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In an effort to reduce
greenhouse emissions many nations and
multi-national corporations are once again
focusing on the development of safe radioactive
sources for energy generation. After a hiatus of
some 20 years commercial nuclear power plants
are being developed globally to satisfy
increasing global energy demands.
Whether for generation of
electrical power or in the production of fission
material there is a dire need to enable cost
efficient and effective cleanup of nuclear
generated waste. Effective chemical adsorption
of effluent waste using specially designed
activated alumina successfully binds and
disposes of many radioactive laden materials. In
the processing of radioactive chemicals,
enrichment methodology leads to the
contamination of many heavy metals. Included in
these are molybdenum, vanadium, radium, thorium
and uranium. Cleaning up this radioactive waste
has become an environmental nightmare.
Indeed, the greatest use of
stimulus money to jump start environmental
cleanup and create new jobs has been the
issuance of stimulus funds through the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act by the Department
of Energy. Included in the first tranche of $ 6
billion USD contracts have been awarded for $775
million to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, $1.6
billion to Hanford Operations in Richland,
Washington, $ 1.6 billion for Savannah River,
South Carolina, and $468 for Idaho National
Laboratory. Some of this cleanup stems from
nuclear projects which go back to World War II
military needs. It is anticipated that it will
take until 2040 to complete the uranium cleanup
at our national facilities at a cost of $ 40
billion.
The projects are being
managed by the Department of Energy Office of
Environmental Management, which is responsible
for the risk reduction and cleanup of the
environmental impact from the nuclear weapons
program.
The Department of Energy
Office of Oversight has identified improper
disposal of hazardous and radioactive materials
on and off site and the release of contaminated
water into streams and drainage ditches.
Radioactive waste from uranium enrichment plants
are governed by two federal environmental
statutes-the Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability Act of
1980, as amended, and the Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act of 1976, as amended. These
statutes provide broad federal authority to
respond directly to releases or threatened
releases of hazardous substances that may
endanger public health or the environment and to
regulate the safe management and disposal of
hazardous and other solid wastes.
The cleanup of uranium
enrichment sites includes the following sites:
-
Groundwater – billions
of gallons of groundwater are contaminated
with radioactive and hazardous materials
-
Surface water – a
principal source of this contamination is
rain runoff from the thousands of tons of
contaminated scrap metal located at each of
the enrichment sites
-
Surface soils – both on
and off site soils and sediments are
contaminated by water runoff, spills and
buried waste
-
Legacy waste
-
DOE material storage
areas
-
Burial grounds –
containing barrels of chemicals with low
levels of radioactivity and hazardous
chemicals
Removal of radioactive
containing heavy metals at uranium enrichment
sites may be achieved through the usage of
activated alumina. Spherules of activated
alumina with defined pore sizes adsorb heavy
metals from effluent discharge and provide the
vehicle for binding to these radioactive
materials. Clean up of this radioactive effluent
is a final polishing step in the process of
decontamination in order to allow the
environment to once again become “safe”.