Metal? I thought it was glass.
Posted on 06/14/2008 11:40:08 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Thursday, June 12, 2008
China keeps secret the quake damage to radioactive facilities
China is keeping a tight lid on the extent of damage caused by the recent earthquake to military radioactive sources. The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported May 30 that Chinese authorities only announced some damage to sources of nuclear radiation, including small facilities like cement plants.
“Because Sichuan is the most important area for China's military nuclear industries and nuclear research, if those sources of radioactivity were to be damaged, they could cause further harm hundreds of thousands of times greater than the cement plants and other sources of radioactivity addressed by the official announcement,” the center said. “Yet China is still keeping the status of damage to these major sources of radioactivity a secret.”
China’s chief military authority, the Central Military Commission, currently is investigating quake damage to nuclear warhead storage facilities, nuclear missile launch silos and nuclear raw material storage plants.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldtribune.com ...
Ping!
Chinese authorities only announced some damage to sources of nuclear radiation, including small facilities like cement plants.
Cement Plants?
Most likely a waste encapsulation plant.
Radioactive waste would be mixed with cement before burial to ensure that is would not enter the water table.
The US stopped using this method about twenty years ago after we found that the cement would crumble in to small pieces if it was submerged in water for a few years.
Waste is now incinerated and mixed with molten metal.
China has ‘toys’ that are not age appropriate.
Uh oh.
What China is is a recovering Stalinist-Communist state with little to no property rights.
The former Soviet Empire is littered with vast regions that are so highly radioactively contaminated that they will be uninhabitable for centuries.
Property rights are what make the state responsible to the people. Because all property belonged to the state the Soviet Union did not care what it did to the land in its quest for nuclear weapons.
China has been following that model in its quest for nuclear weapons.
The US also made some real messes in the first few decades of the nuclear arms race but those sites are presently being cleaned up. But these areas are small compared to those in communist countries because the government confined them to relatively small and remote areas. Admittedly this was also due to the need for security. But this need for remoteness is also due to the freedom of the people in this country.
Metal? I thought it was glass.
Glass (vitrification) was planned for the immobilization of spent fuel or the residue of spent fuel reprocessing.
What I was referring to in reference to cement plants in low level radio active waste which would include water treatment resins from nuclear power plants and combustible waste from all nuclear facilities.
Cement was never used for high level waste that I am aware of.
Although low level waste is not as dangerous as spent fuel it is still can be very dangerous and costly to clean up. If a major waste processing plant was damaged by the earth quake it could be a major problem
One of these sites could have great quantities of waste stored on site to be processed. If it was in liquid form and stored in tanks major spills could contaminate water supplies.
It would be a real long lasting health problem.
Oh, thanks!
That was quite informative!
You are Welcome
Geeze, wow, what a concept, a Communist Government that is secretive.
No one outside of China will ever know the truth of the damage.
You mean molten glass
Please, God, not a Chinese Chernobyl.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.