{"id":7350,"date":"2013-02-17T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-02-17T17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=7350"},"modified":"2013-02-15T12:21:51","modified_gmt":"2013-02-15T17:21:51","slug":"weapons-grade-uranium-convoy-nimby-on-wheels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/02\/17\/weapons-grade-uranium-convoy-nimby-on-wheels\/","title":{"rendered":"Uranium convoy heading your way?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Chalk River Laboratories, run by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, near Chalk River, Ontario. Photo: Padraic Ryan<\/a>, CC some rights reserved<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

When it comes to weapons-grade uranium, there’s general agreement such material should be kept out of the wrong hands.<\/p>\n

How to make sure that happens is another story entirely – including frequent debate about transportation and storage concerns – your basic NIMBY conflicts, writ large.<\/p>\n

So, consider this a heads-up: sometime soon an armed convoy of trucks carrying\u00a0depleted\u00a0uranium may be trundling down roads between a nuclear facility in Chalk River Ontario and a reprocessing site in South Carolina<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For obvious reasons, specifics about transporting highly-enriched uranium (HEU)\u00a0are not being publicized. As the crow flies, though, such a journey could easily involve cutting across New York State.<\/p>\n

Here’s the story as reported in the Ottawa CItizen this week by\u00a0Ian MacLeod<\/a>:<\/p>\n

…a 2011 federal government memo says the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) considers it unnecessary to hold public sessions that would allow citizens to ask questions and comment on the HEU repatriations to the U.S. The CNSC declined to comment on the memo Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Documents from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission say an \u201cexpedited\u201d approval is being sought for transport of the liquid HEU. It is believed to be the first time such a highly radioactive solution has been transported by road in North America and, according to U.S. commission documents, could happen as early as August.<\/p>\n

Other U.S. commission documents show March 1 is the U.S. target date for approving transport of the spent fuel rods to the Savannah River Site.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Filing for the\u00a0National Post Ian MacLeod also reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis does seem to be an unprecedented, cross-border shipment of liquid high-level waste and, for that reason alone, it needs the highest order of environmental review on both sides of the border,\u201d says Tom Clements, a South Carolina campaign co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth and former executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(More technical information regarding this complex subject is discussed in both articles.)<\/p>\n

The National Research Universal (NRU) reactor at Chalk River\u00a0is operated by the\u00a0Atomic Energy of Canada Limited<\/a> (AECL). According to the AECL, the facility does not generate electricity:<\/p>\n

The NRU reactor was built for three purposes: to be a supplier of industrial and medical radioisotopes used for the diagnosis and treatment of life-threatening diseases; to be a major Canadian facility for neutron physics research; and to provide engineering research and development support for CANDU\u00ae power reactors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The National Research Universal\u00a0(NRU)\u00a0reactor<\/a> in Chalk River crops up in the news<\/a> now and again, most recently when a shut down\u00a0imperiled\u00a0normal supplies of medical isotopes.<\/p>\n

But getting back to the potential convoy in question, this\u00a0strikes me as a tough call. Two f<\/span><\/span>riendly nations are co-operating in pursuit of a mutually-desired goal: safe handling and disposal of dangerous material. No one has invented teleportation yet, so the\u00a0<\/span>conveyance\u00a0choices consist of plane, barge, truck or rail. Each has potential problems.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How should any public right to know be weighed next conflicting needs of secrecy and\u00a0<\/span><\/span>security?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to weapons-grade uranium, there’s general agreement such material should be kept out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[880,10510,7133,884,10512,10509,10511],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7365,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7350\/revisions\/7365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}