Environmental concerns radioactive waste

Radioactive waste management, 17 547-551 25 850-862 environmental concerns related to,... 

ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY. That aspect of chemistry concerned with air and water pollution, pesticides, and chemical and radioactive waste disposal. A random selection of specific areas of research includes. (l)Lead and other toxic chemicals in the air. 

In a deregulated market environment, nuclear power is not yet cost competitive with coal and natural gas. There are also concerns about safety, environmental health and terrorism. Nuclear power also has not resolved all problems in long-term management of radioactive wastes and needs to be shown as a safe and economical source of hydrogen before attracting the investment capital to build 100 new plants. 

Another potential source of energy is nuclear fission, but because of environmental concerns about the radioactive wastes from fission processes, the future of the nuclear... 

Technetium is one such constituent of radioactive waste where the need for a chemical means of detection exists, but a sensor does not. Technetium is not found in appreciable quantities in nature however, the isotope c is a byproduct of the thermal nuclear fission of U, U, and Pu at 6.1%, 4.8%, and 5.9% yields, respectively (7), and significant quantities of c exist at many DOE sites. Tc exhibits rather weak P decay (Ebuk = 0.292 keV), but it is of particular concern for two reasons its long half life (2.13 x 10 y) and the high solubility of its most common form in aqueous environmental media, pertechnetate (TcO/) (2). Pertechnetate does not readily adsorb to most minerals, and therefore in aqueous form and under suitable conditions, it may rapidly present itself to subsurface waters (3,4). 

In 1992 the news that the former Soviet Union had, for over three decades, dumped high level radioactive wastes in the shallow waters of the Kara Sea caused widespread concern, especially in countries with Arctic coastlines. The IAEA responded by launching an international study, the International Arctic Seas Assessment Project (lASAP), in order to assess the potential health and environmental implications of the dumping and to examine the feasibility of remedial actions related to the dumped wastes. 

From a technical and economic viewpoint, COCONUT is still, in 1984, the only viable medium term strategy for most industrial nations. However, there are two other factors which have arisen to complicate the issue. One is public concern over the safety of nuclear power and the disposal of radioactive waste. The other is similar public concern over acid rain and the so-called "greenhouse effect caused by the build-up of CO2 in the stratosphere both of these undesirable effects have been ascribed to the burning of fossil fuels. These concerns are the subject of extensive public debate and professional evaluation at present and it is not profitable to speculate on the outcome[6]. Clearly, conservation alone is an inadequate strategy and the renewables will be continuously monitored and reassessed in the light of additional financial burdens which may fall on nuclear power and coal-burning to produce technical solutions which satisfy the public as regards safety and environmental issues. 

Yan, S., Subramanian, S. B., Tyagi, R. D., Surampalli, R. Y, Zhang, T. C. (2010). Emerging contaminants of environmental concern Source, transport, fate, and treatment. Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management, 74(1), 2-20. 

Facilities should be provided for the safe storage of the radioactive waste that arises at the plant, with account taken of its form (solid, liquid, gas or a mixture), its radionuclide content and its nature in terms of the extent to which it has been processed. The safe storage of waste will depend in part on the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the facility concerned. The design features of facilities should be such that the radioactive waste can be received, handled, stored and retrieved without causing undue occupational or public exposure or environmental effects. Further recommendations on this subject are provided in Ref. [6]. 

Actinides have significant abundance in irradiated nuclear fuel, long radioactive half-lives, and high radiological and chemical toxicities, and they raise concerns with criticality and nuclear proliferation. Accordingly, actinide analyses are important in process solutions, nuclear wastes, and environmental samples. 

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