so bad.) The volumetric activity of Pu-239, as a function of r, would then be given by the numerical values in the above Tables, reduced by a factor of 1000 (and in units of Ci/m**3). Then, since the volume of air exchanged per breath by the human lungs is ~0.5 liter, or 0.0005 m**3, and the number of breaths taken per year is ~2 x 10**6, the volume of air exchanged in 1 year would be ~1,000 m**3. If we assume that all of the inhaled Pu-239 is deposited in the lungs, and remains in the lungs, then the activity of the Pu-239 concentrated in the lungs in 1 year, as a function of r, is given by the numerical results appearing in the above Tables (but, now in units of Ci).

 A LANL compendium of radiation effects published in June, 2000 (Los Alamos Radiation Monitoring Notebook, by J. T. Voss) noted that Pu-239 deposited in the lungs of dogs was fatal, within a year, if its activity exceeded ~5 x 10**(-7) Ci/gm (Ci per gm-weight of lung tissue.) Therefore, for adult humans with an average lung mass of 900 gm, inhaled Pu-239 might be lethal for activities > 4 x 10**(-4) Ci (corresponding to a dose > 4000 Rem.) Since single doses < 10 Rem are usually considered to be marginally safe, one could say that for adult humans inhaled Pu-239 would be marginally safe if the activity of all the inhaled material was < 10**(-6) Ci.

 Returning to the Tables, we see that, for R = 1 mile (Table 1), and at a distance of 5 miles from a Pu-239 release of 100,000 Ci into the atmosphere, the amount of Pu-239 concentrated in the lungs of a local resident, within 1 year of the release, does not exceed a marginally safe value. However, at a distance of just 1 mile from the release point the amount accumulated would be lethal. Therefore, for this case, a zone of exclusion extending out to at ~5 miles from the release point would be necessary.

 Similarly, for R = 5 mile (Table 2), and at a distance of 10 miles from a Pu-239 release of 100,000 Ci into the atmosphere, the amount of Pu-239 concentrated in the lungs of each local resident, within 1 year of the release, is marginally safe; but, at a distance of 5 miles the amount accumulated would be unsafe and possibly lethal. In this case, the zone of exclusion would have to extend to ~10 miles.

 Shocking stuff? Well, maybe.

 Clearly, many assumptions have been made in these rough "calculations", some more critical than others. The form of the distribution assumed is very important, as is the value of R chosen, if the distribution were to be exponential. The height of the air column through which the fallout occurs is, obviously, very important; i.e., the actual volumetric density of Pu-239 at ground level is critical. Moreover, there is uncertainty in the amount of Pu-239 which would be inhaled by persons in the vicinity of the release point and the maximum dose of inhaled Pu-239 which can be tolerated by humans is also not very well known.

  But, in spite of these uncertainties, I claim that my rough "calculations" suggest the need for a careful study of these important questions by independent qualified experts. But, perhaps such studies have already been performed? Then I wonder what their results have shown and why they aren’t already available as public information?  Maybe they’re just too shocking?

DNFSB Criticizes LANL's Risky Practices

17 Nov 2011/ Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB, or the Board) public meeting held at the Santa Fe, NM Convention Center / Thursday, 17 Nov 2011/ 1PM - 5:30PM; 7PM - 9PM.

The Board was created in 1989 to advise the President and the DOE Secretary on safety issues at the DOE's nuclear weapons laboratories. The Board has ~100 full-time staff and an annual budget of ~$22 million.

Today, safety practices at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) will be addressed by the Board. Of particular interest to the Board are:

 1) effects of the latest information about seismic activity beneath the Pajarito Plateau as it concerns the ongoing planning for the CMRR-NF construction project at LANL;

 2) effects of lessons learned from the Cerro Grande and Las Conchas wildfires on planning for the CMRR-NF construction project at LANL, as well as on the Area G cleanup, and upgrades to the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility;

 3) effects of lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi natural disaster on planning for the CMRR-NF construction project, and on other projects at LANL.

The Board Chair, Peter Winokur, and four other Board members listen to short formal presentations from two panels of LANL/NNSA managers (6 per panel), and ask follow-up questions. Approximately 50 members of the general public are also in attendance. However, no questions from the general public are allowed and several uniformed security personnel are present to keep order. Nevertheless, the general public has been invited to present comments, 5 minutes per person, during a 45 min period at the end of the meeting. The Board Chair also announces that the meeting record will be held open until 19 Dec, 2011 and that anyone may add remarks to the record. Proceedings of the meeting are being recorded by means of redundent audio and video, a stenographic record is being created, and several photographers are at work in the meeting hall.

Panel member Donald Cook (DOE/NNSA manager) remarks that the latest seismic studies show that earthquakes which might occur beneath the Pajarito Plateau could be so large as to exceed the design standards for LANL's PF4 (an existing plutonium facility) and that the PF4 building structure might experience multiple failures during such an earthquake. However, he asserts that even assuming a maximum release of plutonium (powder, or fumes from burning metal) into the atmosphere, the resulting biohazard would be 10,000 times less serious than current natural occurring biohazards. He also claims that planned upgrades to the facility will reduce future possible releases of plutonium to below levels specified as safe by the DOE.

Cook also claims that lessons learned from Cerro Grande wildfire helped to mitigate effects at LANL of the Las Conchas wildfire. Similarly, he expects that lessons learned from the Las Conchas wildfire will mitigate the effects of future disastrous wildfires at LANL; ditto [somehow] for the Fukushima Daiichi earthquake and flood.

LANL Dir. Charles McMillan talks about "the broad scope of what we have done at the Lab." He says that "safety is our highest priority at the Lab", and that "our goal is to encourage reporting safety issues before they become serious." He asserts that "one of the reasons that we are here today is because of the Lab's self-reporting of possible problems at PF4." He says that, however, "PF4 is so well-designed that, in the event of an earthquake he would feel safer in PF4 than in his own home."

Board Chair Winokur remarks that, in the event of earthquake inspired structural failures and fires at PF4, “the levels of radiation in and around the destroyed facility might rise to 100,000s of Rem.  It is doubtful that anyone could be safe under those circumstances.”

DNFSB LANL site-representative Brett Broderick points out that PF4 was designed and constructed in the 1970s using the best seismic info then available. However, in 2007 new seismic data showed that ground motions during a strong earthquake could be (1 1/2)x greater in the horizontal direction and 2x greater in the vertical direction, than previously thought. Projected radiation releases during such extreme events were shown to be 100x greater than had been thought possible earlier. He said that, nevertheless, approximately 1/2 of the revealed vulnerabilities at PF4 had already been corrected. Remaining vulnerabilities were primarily in the ventilation systems and in the fire suppression systems.

At this point, Board Chair Winokur notes that the US Atomic Energy Act required the DOE to protect the public against hazardous conditions at DOE nuclear weapons facilities. In this regard, he believed that DOE was designing its facilities so that worst case accidents would not result in radiation doses to members of the general public of greater than 25 Rem. However, recently, he has become aware that the DOE has actually been designing its faciities such that doses to individuals could be as high as 2500 Rem.

DOE/NNSA manager Cook immediately objects, saying that the "risk" to the general public is being appropriately computed by DOE as the product of the probability of an accident with the "consequence" of that accident.

Board member John Mansfield objects strenuously, saying that he does not believe that the DOE knows how to correctly calculate risk. [Evidently, a controversy has been brewing about this interesting topic between the Board and the DOE.]

Board Chair Winokur continues: "The risk to the public of an accident occurring once in 2000 yr, with radiation released corresponding to a dose of 2000 Rem is very different than the risk to the public of an accident which occurs once a year and leads to a dose of 1 Rem each time!"

[Now, I think it worthwhile to point out a few facts about radiation dose; i.e., according to experts who have studied the effects of radiation dose on the human body:

Normally, exposure to radiation from environmental sources results in an accumulated annual dose of less than 1 Rem, for each individual; such a low dose is always inconsequential. Also, doses accumulated gradually (over the course of a year, say) are always less problematic than doses accumulated all at once. Although sudden doses of less than 50 Rem usually do not lead to observable physical effects, sudden doses of ~ 100 Rem or more are often physically damaging, and doses of 1000 Rem or greater are usually fatal. The DOE sets 5 Rem as the maximum allowed annual dose for a worker in the nuclear weapons industry.]

[Although Winokur did not say so explicitly, it seems clear that although a release of 2000 Rem might be a rare event, any person would experience it as a deadly event, if it happened to occur in his life-time, or at the end of his life-time; but otherwise not! Which is to say that it is essential not to be confused by the rarity of an event when estimating the risk of that event to an individual.]

Panel member Kevin Smith (DOE/NNSA manager) remarks that the Las Conchas wildfire was very different than the Cerro Grande wildfire in that the more recent wildfire moved much more rapidly (explosively, in fact) and consumed much more of the forest (~10X more.)

Panel member Anderson (DOE/NNSA manager) said that the Las Conchas wildfire "was very scary" and that "if the wind hadn't shifted when it did, LANL might have been consumed by fire."

Board Chair Winokur asked Anderson if, during the Las Conchas wildfire, he had been worried about LANL's Area G; i.e., since Area G stores aboveground and essentially unprotected against the ravages of wildfire many [~10,000] large metal drums, each drum filled with TRU waste [~10 PE Ci per drum]. Anderson said that he had not been particularly worried about Area G.

Board member Joseph Bader asked about accidents so severe that they exceeded the "design basis" threat level. DOE/NNSA's Dr. Stanford answered that "such extreme events will be practiced during upcoming exercises."

Board Chair Winokur remarked that, if one tried to "imagine accidents at LANL beyond the design basis, a large earthquake accompanied by a wildfire would qualify, and did not seem to him to be far-fetched."

Scare and Scare Again

In an editorial, yesterday the New York Times spoke out sharply against any further care and feeding of the US nuclear weapons program; viz., "The Bloated Nuclear Weapons Budget." The Times opined that the upgrades to this program planned by the Obama Administration, to the tune of $600 billion to be spent over the next ten years, are unnecessary and a sharp reduction in the numbers of deployed and stockpiled nuclear weapons in the US arsenal is now entirely in order.

Moreover, a cancellation of DOE/NNSA plans to build a new plutonium pit manufacturing facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (for ~$5 billion), and a new uranium parts fabrication facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (another ~$5 billion) should also ensue.

The Times argued that, since the Russian nuclear threat to America has vanished, or become "unthinkable", it is illogical for the US to continue to maintain an arsenal of nuclear weapons of a size perhaps appropriate during the cold war, but no longer.

But, in the same edition of the Times, a long news article entitled "Are We Ready for Bioterrorism?" appeared, purporting to describe the sorry state of the US bioweapons defense program. The Times reported that the major threats faced by the US today arise from weaponized forms of the smallpox and anthrax bacilli; but, no good vaccine has been developed to combat these two pathogens. Thus, the US may be standing naked before its enemies, who might be armed with scary bioweapons.

What the Times reporter failed to point out was that antrax has been successfully weaponized by the US and by the Russians, during the cold war, but by no one else. What's more, today the only live smallpox bacilli are residing in vaults at bioweapons laboratories in the US and in Russia. So then is the reporter just trying to scare us a bit, in keeping with the present season? Or is he really suggesting that we try to think more about the "unthinkable"?