Quote:
Originally Posted by Milk 1027
Nuclear waste will be around for milions of years after we are gone.
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And radiation and nuclear materials have been around for a long time before us.
Years ago, I was a nuke machinist's mate on a ballistic missle subamarine. Also, although I cannot confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on board the ship I was on, that was a whole 'nother ball game on the delivered nukes vs. the powering nukes. Most all the naval reactors were manufactured by Westinghouse or G.E., with A.O. Williams making a fair share of their steam generators. In reality, though, there were many vendors involved, so while Westinghouse may have had the main contract for a ship's reactor, there were other vendors involved. In England, I know for a fact the British nuke subs have at least one reactor designer...Rolls Royce. On the HMS Revenge, the RR emblem is emblazoned on the reactor compartment door. Kinda cool actually.
And for the record, every nuclear ship out there bleeds reactor coolant periodically overboard into international waters, which is deemed anything outside of the 12 mile range of the U.S. coast. As the old saying goes, "Dilution is the solution." I know, I've personally done it. Inside of 12 miles, the bleed is contained on board in big azz tanks.
I also worked at Florida Power & Light Turkey Point and Florida Power's Crystal River Unit 3 (1 & 2 are coal plants and Unit 4 was mothballed years ago as it stood as nothing more than a large lot of cleared land when they pulled the plug). I liked it, but the training was tough. You had to know an awful lot of stuff.
The TMI incident is largely responsible for the control room simulator training that each plant must go through for their reactor operators. Note too, that RO's are licensed from the NRC, and are DIRECTLY ACCOUNTABLE to the NRC. This means if there is an incident, and they're found to be at fault, they could personally be fined. Those simulators are set up virtually identical to the actual control rooms, sometimes right down to the carpet. Gives you the feel of realism when stuff goes wrong. It's kinda scary the first time you see the "wall of warning lights" illuminate.
The NRC oversees the commercial sites, and at least until a few years ago, had tight reign over them. After I left the IBEW and the nuclear industry, I've heard the NRC was putting more risk on the nuke plants. But that was back in the late 90s, so I'm not sure what it's like now.
I agree the waste is an issue. I also used to work at a glass vitrification facility in the training department to help stabilize and get rid of high-level rad waste. They melted the radioactive material with glass and poured that in tall silver canisters which were made by Coors. We naturally called them "silver bullets". I was one of the few qualified to teach the operation of the shielded canister transporter, a one of a kind unit, which transported the highly radioactive glass-filled canisters to the storage building awaiting transport to Yucca mountain. They're still there as far as I know. When I left Florida, they were working on a "dry cask" storage as their swimming pools were filling up.
http://srnl.doe.gov/emsp/day1_overv/savan-river.pdf
I now work at a pharmaceutical company and it's MUCH better than the nuke plants as far as a place to work. I'm glad I did it, but I don't miss it.