"Okeydoke"
To place the Japanese radiation leaks into perspective, it is probably not the worst mess in the world. I do believe the USA still leads that category with "The Hanford Nuclear Area" in Washington State.
Hanford was the beginnings of the USA nuclear program and today it is the largest contaminated area in the country.
It is by far the equivalent to the clean up required in Japan and it may be Japan's problem is far less in scope in relation to actual contamination to lands.
The Hanford facility is actively being managed by the USA Department of Energy with its own website that provides trous to the public.
Website (click here)
The thing is this, just because there are three backup water systems now doesn't mean they would provide any more safety than what is occurring in Japan. Japan's problem is due to flooding and power outage, not simply water supply.
Washington's Hanford nuclear plant has more backup (click here)
The Northwest's single nuclear-power plant near the Hanford nuclear reservation is the same general type as those stricken in Japan, but has more backup systems and is more than a decade newer, utility officials say.
Seattle Times science reporter
Like the damaged Japanese plants, the Hanford reactor is a boiling-water design from General Electric. Commissioned in 1984, the plant is larger and newer than the Japanese reactors, some of which date to the early 1970s.
Three additional emergency-cooling systems provide a cushion those plants lack, Olson said....
The Hanford Site was for perfecting nuclear weapons. There are two huge rivers available for hydroelectric power within reasonable distance to believe an 'consumer' power could be provided otherwise. It was the site where nuclear weapons for the USA were perfected and where they were moved to test sites and planes for deployment.
I understand the at least one of the water cannons in use in Japan is robotic. That's interesting, considering the manufacturer is the same one that keeps messing up nuclear facilities otherwise.
December 8th, 2008
Seattle, WA - Bechtel may have to pay a fine of up to $385,000 for producing inadequate piping in the nuclear waste treatment plant they designed. Kristin Brown, a spokesperson for the D-O-E, says the problem could have caused leaks and exposed workers to dangerous substances.
They actually discovered this problem a couple of years ago but they failed to effectively fix it so the thing that they tried didn’t really work," said Brown.
The fine doesn’t amount to much for the engineering giant, which brought in $27 billion in revenues last year. But there’s nothing small about the problems at the Hanford Site, according to Whit Sheard of the nonprofit Pacific Environment. Hanford is the most toxic site in the western hemisphere....
Talk about job security. The longer it takes, the more cost overruns and the more expensive it gets. Why don't bids ever matter? It took Dr. Chu to finally get this mess going well? Why?
The Department of Energy wants the aging tank farms at Hanford cleared of radioactive waste in 30 years. At the current rate of progress, though, the job will take about a century and a half.
So the contractor is trying something new to pick up speed and finish on time.
The Hanford Site, which produced plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal beginning in the days of the Manhattan Project, occupies 586 square miles in southeastern Washington. Today the site includes old processing plants, groundwater that exceeds safe levels of radioactivity, and high-level radioactive waste held in 149 aging tanks—some more than 60 years old—that lie underground just ten miles from the Columbia River.
There are numerous cleanup tasks in progress at the Hanford Site, but dealing with the 149 tanks has proven to be a slow and stubborn one.
The objective is to remove the highly radioactive waste from the old tanks, which have a single-shell construction, and transfer it to 28 newer, more-secure double-shell tanks nearby, where the waste will safely reside until it can be treated in facilities now under construction.
The tank transfer program is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection and is currently overseen by its prime contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, a joint venture between URS Corp. and Energy Solutions, with Areva as the primary subcontractor....
They actually discovered this problem a couple of years ago but they failed to effectively fix it so the thing that they tried didn’t really work," said Brown.
The fine doesn’t amount to much for the engineering giant, which brought in $27 billion in revenues last year. But there’s nothing small about the problems at the Hanford Site, according to Whit Sheard of the nonprofit Pacific Environment. Hanford is the most toxic site in the western hemisphere....
Talk about job security. The longer it takes, the more cost overruns and the more expensive it gets. Why don't bids ever matter? It took Dr. Chu to finally get this mess going well? Why?
“mechanical Engineering” – The Magazine of ASME
July 2010 issue
New methods and heavier equipment are expected to hasten the nuclear-waste transfer at the Hanford Site’s tank farms.
By Harry Hutchinson, Executive Editor
By Harry Hutchinson, Executive Editor
The Department of Energy wants the aging tank farms at Hanford cleared of radioactive waste in 30 years. At the current rate of progress, though, the job will take about a century and a half.
So the contractor is trying something new to pick up speed and finish on time.
The Hanford Site, which produced plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal beginning in the days of the Manhattan Project, occupies 586 square miles in southeastern Washington. Today the site includes old processing plants, groundwater that exceeds safe levels of radioactivity, and high-level radioactive waste held in 149 aging tanks—some more than 60 years old—that lie underground just ten miles from the Columbia River.
There are numerous cleanup tasks in progress at the Hanford Site, but dealing with the 149 tanks has proven to be a slow and stubborn one.
The objective is to remove the highly radioactive waste from the old tanks, which have a single-shell construction, and transfer it to 28 newer, more-secure double-shell tanks nearby, where the waste will safely reside until it can be treated in facilities now under construction.
The tank transfer program is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection and is currently overseen by its prime contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, a joint venture between URS Corp. and Energy Solutions, with Areva as the primary subcontractor....
