July 2008
Not Oak Ridge, mayor says
Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan said today the Atomic City is not pursuing or studying the possibilities of becoming a storage site for spent nuclear fuel.
"We're not involved. I'm not personally involved, and nobody within the administration is involved," Beehan said after double-checking with other folks to make sure there was nothing going on behind the scenes.
Some folks may remember years ago when Oak Ridge was at the center of a controversial storage plan known as Monitored Retrievable Storage. Faced with overwhelming public and political opposition -- including a thumbs down from U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn. (now chairman of the House Science Committee) -- the proposed MRS plan wilted away, not to be revived.
Volunteers for spent nuclear fuel?
Platts reports there are two small rural communities exploring further the possibility of becoming interim hosts for spent fuel from nuclear reactors. There are financial incentives under legislation introduced earlier this summer by Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico. Meanwhile, a watchdog group, Beyond Nuclear, is demanding that the Nuclear Energy Institute -- reportedly involved in the search process -- reveal the communities involved.
"NEI and the two mayors should tell their communities and the neighboring towns they are being targeted for radioactive waste traffic," Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter said in a press statement.
U Canada . . .
The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant is wrapping up its four-year commitment to supply uranium for Canada's research reactors. The uranium, according to the original contract information released in 2004, has an enrichment of 19.75 percent -- just below the strategic level of potential use in nuclear bombs.
Y-12 spokesman spokesman Bill Wilburn said the uranium is for "exclusive use in reactor fuel that is to be used in the production of medical isotopes." So far, the Oak Ridge plant has supplied 1,136 kilograms to Atomic Energy Canada Limited out of the total commitment of 1,500 kilograms, he said.
Scandal of the day: Bellydancing at ORNL
photo/ORNL
Sometimes being a newspaper reporter is like being a court of last resort. Long lingering complaints end up here, including one about bellydancing at the national lab. An anonymous employee complaint had apparently circulated at ORNL for months, objecting to bellydancing demos at the lab's annual International Fair and at a health & fitness fair.
The cost of carbon
As usual, John Fleck has interesting stuff on his blog. Check it out.
North Korea? Not yet
ORNL has a skilled team of nuclear and rad experts who've traveled the world on non-proliferation missions, helping get stashes of weapons-grade uranium out of harm's way and performing other jobs that, presumably, make the world a safer place.
What about North Korea? "We are currently not involved in the North Korea activities," Larry Satkowiak, ORNL's nonproliferation chief, said by e-mail. "That may change if the scope changes, but that is dependent upon ongoing intergovernmental, multi-party negotiations."
500 posts . . . and then some
I recently passed the 500-post milestone on this blog, which came to life last November and -- from my perspective, at least -- has been a success. "Atomic City Underground" has given me a place to put lots of information that might not otherwise find its way onto a publicly accessible forum. There have been short posts, breaking news items, fly-by observations, links to reports and other websites, and some rather lengthy background notes on news of the day. The blog has also been a handy site to publish photographs from the Oak Ridge facilities, etc.
I'm still building the audience here, but thanks much to all those who have visited regularly and/or contributed. I'm pleased. I hope you are, too.
DOE's Kelly joins SES
Larry Kelly of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge office has been appointed to the federal Senior Executive Service.
Kelly is an assistant manager in DOE's field office in charge of environment, safety and health programs. The native of Mississippi holds degrees from the University of Mississippi (where he was the first African American to get a degree in chemical engineering) and the University of Tennessee. He joined the Oak Ridge office in 1990. Before that, he worked for TVA from 1981 to 1990 in the nuclear power programs.
A shot in the arm for ITER
A report released by the National Academies of Science and Engineering validates the U.S. work done to date on ITER and strongly supports participation on the international fusion project. Here's the story. Here's a link to the full report.
Emergency over at ORNL; investigation begins
Here's the latest story on today's operational emergency at the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at ORNL.
Keeping the lid on public documents
At the risk of beating this dead horse, there's once again a significant delay in the release of weekly operations reports from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. I've complained about this before, of course, and that obviously has had little effect on things (at least not a positive effect).
More on Holifield situation
Michael Koentop of DOE's Oak Ridge office said authorities have determined that the second floor of Building 6000 (Holifield) at ORNL is free of radioactive contamination, and they're working a plan so they employees there can retrieve their personal belongings before heading home for the day.
The operational emergency is still in effect, but Koentop said that's not an indication of a worsening situation. He said the process just takes time.
Update on Holifield
Dept. of Energy photo
DOE spokesman John Shewairy said emergency personnnel will re-enter the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility this afternoon to check readings but will not go into actual lab where the radioactivity was detected for two or three days. The rad element detected at above-background levels was cesium-138, Shewairy said.
The center of attention is the Radioactive Ion Beam High-Voltage Platform, where an experiment was being conducted this morning, Shewairy said. "They were guiding an ion beam at the target. Nothing out of the ordinary," he said.
Evacuation at ORNL's Holifield facility
About 30 people were evacuated this a.m. because of elevated radiation readings at the physics research site in Oak Ridge. Here's the story link.
The really good stuff is on the left
photo/Clay Owen
Concrete is concrete, right? Oh, no, no, no.
When constructing the Spallation Neutron Source, the Oak Ridge folks imported some really special aggregate materials from Brazil to make the concrete walls super protective in high-rad areas of the Target Building. And it wasn't cheap, either.
Nominal fireworks at SLAC
Changing the name of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center? What next? Holifield National Laboratory at Oak Ridge? Here's a link to Lisa Krieger's story in the Mercury News.
The Van Dusen family
I talked to David Van Dusen the other day about his problems with the compensation program for sick nuclear workers and then he followed up with a detailed e-mail about his mother, Helen Sue Van Dusen, who worked at Y-12 from 1956 to '58 and then again from 1962-64.
"This is a victim that was summarily denied compensation based solely on the fact that she worked in an area deemed unlikely to cause harm," he wrote.
National Academies to issue ITER report
The report, "A Review of the DOE Plan for U.S. Fusion Community Participation in the ITER Program," is due for release early next week. The National Research Council report is to evaluate the U.S. ITER program, based out of Oak Ridge, and make recommendations on how DOE can "further its development."
A fuss over Berkeley's Bevatron
How to get rid of an old particle accelerator? Not so easy in Berkeley. Will this be the SNS in 50 years?
Reducing U.S. stocks of bomb-making materials
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced today that following a shipment from Y-12 in Oak Ridge it had surpassed this year's goal for eliminating surplus stocks of special nuclear materials -- highly enriched uranium or plutonium -- from its facilities. The NNSA said a total of 12 metric tons will "no longer be able to be used in a nuclear weapon."
The federal agency didn't say how much of the 12 tons was highly enriched uranium and how much of it was plutonium, but Y-12 spokesman Steven Wyatt said most of the dispositioned HEU came from Y-12 (known, of course, as the nation's main repository for bomb-grade uranium). The HEU is downblended to low enrichments for use as reactor fuel.
Continue reading "Reducing U.S. stocks of bomb-making materials"
Research gizmo at Oak Ridge reactor
photo/UT-Battelle
Jae-Hie Cho, a postdoctoral researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, loads a thin-film sample for study at the High Flux Isotope Reactor. He is using a research instrument known as a neutron reflectometer, which is used to study the near-surface structure of materials.
Ed Oliver helped build ORNL computing program
Oliver died earlier this week in Washington, D.C., where he worked for DOE after leaving ORNL several years ago.
He played an important role in making ORNL a leading center for high-performance computing and also helping people understand the importance of computing, scientifically and generally. In that later regard, he was pretty accessible to reporters trying to understand the Internet and the life-changing events spawned by computing.
In a 1994 story in the News Sentinel, Oliver said, "It's not just for computer wonks anymore, and it doesn't take long to figure out that it should be made accessible, for example, to students everywhere. And if that happens, it's going to be quite a challenge figuring out how best to take advantage."
Continue reading "Ed Oliver helped build ORNL computing program"
Senator to sponsor bill to reform sick worker program
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo, plans to introduce legislation, according to story in Rocky Mountain News.
From Complex 21 to Transformation 2030 -- What next?
The future of the nuclear weapons complex is too big an issue to tackle as we approach an administration change in Washington. The whole transformation exercise is set up for failure, and the only thing certain is that it'll be revisited and probably redone by the Next President's helpers. Today's column.
Y-12's Mr. Clean wins R&D Award
A super-duper cleaning cloth developed at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant is one of the year's top inventions, according to R&D Magazine.
Ron Simandl, a research chemist who developed the tack cloth for removing particulates of hazardous materials such as beryllium, was recognized with an R&D 100 Award. The magazine annually recognizes the year's top inventions and scientific and technological innovations.
The cloth is expected to have broad applications for clean rooms and other work environments. It reportedly wipes away virtually all particles from a surface without leaving behind any sticky residues.
Jimmy Perritt and his family
Vickie Burke's father -- Jimmy W. Perritt, a former barrier operator at K-25 and painter at K-25 and Y-12 -- died of cancer in late February, but she and her sisters are not going to stop fighting for compensation until they get what they believe is due from the government.
"It's the principle. We promised my father before he died that they would pay everything owed to him," Burke said.
Wamp invites applicants for service academies
Congressman Zach Wamp said now is the time to contact his office if interested in being nomimated for one of the U.S. service academies. Applications from high school students are due Oct. 31 to his Oak Ridge office. Here's the link for applications and instructions. Also, students or parents may contact Gina McMahan in Wamp's Oak Ridge office at 865-576-1976 or 800-883-2369.
Big demand for Y-12 jobs
Y-12 has revived its apprenticeship program to train future crafts workers, and more than 2,600 applied to be in the first class (even though only 50 will be accepted). Here's my column in the Knoxville Business Journal.
New Corporate Fellows at ORNL
Congrats to Richard Bass, Stuart Daw and Amit Goyal on being announced as Corporate Fellows, recognizing their career accomplishments in research. The elite group of scientists and engineers at ORNL now has 28 members.
Update on Italian waste
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a court ruling on EnergySolutions' authority to import Italian waste for treatment and disposal could be quite a ways off.
'Deadly Denial'
Here's the link to the first part of the new series by reporter Laura Frank and staff at the Rocky Mountain News detailing problems in the sick nuclear worker compensation program.
Y-12's supply of heavy water running out
IG report warns that shrinking supply needs to be an immediate priority or it will affect U.S. work on nuclear weapons. Story is on Knoxnews.com. Here is the link to the Inspector General's audit report.
How much, $$$, how much?
Darrel Kohlhorst, the general manager at Y-12, made references to a number of new facilities at the Oak Ridge plant in his testimony before Congress. A couple of new ones have already been built, another is nearing completion (Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility) and others are still in the early design (Uranium Processing Facility) or proposal stages.
Two that haven't gotten much attention (at least publicly) are the Complex Command Center, which would be Y-12's new emergency-response facility and incorporate a fire station and other facilities, and the Consolidated Manufacturing Center. A fed spokesman was a little cagey about what will go on at the CMC, but he said it generally would house the manufacturing work that doesn't include highly enriched uranium.
Kohlhorst states case for Y-12
The Y-12 manager today defended the Oak Ridge plant's role in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and stated his case for modernization of facilities.
Darrel Kohlhorst, the president and general manager of B&W Technical Services, the managing contractor at the Y-12 National Security Complex, testified this morning before the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces. He was among several top officials from design labs and production facilities to discuss transformation of the weapons complex.
Kohlhorst said B&W supports the preferred plan laid out earlier this year by National Nuclear Security Administration, which identified Y-12 as the "Uranium Center of Excellence" and recommended keeping Y-12's traditional missions in manufacturing and dismantling warhead parts.
Uncleared visitors hauled out of Y-12
Yep, the uncleared foreign nationals (I guess Canada geese would qualify as that) were rounded up recently at the nuclear weapons plant and relocated to wildlife refuges in Meigs and Hancock Counties, according to folks at Y-12. All told, about 28 geese were removed from the high-security Oak Ridge site, mostly around the New Hope Center and Lake Reality.
Waste cloud over K-1200
This is a photograph of the vapor release that created an operational emergency Monday at the East Tennessee Technology Park. It was described at the time as an "orangey-yellow puff" that came from a hazardous waste-treatment operation at M&EC, an Oak Ridge company owned by Perma-Fix Environmental.
Sick worker advocates want an audit of the auditors
The Alliance for Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups is asking congressional panels to investigate issues that reportedly skewed an investigation by the Dept. of Labor's Inspector General into the claims process for sick nuclear workers and undid a scheduled interview with a key informant (Anne Block). Here's a copy of letter sent today by ANWAG.
Continue reading "Sick worker advocates want an audit of the auditors"
Busy, busy summer at ORNL reactor
photo/Michael Patrick
The High Flux Isotope Reactor was restarted this a.m. following an outage for maintenance and refueling, and it achieved full power (85 megawatts) sometime around noon.
Ron Crone, the division director, said the research programs at HFIR are going gang-busters, with scientific users flocking to Oak Ridge to perform neutron-scattering experiments. The goal for the entire year was to have 225 users at the reactor, and by the end of the last fuel cycle that number had already reached 192, he said.
Good job, but . . .
Today's column is about a Y-12 safety review conducted earlier this year by half a dozen staffers of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
When the sirens sound in Oak Ridge
Here's the link to DOE's publication, "What to Do if an Emergency Occurs on the Oak Ridge Reservation." Hard copies of the 48-page publication are available at the DOE Information Center, 475 Oak Ridge Turnpike
A VW-ORNL partnership?
Now that Volkswagen is parking its billion-dollar plant in Chattanooga, there may be research assistance forthcoming at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL spokesman Billy Stair said some lab officials "met with VW executives on a site visit to promote possible collaborations with ORNL."
From Atomic City to Nuclear Underworld
TRU waste containers on display Monday (photo/Wade Payne)
Just off the top, you'd think the best route from Oak Ridge to New Mexico would be a straight shot on Interstate 40, which is the principal east-west corridor. But the route for transporting transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Piot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., will actually go south to Chattanooga and then Birmingham, hooking up there with I-20 to take the waste west.
HFIR returns to action tomorrow
Kelly Beierschmitt, director of nuclear operations at ORNL, confirmed plans to restart the High Flux Isotope Reactor in the a.m. "Systems are all go at this point," he said.
The end of America as we knew it
Belgian Budweiser? Say it ain't so, Moe.
The vultures have arrived at ORNL
This time literally. These vulture babies were photographed July 8 by Jason Richards, a Pellissippi State intern in the lab's photo department. They were found in a storage shed not far from ORNL's 4500-South research complex.
I'm sure there's some irony here. I'm equally sure some lab employees will tell me about it.
UT grad student at Lindau
James Alsup of the University of Tennessee was one of 14 graduate research students from ORAU member universities who took part in the 58th annual Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates and Students (in Lindau, Germany from June 29 to July 4). Nobel Laureates in chemistry, physics or medicine/physiology meet with about 500 grad students and young researchers from around the globe. It's a pretty inspiring deal, by all accounts.
'Orangey-yellow' puff goes up stack at M&EC
An operational emergency was declared this morning at the East Tennessee Technology Park after there was a release at the Materials and Energy Corp waste processing facility. The thermal desorber used to process contaminated soil from DOE's Hanford (Wash.) Site was overpressurized, apparently because of some mechanical issue, and released the vapor into ventilation system.
The emergency status was lifted around noon, but there's bound to be a number of postscripts to look at this situation.
Larry Craig's Tour de France
The Idaho senator takes a look a French nuclear facilities. Here's a link to his column.
Healthier than the general population?
A NIOSH study of chemical lab workers at the government's three Oak Ridge facilities and the Savannah River Plant in S.C. found that overall death rates and death rates from cancer were actually lower than the general population.
Y-12 boss to testify
Speaking of UPF and other hot-button issues in the weapons world, Darrel Kohlhorst is scheduled as a witness July 17 before the House Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee. The hearing will address modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, of which Y-12 is a part. Kohlhorst is president and general manager of B&W Y-12, the contractor at the Oak Ridge warhead facility.
Move UPF from Y-12?
The siting of the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 continues to be an issue, as it was during the drafting of planning documents for "transformation" of the nuclear weapons complex.
Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor, which tracks the appropriations process and just about everything else, reports that UPF is taking a big funding hit in the Senate Energy & Water appropriations bill because of siting issue.
Friends of ORNL
Tilden Myers, who heads NOAA's operations in Oak Ridge, wil be the speaker July 16 at the monthly meeting of Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Myers, who holds a Ph.D. in micrometeorology from Purdue University, is director of NOAA's Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division in Oak Ridge.
Isotope links fixed . . .
In an earlier blog item on californium-252 and the emerging isotopes crisis, a couple of the links to a DOE letter and statement by Frontier Technologies didn't work. I believe I now have that corrected.
RRW dead and gone?
Well, I'm not so sure of that, but the latest Senate smackdown on the Reliable Replacement Warhead has some folks declaring the end.
Below is the press release being distributed from the Friends Committee on National Legislation, "a nonpartisan Quaker lobby in the public interest."
'Hey, take a look at this . . . '
photo Amy Viars/ORAU
About 50 of the state's top high school students (juniors and seniors) visited ORNL, Y-12 and Tech 2020 in Oak Ridge during the final week of their summer stint in the Governor's School for Emerging Technologies at Tennessee Tech University. In the above photograph, the students are looking at a microwave experiment.
Lessons learned at HFIR (etc.)
The Oak Ridge Business Safety Partnership will have its quarterly safety forum on July 30. It will be held 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the American Museum of Science & Energy, Tulane Avenue. The topic will be lessons learned from a full-scale emergency exercise conducted recently at ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor.
More? You want more?
ORNL has a rather grand reputation when it comes to small-biz contracting (other than the little episode with AIMSI a couple of years ago), but a new IG report said the lab should be outsourcing even more of its work to small businesses. The story's over at Knoxnews.com.
Here, there and everywhere
A quick look at the experimental users list at the High Flux Isotope Reactor confirms that researchers indeed come to Oak Ridge from around the nation and the globe. In addition to folks from ORNL and UT, the principal investigators are affiliated with Iowa State University, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Metalsa Roanoke (Va.), Kansas State University, University of California-Berkeley, John Deere, Ochanomizu University (Japan), Argonne National Laboratory (Ill.), University of Toledo, Rutgers University, Hokkaido University (Japan), and University of Modena e Reggio Emilia (Italy).
IAEA, G8 and nuke development
Here's the IAEA perspective on what happened at the G8 in regards to peaceful nuclear development.
Paranoia at the science labs?
There have been a number of reports, discussions and general hand-wringing over what to do at the weapons labs and how to fund them properly in this time of shrinking arsenals and tight money pots. John Fleck has an interesting post on his blog that spawned further comments there and elsewhere.
Mid-year money for Spallation Neutron Source
The Dept. of Energy confirmed last week that about $2 milliion of the Office of Science's supplemental appropriation would go to the SNS. According to ORNL's neutron boss, Ian Anderson (at right), that money "will be used to ensure that we don't have to curtail operations due to the rising utility costs within a flat-funding scenario. This just covers more or less our projected increased utility costs."
Continue reading "Mid-year money for Spallation Neutron Source"
Clarification on OSTI worker claims
Dolline Hatchett of the Labor Department said today that federal workers at the Office of Scientific and Technical Information in Oak Ridge are eligible only to file under Part B of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. Federal employees cannot file under Part E, she said.
Unhappy time in the isotopes biz
"We were sandbagged," Treva Janzow of Frontier Technologies said of a June 25 meeting between Dept. of Energy officials and users/suppliers of californium-252.
The meeting was a follow-up to a letter that DOE sent in late May to californium buyers, basically saying the end is near. ". . . When the current inventory is exhausted in early 2009, DOE will no longer be able to supply Cf-252," said the letter from Dennis Miotla, DOE's deputy asst. secretary for nuclear power deployment.
Environmental board's agenda
Here is the meeting agenda for the July 9 meeting of the Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board, a citizens panel that advises the Dept. of Energy on environmental issues.
The meetings are held at the DOE Information Center at 475 Oak Ridge Turnpike and are open to the public.
Oak Ridge building added to sick worker claims list
A new ruling includes the Office of Scientific and Technical Information building in Oak Ridge on the list of "covered" facilities for the sick nuclear workers compensation program. That, of course, doesn't mean that everyone who worked there and got sick can collect from the federal fund, but it does at least make them eligible to file claims.
Here are links to today's story and a copy of the decision.
Continue reading "Oak Ridge building added to sick worker claims list"
Beware the Oak Ridge firepower
photo Lynn Freeny/DOE
This is pic of one of the Dillon Aero Gatling Guns deployed at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge. Wackenhut, the security contractor, declined to identify the Security Police Officer in the photo. Here's a link to a video I did of the gun (reportedly capable of 3,000 rounds a minute of 7.62 mm ammo) during a media demo last year at the Oak Ridge Training Faclity.
ORAU workers get fitness leadership awards
Sally Gadola and Mikki Prater of Oak Ridge Associated Universities were among 27 people who received the annual Community Leadership Award from the President's Council on Fitness and Sports. Gadola is head of ORAU's Occupational Health Program. Prater is a projects manager.
For more information, click here.
Speaking of uranium . . .
photo/B&W Technical Services
This is a "button" of bomb-grade uranium (about 90 percent U-235), and it's worth considerably more than $60 a pound. The Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge hosts most of the nation's stockpile of highly enriched U.
Price of uranium: Up, up and away?
After a big earlier run-up on uranium prices and then decline, Platts reports that uranium is approaching $60 a pound.
Sustenance for ITER
A Dept. of Energy spokesman confirmed today that $15.5 million of the supplemental appropriations for the Office of Science will support the U.S. ITER office (based in Oak Ridge).
The money, of course, will help sustain activities for ITER after the U.S. effort got mangled in the fiscal 2008 budget, raising doubts about the continued participation in the international fusion project. I've written on this topic on multiple occasions, including a late-April post based on a talk with U.S. project chief Ned Sauthoff.
David Michaels on beryllium: 'Science or Public Relations?'
Here's the link to his piece on beryllium, on the blog, The Pump Handle.
HFIR restart on July 16
The High Flux Isotope Reactor finished its regular fuel cycle on Monday (after a weekend outage due to an electrical problem) and is now down for refueling and maintenance. The plan is to restart the research reactor on July 16 for the 416th fuel cycle in its history (dating back to the 1960s).
More awards for Oak Ridge lab
ORNL scores again with half a dozen R&D 100 Awards. Here's the story. More information on the winners should be posted soon at ORNL website.
Sen. Alexander to fight nuke-waste imports
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander joins Congressman Bart Gordon in opposition to imports of nuclear waste. He plans to introduce a bill, similar to Gordon's in the House, that would tie the hands of NRC and scuttle EnergySolutions' application for an import license. Here's the story.
Frank Munger will be covering the Dept. of Energy's Oak Ridge facilities and other things nuclear. The blog will include random thoughts and opinions, behind-the-scenes tidbits, and expanded coverage and analysis of Oak Ridge news. 