Nukes On Our Roads

S everal recent accidents on U.S. interstate highways involving trucks carrying radioactive materials have revealed heightened activity in the transportation of such dangerous materials, as well as new growth in the nation’s nuclear infrastructure. 

Earlier in the Bush II years, Mary Olsen, of the nuclear watchdog Nuclear Information and Resource Center (NIRS), warned, “New nuclear policies of the Bush administration are making new nuclear programs that in turn are resulting in a massive increase in the number of radioactive cargo shipments over the next several years…and for years to come.” 

Last December 21 a flatbed truck carrying 6,000 pounds of uranium flipped on its side while exiting Interstate 95 West in central North Carolina. The truck’s journey had begun at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal near Norfolk, Virginia. Its destination was Global Nuclear Fuel America, a facility in Wilmington, North Carolina that makes nuclear fuel rods for commercial nuclear power plants. 

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), a nuke industry promoter, after uranium is extracted from the earth, it is filtered, dried, and packaged into a substance called yellowcake, or uranium oxide. This is then taken to a conversion plant where it is turned into uranium hexafluoride. “The uranium hexafluoride,” the NEI states, “is heated to become a gas, then loaded into cylinders where it is cooled and condensed to a solid.” 

Next the uranium hexafluoride is sent to an enrichment plant. The United States Enrichment Co. (USEC) in Paducah, Kentucky is the sole such facility in the U.S. There the substance’s uranium-235, which will be used to fuel nuclear reactors, is increased from 1 percent to 3.5 percent of the weight of the substance, with uranium-238 (also known as depleted uranium) being the balance of the enriched uranium. Finally the enriched uranium is sent to a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, like Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF) in Wilmington, North Carolina. GNF is a partnership of General Electric, Toshiba, and Hitachi. According to GE, “GNF is comprised of manufacturing and fuel service facilities in the United States and Japan, as well as Spain.” GE and Hitachi are also forming another partnership to facilitate the construction of new nuclear plants around the planet. 

In the U.S., 18 sites are being considered for the construction of 30 or more new nuclear plants. On January 8 two Japanese newspapers announced that the Japanese government “will provide trade insurance for [Japanese] firms helping to construct nuclear power plants in the U.S.” One of the newspapers, the Yomiuri Shimbun , said that Japanese plants are expected to help build all the U.S. new nukes “under a Japan-U.S. corporate alliance.” On January 10, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman and Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Akira Amari met in Washington to announce their Global Nuclear Energy Partnership under which they will help one another build new nuclear power plants. 

“No Contamination” 

T he Raleigh News & Observer reported on December 23 that the truck that flipped was carrying “low-grade uranium powder.” It also reported, “Tom Rumsey, a spokesperson for Global Nuclear, said the overturned truck was one of four on its way to Global Nuclear.… The facility receives up to 15 shipments a month.”

The AP reported that “Duke Power spokesperson Rose Cummings said the MOX fuel…will be tested at the Catawba Nuclear Station on Lake Wylie…about 20 miles south of Charlotte.” The MOX plan is another phenomena that increases the transportation of radioactive materials on our highways and in our ports. It also demonstrates the globalization of the transportation of these materials by the established nuclear powers. 

Nuclear Hex 

A nother such disturbing story appeared on January 4. The Associated Press reported, “An Oakland [California] bound truck carrying radioactive material from a nuclear plant in Paducah [Kentucky] was involved in a crash with another vehicle.” The truck was one of four that had just left the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant that morning. Each was carrying 5,000 pounds of uranium hexafluoride, a radioactive compound “used during the uranium enrichment process,” which in turn is “used to fuel nuclear reactors,” the AP reported. Uranium hexafluoride is also used in the production of nuclear weapons, according to NIRS. The local sheriff’s department stated, “There was no chemical spill in the wreck outside the plant on U.S. 60 in West Paducah.” Spokesperson Elizabeth Stuckle of United States Enrichment (USEC), which operates the Paducah plant, said, “The material was headed for the Port of Oakland in California to be shipped to an overseas customer.” 

Stuckle told the AP, “USEC ships about 1200 cylinders of the substance on about 300 trucks in a typical year. USEC supplies 27 percent of the world’s uranium, providing fuel for 150 reactors on three continents.” The AP also reported, “USEC contracts with Transport Logistics International, the largest transporter of nuclear material within the United States.” 

On January 8, the New Virginian newspaper, located in Virginia’s western Appalachian region, reported that, “Interstate 81 could soon become a major East Coast shipping route for nuclear waste destined for a New Mexico dumping ground.” I-81 runs the whole length of the western side of the state. “Plans call for roughly 147 shipments of leftovers from Cold War-era nuclear weapons tests,” the newspaper reported, “to come from sites in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the Department of Energy confirmed.” 

The first six shipments are slated to start next year at Babcock & Wilcox’s facility in Lynchburg, Virginia. That company builds nuclear reactors, most infamously the one that suffered a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. Lynchburg also hosts Framatome ANP, which, along with Global Nuclear Fuel and Westinghouse, are the U.S. companies that manufacture nuclear fuel rods. 

The type of waste to be transported is called transuranic waste, highly radioactive waste that includes, most notably, plutonium, one of the most toxic substances in the world. Despite this, Gary Shirley of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management told the New Virginian : “[Transuranic waste is] a relatively innocuous compound, non-harmful unless you do something stupid…like eat it.” One speck of plutonium breathed into your lungs most likely will doom you to develop cancer. 

The destination of these radioactive shipments will be the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. There it will end up in deep underground caverns. WIPP opened in 1999, and is the nation’s only dump for transuranic radwaste. The New Virginian reported, “So far only two of the more than 5,000 deliveries to WIPP have resulted in more than just fender benders, experts report.” The newspaper reported that a container fell off one truck in Idaho. The driver of another truck had a seizure and the truck ran across the highway into oncoming traffic. Fortunately there were no collisions in the latter incident. 

In another instance a truck arrived at WIPP and it was discovered that the radwaste had been loaded wrong, resulting in leakage en route. In fact, all such “nuclear packages” emit radiation because the hot cargo can’t be totally shielded, and if you get stuck in traffic near one, you’ll likely get zapped. 

Mary Olson of NIRS has also reported on the transportation of nuclear materials on our roads in support of Bush’s new nuclear weapons programs. These included: 

• truck shipments of plutonium from federal nuclear sites in western states to the Savannah River site in South Carolina to make plutonium nuclear fuel or triggers for nuclear weapons 
• shipments of plutonium triggers to replace old ones or for new ones at Oak Ridge, Tennessee 
• shipments of tritium rods to replace old ones in nuclear weapons, from commercial nuclear plants in Tennessee to the Savannah River site 
• transportation of uranium hexafluoride to make nuclear fuel rods for Poseidon and Trident nuclear submarines 

The 800-pound nuclear gorilla on the nation’s roads is the threat of the Yucca Mountain high level nuclear dump in Nevada coming into being. This would entail transporting many millions of pounds of highly lethal spent fuel rods from the 100-plus operating and shut down commercial nuclear power plants to the sacred lands of the Western Shoshone tribe. If Yucca Mountain comes to be a high level radwaste dump, the chances of nuke truck and/or train accidents will increase exponentially. 

Bush has given this project the green light and it’s currently scheduled to open for its dirty business in 2017. But with Democrats now in control of Congress, there is a chance of cutting the project’s funding enough to choke the dump to death. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, a long-time opponent of the project, is now Majority Leader of that chamber and has already pronounced it dead. 

That wouldn’t eliminate the dangers of all the other nuclear traffic on our roads. But dumping the Yucca Mountain dump would be a good start in turning the nuclear traffic back.