U.S. company hopes to import up to 500 tons of Mexican radioactive waste

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CBS/Associated Press

May 2, 2012 6:11 PM
U.S. company hopes to import up to 500 tons of Mexican radioactive

(CBS/AP) YAKIMA, Wash. — A waste management company has applied to the federal government for a license to import up to 500 tons of radioactive waste from Mexico to south-central Washington, where the waste will be incinerated and the resulting ash returned to Mexico.

This isn't the first application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to import foreign radioactive waste, but it's among several recent proposals that have generated little opposition because the waste won't be permanently stored in the U.S.

In 2009, a proposal to import thousands of tons of radioactive waste from Italy, treat it and ultimately store the remnants in Utah was abandoned following public outcry.

The latest application was filed April 3 by Atlanta-based Perma-Fix Environmental Solutions Inc. A public comment period on the application ends Thursday.


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57426553/u.s-company-hopes-to-import-up-to-500-tons-of-mexican-radioactive-waste/

[PoliticAverse]

1. I wonder where it will end up once it is back in Mexico. n/t

[truthisfreedom]

2. Incinerated? Hold the phone here... doesn't that mean radioactive shit is going to go up the smoke

stack?

[PSPS]

3. Why, yes. Yes it does.

But that's the state of our country these days. We export millions of tons of coal to China, and import radioactive waste.

What a country!

[freshwest]

4. From 'Send us your poor, huddled masses yearning to be free...'

To send us all your toxic waste, 'this place is going out in a firesale' and we need the money!

OTOH, I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

[wordpix]

9. +1

[SadPanda]

5. Actually, the emissions are much lower than the EPA's safety guidelines on Nm emisions...`

It's actually a really cool process if you consider that 20 years ago we just stuck this stuff in barrels and buried it. It's hard to explain without writing a couple thousand words but I guess the general idea is twofold.

First, you are decomposing the waste down to an ash form that is MUCH less radioactive.

Second, it's then easier to dispose of it while the disposal sites are much less dangerous and easier to maintain.

Here's a PDF on the process.

http://www.nukemgroup.com/fileadmin/pdf/Brochure_Incineration_April_2007.pdf


Of course the general safety concerns of nuclear plants and the byproducts (waste) are an important argument to be had about nuclear power. A big argument with LOTS of pluses and minuses.

[saras]

22. Too dumb to take seriously. Sorry.

"First, you are decomposing the waste down to an ash form that is MUCH less radioactive."

Nope. Doesn't happen. Ever. No way. Radioactive waste loses radiation by radioactive decay. No chemical processes have any effect whatsoever. Really basic physics fail.

The pamphlet looks like they took a perfectly reasonable waste incinerator (reduces the volume of waste at the cost of pollution and energy use), and figured that if they sealed it a little better they could burn nuclear waste the same way...

my real questions - just what IS all that nuclear waste in the first place? and why is there so much of it? and why is so much of it things that can be burnt?

[wordpix]

10. no, no, don't worry about that, the nuke industry has it all figured out

and we trust them completely

You are using your brain too much on that one. No, this will be a fast hot burn and NOTHING will escape.

Please, don't ask about a chain rxn, either, when the nuke waste is set on a hot burn.

[wordpix]

12. stock price is $1.55 - don't count on this co. spending billions to clean up an accident

They're not worth much.

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. So we're the country with the Clean Air Act and MEXICO is sending US nuke waste to

burn??!!??

Sorry I've got to go bang my head again a wall.

Then contact NRC about this...

(turns out it isn't easy!)

[Gore1FL]

7. This is a good thing

unless you want dirty bomb material floating around out of our control.

[FailureToCommunicate]

15. Sorry, but this is not 'loose nuke' material. It's tons of low grade

Last edited Wed May 2, 2012, 09:55 PM - Edit history (1)

waste:
"The low-level waste in question generally involves protective clothing and tools that have some degree of contamination. Incinerating it reduces the volume and makes it easier to dispose of the waste."

As the experts comment to NRC site this is best deposed of in the host country.

There is lots of the bad stuff out there we DO need to corral. If only we we're weren't spending billions being the world's policemen.

[naaman fletcher]

17. also

we will dispose of it or destroy it properly (to some degree) while in other countries it will end up in rivers or landfills

[wordpix]

8. WTF?

[wordpix]

11. "Perma-Fix Env. Solutions, Inc"---yeah....right...never heard of them

[wordpix]

13. Does the State Dept know about this? Calling Hillary, calling Hillary

[wordpix]

14. company received SEC confidential treatment Mar. 2012 re: excluded information

Hmmm, wonder what cannot be disclosed until Sept. 2013? More slime from our SEC "regulatory" agency.

http://www.perma-fix.com/investorrelations/secfilings.aspx

Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc.
File No. 001-11596 - CF# 28139
_____________________
Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. submitted an application under Rule 24b-
2 requesting confidential treatment for information it excluded from the Exhibits to a
Form 10-K filed on March 15, 2012.

Based on representations by Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. that this
information qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information under the
Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(4), the Division of Corporation Finance has
determined not to publicly disclose it.

Accordingly, excluded information from the
following exhibit will not be released to the public for the time period specified:
Exhibit 10.38 through September 30, 2013
For the Commission, by the Division of Corporation Finance, pursuant to
delegated authority:
Craig Slivka
Special Counsel

[KT2000]

16. So - the Columbia River is in danger of

being overwhelmed with nuclear material leaching from Hanford - which by the way will NEVER be cleaned up. Now the latest capitalist scheme is to take more into the state. Obviously, in Ayn Rand-speak, it is in the selfish interest of the owner of the company to make a killing off of Mexico. When things go wrong though - guess who pays the price!

[Tikki]

19. You are correct, Hanford will NEVER be cleaned up. We need legislators who will say NO...

until these sites are cleaned up first.
Alas, there is big money to be made in stretching out the clean-up, to forever.


Tikki

[benld74]

18. Give us your tired, poor, 1000 year life materials, WHA?!?!

[Earth_First]

20. Lemme guess, *somewhere* buried in this is a clause which allows non-union Mexican drivers to haul

this stuff in too, right?

[wordpix]

21. in this non-regulatory, anti-union environment, anything goes

The SEC won't even regulate, for chrissake.