THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Sunday, November 4, 1979
Process may kill radiation threat
By CLARENCE W. BAILEY
Copyright, 1979. The Arizona Republic
TEMPE -- An internationally recognized Arizona State University physicist
disclosed Saturday that he has discovered a method for treating nuclear
reactor and other highly dangerous radioactive wastes so they will be
harmless.
The procedure was conceived by Or. Radha ha H. H Roy professor of nuclear
physics who is the designer and former director of nuclear-physics research
facilities at the University of Brussels In Belgium. and at Pennsylvania
State University.
Roy said the process “very roughly can be described in part as a reversal
of phenomena that occur during a nuclear fission chain reactions.
The scientist said the process is the culmination of many years research
“Theoretical analysis and mathematical calculations confirm lint the process
is highly effective and that any level of radio activity, from weak to
strong. Can be reduced to harmless state in a short period of time,” Roy
said.
The thing that is so encouraging is that the method can cancel radioactivity
rapidly enough for it to be of r real practical value in disk os ing of
dangerous wastes in storage and as they are being produced, Roy said.
Qne treatment-plant design which Roy has devised could reduce the radioactivity
of even the most angerous wastes with half-lives or 15,000 to 40,000 years
to a level where they would be essentially harmless in about 20 days.
A half-life is the time required for a quantity of radioactive material
to lose one half of its radioactive strength.
Roy, who left his native Calcutta, India. to do advanced nuclear- physics
research at the University of London during World War II, said all the
necessary theoretical and quantum electrodynamical work on the process
has been completed.
“There remains perhaps as much as a years work in calculating parameters
and preparing data that will he needed for the engineering design of a
pilot radioactive waste-treatment plant’ he said.
Roy is known internationally among scientists for his many advanced rese
arch contributions in the field of nuclear fission fragments and as the
author of definitive graduate and post-doctoral textbooks used in universities
all over the world. “During the 37 years since the first fission chain
reaction there has been no progress whatever toward the development of
a method of deactivating radioactive waste or even for storing it safely,”
he said.
“The collections of dangerous nuclear wastes in this Country alonehave
now reached a total of at least 75 million gallons, and it is growing
daily.”
He estimated an operational nuclear waste-treatment plant could cost $40
million or more. By contrast, he noted, Congress last summer appropriated
$8~ million just to build more concrete storage bunkers to hold only a
part of the growing accumulation lion of nuclear wastes.
“Since it is so very dangerous to ship strongly radioactive materials
it would
The treatment process not only will render plutonium 239 harmless in a
remarkably short time, he said, but also will keep deactivated plutonium
from ever being reprocessed to make an illegal atomic weapon.
Roy further warned that the United States not only is exporting nuclear
energy when it sells reactor technology to foreign nations, but also is
sending overseas the potential for making illegal bombs out of plutonian
from reprocessed nuclear wastes.
The treatment method will guarantee to foreign countries that use nuclear
fission energy that they can maintain an environment free from radioactivity,
and it also could guarantee to the world that there will be no reuse of
plutonium in an unauthorized weapon, he said. Careful theoretical and
mathematical analyses have assured him that the nuclear waste- treatment
process will function reliably and with rapidity and high efficiency,
ha said.
"But the existence of this promising nuclear waste-treatment procedure
should not be construed in any sense to mean that nuclear fission power
reactors are safe" Roy said. The contractor who built Three Mile Island's
reactor-like those who built the other 71 reactors now operational in
the United States -- expected that plant to function normally for 30 years
in total safety without event .But the fact is that it went out of control
and nearly created a meltdown which could have destroyed a large part
of the human habitat of east-central Pennsylvania,'' Roy said.
HOME
ADDITIONAL USES OF THE ROY PROCESS.....
| ARIZONA REPUBLIC 1 l/4/79..... |
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY 6/9/80.....
ARTICLE BY LITA LEE Ph. D..... | HIGHLIGHTS
OF HIS CAREER..... | PICTURE OF DEFORMED
BABIES.....
RESPONSE FROM THE DEPT. OF ENERGY.....
| THE WASHINGTON POST.....
| WHITE HOUSE LETTER 9/30/93.....
Dennis F. Nester
Agent for The Roy Process
Phoenix, Arizona
email