The Hague: Suicide, User Manual
The Hague: Suicide, User Manual
May 5, 2011
****English version
****Espanol
****Italiano
The Hague Facility
There is a Wikipedia page providing some information about the site at The Hague, described as "a reprocessing center located in the Cotentin region."
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usine_de_retraitement_de_la_Hague
You’ll learn that this facility, the most polluting in the world regarding nuclear discharges, has been operational since 1961—half a century ago (...). It is managed by the private company AREVA.
For decades, The Hague plant has been recovering "waste" from nuclear power plants, both French and foreign, and reprocessing it.
In reality, this reprocessing is entirely focused on chemically extracting the 1% of plutonium produced through nuclear fission in uranium reactors, via fast neutron capture by non-fissile Uranium-238 nuclei. This purified plutonium is then packaged into small containers and shipped to the MELOX plant in Marcoule, in the Gard region. There, it is diluted at a rate of 7% into Uranium-238, forming a new "nuclear fuel" called MOX (Mixed Oxides).
This MELOX chemical process can, in turn, be used in consumer countries to extract plutonium for military purposes. Why create problems like the Iranians do—laboriously enriching uranium ore through centrifugation—when it’s enough to buy MOX and chemically extract explosive-grade plutonium-239?
This MELOX process is considered "proliferating" by Americans.
That is, this technique will eventually allow every country in the world to possess nuclear weapons.
This fuel is currently used in 20 of France’s 58 active reactors. The construction of EPR reactors will further expand its use (they were designed for it).
What has long been ignored is that introducing MOX marks a subtle shift from Uranium-235 fission to plutonium-238 fission.
Everyone is now beginning to understand the extreme danger of this substance, which has a strong tendency to bind in human tissues after inhalation or ingestion of dust. The human body cannot eliminate these particles; their characteristic elimination time from human tissues is 50 years. These particles are 100% carcinogenic.
This is not irradiation, but contamination, undetectable by any measuring instrument. This contamination could occur in the event of a nuclear accident involving the release of fuel assembly debris. This has already happened and continues to happen since the explosion at Fukushima’s Unit 3 reactor, which was fueled with MOX. Plutonium dust has been detected as far away as the United States. This dispersion will affect the entire planet, and some specialists estimate it could cause a million cancers.
To stop this dispersion from Unit 3, it would be necessary to extract its fuel rods and at least submerge them in a specially designed pool. However, access to these elements remains impossible, and there is no foreseeable time—near or distant—when such access might become possible.
It remains essential to continue cooling the fuel elements of this "shut down" reactor, whose core is largely melted and still emits several tens of megawatts of thermal energy. A closed-loop water circulation system coupled with a heat exchanger could evacuate this heat. However, the reactor’s severe deterioration makes this impossible. The Japanese are therefore forced to use an open-loop cooling method—injecting or spraying fresh water. This water, circulating through the damaged core, picks up debris from fuel elements that escaped their zirconium tubes, which have melted.
This water is thus loaded with plutonium particles and a wide range of highly toxic radionuclides. Part of it turns into vapor, escaping into the atmosphere. The remainder flows through numerous fissures—impossible to locate or seal due to the earthquake—into underground tunnels beneath the reactor. TEPCO then pumps this water, which has so far been stored in tanks. Once these tanks were completely full, TEPCO simply discharged the highly radioactive water into the nearby ocean, offering apologies to local residents and fishermen.
This situation will continue until a closed-loop cooling system can be implemented. It is unclear how this could be achieved, given that the reactors are severely damaged and remain inaccessible due to intense radiation levels nearby.
Two companies are directly responsible for this deadly dispersion:
- The Japanese company TEPCO
- The French company AREVA, which manufactures and markets this new plutonium-based fuel at its MELOX plant.
The apologies from TEPCO officials. When will AREVA’s leaders offer theirs?
But there is much worse.
Over five decades of operation, this facility at The Hague—far from being a "reprocessing center," a kind of high-tech landfill—has functioned, after packaging at Marcoule’s MELOX plant, as a plutonium extraction and sales hub. At The Hague, AREVA has accumulated a stockpile beyond imagination, whose scale is not specified on the Wikipedia page.
Sixty tonnes of plutonium
Plutonium-containing elements are currently stored in four pools located at The Hague, housed in buildings whose roofs are not armored but made of thin sheet metal (...)
The Devil’s Kitchen
Plutonium is denser than lead (19 kilograms per liter). Do the math: these 60 tonnes of plutonium correspond to 3.15 cubic meters—equivalent to a cube measuring 1.46 meters on each side.
The Hague facility presents itself as a reprocessing center, recovering the world’s most dangerous and toxic material. Given what is currently happening at Fukushima, a logical response would be to stop producing MOX fuel, close the MELOX plant in Marcoule, and cease collecting this "demon’s ash" at The Hague.
The Hague is not a treatment center comparable to a landfill, a "nuclear trash can."
It is a vault.
I propose a small exercise, level certificate of studies:
An industrialist has a stock of 60 tonnes of plutonium. A barrel of oil holds 160 liters.
Oil Barrel
One gram of plutonium releases as much energy as one ton of oil. Oil has an average density of 0.88 kilograms per liter. Its average market price hovers around $100, or 73 euros. Calculate the equivalent number of oil barrels corresponding to a cube of plutonium measuring 1.46 meters on each side. Calculate the euro value of the current plutonium stock stored at The Hague.
60 tonnes = 60,000 kilograms = 60,000,000 grams = 60 billion grams of oil equivalent.
Divide by 140 kilograms—the weight of a barrel. I get:
428 million barrels.
At 73 euros per barrel, that’s:
31.2 billion euros
The Hague plant has the capacity to process 1,700 tonnes of "spent fuel" annually. It currently operates at around 1,000 tonnes per year. Let’s keep this figure. In this mass, 1% plutonium can be recovered—10 tonnes annually.
Enough to fuel 1,428 atomic bombs.
If we don’t deduct the cost of reprocessing (chemical), this annual output represents a revenue of:
5.2 billion euros per year
Received from a reader, early May 2011:
Hello, In the 1980s I repaired an old sailboat based in Cherbourg. Many employees of COGEMA (now AREVA) frequented the port, and sometimes after a night of Calvados, their tongues would loosen a bit.
A major accident spared Europe—purely by chance.
A fire destroyed the main transformer at The Hague. Unfortunately (!!!), the emergency power units located in the same room shared the transformer’s fate. There was no way left to cool the pools.
By an extraordinary stroke of luck, equipment matching the need was located in Caen—probably not yet loaded onto a cargo ship for export.
Fortune favored us: it wasn’t winter with thawing or flooded roads. The special convoy arrived just in time. The backup generator was too large to pass through rail tunnels; its size was immense. Its fuel consumption was around 1,000 liters of diesel per hour.
That’s why I place unlimited trust in the declarations of France’s mining corps and the ministers’ clowns about the seriousness of nuclear safety in France.
Best regards, Paul-Louis
****The Hague: Dangerous Transport, Contaminated Wagons
Political and media opacity surrounding nuclear energy
http://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/societe/article/nucleaire-la-cible-terroriste-93801
| May 13, 2011: | On Agoravox, how nuclear power plants constitute real swords of Damocles |
|---|
