Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Chalk River reactor has been leaking for 50 years, tribunal hears

OTTAWA — The aging NRU research reactor at Chalk River has been leaking low-level radioactive water into the Ottawa River for about 50 years, a federal licensing tribunal has heard.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), owner-operator of the 53-year-old reactor, has been unable to halt tritium-laced water seeping from the reactor’s control rod bays and is instead diluting the concentration of tritium with fresh water before it somehow leaks into the nearby Ottawa River, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) tribunal was told.

The five-member CNSC panel is deliberating on an AECL application to renew the operating licence of the NRU and surrounding Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) to 2016. AECL officials have assured the panel that NRU can run for at least another five years without compromising safety. One of its chief missions is producing medical isotopes. The current operating licence expires Oct. 31.

Tritium is a low-energy, radioactive form of hydrogen generated in the heavy-water used to moderate nuclear fission.

The tribunal seemed surprised to learn of the leak and that it has been depositing small amounts of tritium into the Ottawa River since the 1960s.

AECL’s unsuccessful attempts to stop the flow highlight the challenge the newly-restructured Crown corporation faces trying to keep the world’s oldest operating reactor in service. NRU’s containment vessel sprang a heavy-water leak in 2009 that led to a 15-month, $70 million shutdown and a global shortage of medical isotopes. It followed another emergency safety shutdown in 2007 that ended when Parliament legislated the reactor to resume operating.

Under CNSC’s direction, AECL is diluting the concentration of tritium in bays so that lesser amounts migrate into the drinking water of nearby Petawawa, the tribunal heard. Commission staff say tritium concentrations in Petawawa’s drinking water typically measure seven to 10 becquerels (bq), well below the Ontario drinking-water limit of 7,000 bq per litre.

An AECL effort to further minimize the impact by replacing all heavy water in the control rod bays with fresh water is expected to be completed by spring.

“What we’ve determined so far is that there does not seem to be … any (repair) project that would give you high confidence that you would completely stop the leak given the design of the reactor building and the age of the bays,” CNSC staff expert Peter Elder told the panel.

Despite the problem, CNSC staff agreed the reactor is safe to operate and recommended the commission renew CRL’s license — with conditions.

One is that AECL, “move to a formal management system … in line with modern standards … and (to) require AECL to actively address its safety culture issues,” said Elder, head of nuclear cycle and facilities regulation.

Another is that AECL address “fitness-for-service” problems, particularly, “aging of infrastructure and weaknesses in maintenance programs” that have resulted in a number of other radioactive leaks.

The tribunal also heard AECL has yet to fully inspect all the repair welds in the NRU containment vessel as required by the CNSC.

Randy Lesco, AECL’s vice-president of operations and chief nuclear officer, explained another extended shutdown of the reactor in April will be required to properly inspect some of the welds. He did not say how long the reactor would be down, but a similar inspection shutdown last spring lasted 33 days.

The effect on the global supply of medical isotopes is expected to be manageable, in large part because the earlier NRU outages led other producers to increase their capacities and the medical isotope community to become more efficient with supplies.

Ira Goldman, of Lantheus Medical Imaging, told the tribunal the NRU, which once filled 40 per cent to 50 per cent of world demand, now supplies about half of that.

The lone voice of dissent at the licensing hearing this week was that of Ole Hendrickson, of Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County.

The tribunal is expected to rule in the coming days.

Origin
Source: Ottawa Citizen 

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