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THE ROY PROCESS FOR NEUTRALIZING (TRANSMUTING) NUCLEAR
WASTE
by Lita Lee, Ph.D.
The nuclear waste problem is totally unresolved. There
are no sites, no containers and no places on earth which can safely
contain radioactive waste materials. No container will outlive the radioactivity
of its contents. Areas contaminated with radioactive waste are uninhabitable
for the lifetime of their radioactive contents, which can amount to
half a million years. Unless a process for transmuting radioactive wastes
is developed, the best that we can hope for is above ground disposal
sites managed by responsible people with valid monitoring systems. It
is impossible to monitor radioactive waste that has been dumped into
or rivers or the ocean, buried in the ground or shot into space.
What kind of legacy are we leaving our children and their children?
Is their hope? I believe so, but only if we develop a process for transmuting
radioactive materials to harmless products invented by the late Dr.
Radha Roy
INTRODUCTION
This article addresses nuclear waste contamination from ionizing radiation,
the kind produced by nuclear plants, nuclear tests, medical procedures,
food irradiators, facilities that sterilize via the use of radiation,
and research facilities using radioactive isotopes. I will present a
viable but yet untested process for transforming nuclear wastes to stable
non-radioactive products - the Roy Process.
There are at least 110 nuclear reactors in the United States. Currently,
they generate 3,000 tons of nuclear waste each year. Well over 22,000
tons have already accumulated, according to a May 11, 1993 USA Today
article on the nuclear waste crisis. Today (1997), this has increased
to 34,000 tons. This waste would fill a football field nine feet deep.
This tonnage does not include low-level wastes - materials that come
in contact with radioactive substances. These wastes, such as gloves,
filters, tools and clothing, come from nuclear power plants, hospitals
and research centers that use radioactive substances. There are 100,000
U.S. facilities that use these materials. They produce 1 .6 million
cubic feet of low-level wastes each year.
Describing the contamination of earth by radiation as ulow..Ievel ionizing
radiation is misleading and implies that it is insignificant. It’s not.
Low-level ionizing radiation means 5-15 reins (similar to a rad) or
about what we all get each year if we dOn’t work in a nuclear plant.
Dr. John Gofman, a pioneer on the health effects of ionizing radiation,
calls this the doubling dose, the dose required to double the cancer
rate.
More worrisome is Dr. Abram Petkau’s observation that it takes only
700 millirads of protracted radiation (from external or internal sources)
to lyse (break) the cell membrane. By protracted, I mean over a period
of time, instead of all at once. In the absence of antioxidant enzyme
protection, such as superoxide dismutase and catalase, a mere 10-20
millirads were required to destroy the cell membrane. P.S., we’re all
deficient in antioxidant enzymes because there’s much more radiation-induced
free radical damage than nature intended, thanks to the nuclear industry.
There has been no viable solution to the nuclear waste disposal problem.
It is the greatest of all disposal problems, and not just because of
clean-up costs. Radioactive waste sites are virtually uninhabitable
for the lifetime of the radioactive materials contained, which can amount
to thousands of years. There are no containers which will last as long
as the radioactive materials stored in them, thereby promising leakage
of the radioactivity into the water, soil and air.
The U.S. government and the Department of Energy (DOE) are faced with
enormous volumes of radioactive waste, with no solution of how to store
them.
An April 8, 1992 article in The Arizona Republic reported the results
of an eight-month study by the Environmental Protection Agency on radioactive
sites in the United States. The EPA designated 45,361 locations, including
factories and hospitals, with nuclear waste contamination ranging from
slight to severe.
COSTS OF THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
Despite a one-half-trillion-dollar subsidy to the nuclear power and
weapons industry over the last 40 years, nuclear power is a dismal economic
failure and a safety nightmare. Here are some examples to illustrate
the severity of these problems, both financial and safety.
On July 4, 1990, the DOE estimated costs for nuclear cleanup to be $31
billion over the following five years. This figure represents a 50%
increase over 1989 projections. In 1991, DOE revised this estimate to
$100 billion.
During the last 10 years the nuclear industry and the federal government
have spent $6 billion on a plan to store 77,000 metric tons of radioactive
waste in tunnels bored into the granite bedrock of Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
The San Jose Mercury News reported on July 14, 1992 that a June earthquake
caused $1 million in damage to a Department of Energy building six miles
from the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The San Jose Mercury News
reported on July 14, 1992 that a June earthquake caused $1 million in
damage to a Department of Energy building six miles from the proposed
Yucca Mountain site. DOE scientists were rattled to discover that the
epicenter of the quake was 12 miles from the proposed dump site.
In 1991, mining experts reported that a deep underground salt chamber
in the New Mexico desert designated for the first U.S. tests of permanent
radioactive waste disposal would probably collapse years before the
tests could be completed. The $800 million DOE nuclear-waste disposal
project was already years behind schedule when this ominous projection
was made (June 14, 1991, The Arizona Republic).
WHERE DOES THE WASTE GO?
Nuclear waste has been dumped into oceans, rivers and lakes, and into
the ground. Leaking containers of radioactive wastes add to this on
a daily basis, endangering the earth’s groundwater. There is no permanent
storage site that is free from the hazards of radioactive waste.
The following examples are given to indicate the serious and unsolved
nature of the nuclear waste crisis.
Port Granby, Canada dump site: Port Granby, east of Oshawa, Canada,
is one of three landfills in the Port Hope area storing radioactive
waste from a nearby uranium processing plant. Over 40 years, more than
half-a- million tons of radioactive waste was buried in 122 14-foot
pits in the Port Granby dump. Years of public outcry forced the closing
of the dump in 1988. Despite efforts to capture the seepage, radioactive
groundwater from this site makes its way down the bluffs, where the
current carries it towards Toronto, A greater fear is the cliffsides
that are eroding. One day, the bluffs will send chunks of the dump site
crashing into the water. Currently, anti-dump activists debate with
nuclear officials over the perilous dump site, with no solution at hand.
(New Magazine, Toronto, March 1993).
Russian Dumping: On September 2, 3, and 4, 1992, the Los Angeles Times
reported on “The Soviets’ Deadly Nuclear Legacy”. From 1966 to 1991,
the Russians dumped nuclear wastes into rivers, lakes and into the ocean.
Russia’s deadly atomic legacy is just now coming to light in a report
issued in March 1993 by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. From 1949 to
1956, nuclear waste from plutonium refining was dumped into the Techa
River, even though radioactivity began showing up 1000 miles downstream
in 1953. Today, gamma radiation on the river bank measures 100-times
normal levels. Aware of the radioactivity in the Techa, Russian workers
began dumping into Lake Karachai. Today, “to stand on its bank, even
for a short time, would be deadly,” according to Mira Kosenko, M.D.,
of the Chelyabinsk Institute of Physics and Biology.
The Russians dumped at least 15 used nuclear reactors including six
submarine units containing uranium fuel into the Kara Sea. According
to Andrei Zolotkov, a radiation safety engineer, the entire hull section
of the obsolete nuclear- powered icebreaker V.1. was cut out with blowtorches
and sunk. The irradiated mass measured 65 by 65 by 35 feet, or as high
as a five-story building. The results of this are now evident. Officials
at the Northern Division of the Polar Institute of Fish and Oceanography
in Arkhangelsk report that thousands of seals are dying of cancer. This
was caused by radioactive pollution of the seabed plus fallout from
Russian nuclear tests on Novaya Zemyla, the archipelago where the seals
live.
Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, Colorado: On March 26, 1992, Rockwell
International Corporation, operator of the Rocky Flats plant pleaded
guilty to criminal violations of hazardous-waste laws and the illegal
discharging of radioactive wastes into two streams that feed water supplies
serving four Colorado Cities. The government fined Rockwell $20 million
and selected EG&G Inc. as the new plant operator (Thursday, March 26,
1992, The Arizona Republic).
The Hanford crisis: A new EPA analysis revealed that Hanford workers
dumped millions of gallons of radioactive waste into the ground. Some
of the wastes were injected deep into the earth, while others were dumped
into open trenches or ponds which were later covered with dirt. These
wastes contain two long- lived carcinogens, technetium 99 and iodine
129. Technetium 99 has a half-life of 212,000 years and iodine 129 a
half-life of 16 million years. Because Hanford is located close to the
Columbia River, radioactive isotopes continue to flow into the river.
In addition, storage tanks at Hanford are in danger of exploding due
to continuous production of extremely reactive, labile products. This
serious situation is described below.
CURRENT LEGAL METHODS OF NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE
There are two storage methods. The most common is to store the radioactive
waste in water pools made of reinforced concrete six feet thick lined
with stainless steel. The second method is to store the material in
dry casks which are transported by rail, truck or barge to outdoor storage
sites where they are placed on 3-foot reinforced concrete pads.
CURRENT DUMP SITES
The 1980 plan for waste storage has unraveled. In this plan, the federal
government would be responsible for high-level waste and states would
take responsibility for low-level wastes. States could build their own
waste sites or form compacts with other states to share common repositories.
However, states encountered massive opposition when possible locations
were chosen. The problem is unsolved.
The only two current disposal sites, in Richland, Washington and Barnwell,
South Carolina, are nearing capacity and will have to shut down. Wastes
not allowed to go there are piling up in makeshift storage facilities
across the United States. Currently, there are more than 100 makeshift
sites in 41 states where nuclear waste is being stored in cooling pools.
Many of these sites are in developing areas and some are near businesses,
residential area and schools.
The fight over dump sites continues. As of Tuesday, April 1997, the
Senate voted (65-34) to establish a temporary central storage facility
for the nation’s 33,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, northwest
of Las Vegas. President Clinton is expected to veto it. If he does,
the question of what to do with nuclear garbage will remain unanswered.
Opponents emphasize the danger of transporting hazardous nuclear waste
through populated areas by rail or highways and believe that a temporary
site in Nevada will lead to a permanent facility there.
This temporary site would be above ground but there is a proposed permanent
storage location underground in the same area. This proposal is fraught
with controversy. The DOE says that four more years of study are needed
before making a final decision. Why? An earthquake of 5.9 magnitude
on the Richter scale occurred on June 29, 1992 just six miles from the
proposed burial site. Since then, federal official have had major problems
convincing people that nothing can go wrong at their proposed nuclear
dump sight. Senator Richard Bryan (Democrat - Nevada) said of this quake,
“Mother Nature delivered a wake-up call to America’s policy-makers.
Placing high-level radioactive nuclear waste in an active earthquake
zone defies common sense.” (San Jose Mercury News, Tuesday, July 14,
1992).
Most people are unaware of how grim it is to have 33,000 tons of radioactive
garbage which will take from 30 to 480,000 years to decay to a harmless
substance.
However, the government knows. That’s why their policy says that radioactive
waste must be stored at least 10,000 years, even though this is hardly
realistic. Let me explain. The range of half-lives of these materials
varies from 24 seconds to nearly 15.9 million years.
The half-life of a radioactive element is the time it takes it to decay
to one-half of its mass. The whole lifetime of a radioactive element
is its half-life times 20 years. This makes the situation grim. For
example, the half-life of Strontium 90 is 28 years. Multiplying this
by 20 gives you a lifetime of 560 years. For Plutonium 239 with its
half-life of 24,000 years, has a whole-life of 20 X 24,000 or 480,000
years. Cesium 137 with its half-life of 30 years will hang around for
600 years.
“Do not be surprised if you learn that the nuclear industry makes billions
of dollars by being a part of government’s policy of burial of nuclear
wastes. It is not in their financial interest to try any other process.
They are not idealists. -
Radha R. Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus
WHAT’S WRONG WITH STORING NUCLEAR WASTE ABOVE GROUND?
Although above-ground storage has the advantage of access to being monitored,
it is still not without unsolved dangers.
Nuclear waste is highly unstable and reactive. For example, at Hanford,
Washington, radioactive wastes were stored in million-gallon tanks while
awaiting a permanent (?) storage site (lots of luck!). These tanks contain
plutonium wastes and organic materials. Chemicals in the tanks break
down, producing hydrogen gas, increasing pressure inside the tanks.
This lays the conditions for an explosion, which would spread contaminants
into the atmosphere, the land and the water, not to mention the people
and the animals.
In 1957, similar waste storage tanks exploded at the Russian Mayak plutonium
plant and contaminated hundreds of square miles in the southern UraI
mountains. According to a Thursday, January 28, 1993 Washington Post
article, this explosion released two million curies over a huge territory,
leading to the resettlement of 10,700 people. This disaster caused thousands
of casualties.
Now it is 1993. In April, several newspapers reported that yet another
tank of radioactive waste exploded at a weapons plant in the secret
Siberian city of Tomsk-7. This explosion contaminated 2,500 acres and
exposed firefighters to dangerous levels of radiation. Tomsk-7 is believed
to be about 12 miles outside Tomsk, a city of half-a- million people.
Since Tomsk-7 is secret, it is not on ordinary maps (The Arizona Republic,
April 7; The Washington Post, April 8, 14; The Register-Guard, Eugene,
Oregon, April 7, 8,1993).
WHAT’S WRONG WITH STORING NUCLEAR WASTE BELOW THE GROUND?
Only two problems: #1, there is no material that will outlast its radioactive
contents; #2, radioactive wastes are so active that their contents continuously
produce heat, hydrogen gas and other labile products. Who will monitor
this for 10,000 years? How will the contents be stabilized to prevent
explosions and leakage of radioactive waste into the groundwater? Who
will pay the astronomical costs?
However, during the 1980’s burial became the official government policy,
despite the objections of many scientists, and national organizations
concerned about dangers to the environment.
THE ROY PROCESS FOR TRANSMUTING RADIOACTIVE WASTES TO HARMLESS PRODUCTS
Is there a safe process to get rid of nuclear waste? Maybe! One possible
solution is a process invented by Dr. Radha R. Roy, former professor
of Physics at Arizona State University, and designer and former director
of the nuclear physics research facilities at the University of Brussels
in Belgium and at Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Roy is an internationally known nuclear physicist, consultant, and
the author of over 60 articles and several books. He is also a contributing
author of many invited articles in a prestigious encyclopedia. He is
cited in American Men and Women of Science, Who’s Who in America, Who’s
Who in the World and the International Biographical Centre, England.
He has spent 52 years in European and American universities researching
and writing recognized books on nuclear physics. He has supervised many
doctoral students.
Roy invented a process for transmuting radioactive nuclear isotopes
to harmless, stable isotopes. This process is viable not only for nuclear
waste from reactors but also for low-level radioactive waste products.
In 1979, Roy announced his transmutation process and received international
attention. The Roy process does not require storage of radioactive materials.
No new equipment is required. In fact, all of the equipment and the
chemical separation processes needed are well known.
What’s the basis for the Roy Process? If you examine radioactive elements
such as strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 239, you will see that
they all have too many neutrons. To put it very simply, the Roy process
transmutes these unstable isotopes to stable ones by knocking out the
extra neutrons. When a neutron is removed, the resulting isotope has
a considerably shorter half-life which then decays to a stable form
in a reasonable amount of time.
How do we knock out neutrons? By bombarding them with photons (produced
as x-rays) in a high- powered electron linear accelerator. Before this
process, the isotopes must be separated by a well-known chemical process.
It is feasible that portable units could be built and transported to
hazardous sites for on-site transmutation of nuclear wastes and radioactive
wastes.
To give an example, cesium 137 with a half-life of 30.17 years is transformed
into cesium 136 with a half-life of 13 days. Plutonium 239 with a half-life
of 24,300 years is transformed into plutonium 237 with a half-life of
45.6 d a y s. Subsequent radioactive elements which will be produced
from the decay of plutonium 237 can be treated in the same way as above
until the stable element is formed.
The Roy Process could be developed in three distinct phases, according
to Roy. Phase I consists of a theoretical feasibility study of the process
to obtain needed parameters for the construction of a prototype machine.
Phase II will involve the construction of a prototype machine and supporting
facilities for demonstrating the process. Phase Ill will consist of
the construction of large scale commercial plants based on the data
obtained from Phase II.
Cost estimates for Phase I and II are in the neighborhood of $10 million.
For Phase Ill, Roy estimates a cost of $70 million. Says Roy, ‘It will
be interesting to do a cost analysis of eliminating nuclear waste by
using my process and by burying it for 240,000 years - ten ha if-lives
of plutonium - under strict scientific control. There is also an ethical
question: can we really burden the thousands of generations yet to come
with problems which we have created? There is no God among human beings
who can guarantee how the geological structure of waste burial regions
will change even after ten thousand years, not to mention 240,000 years.”
If you are interested in finding out more about this process, please
contact Dennis Nester, Roy’s agent, whose address is listed below.
A FINAL NOTE
To those who say that a process for transforming nuclear wastes is an
invitation to keep making them, I ask, when we find a cure for cancer,
shall we say it’s okay to continue to eat, drink and breathe carcinogens?
‘There is no way one can change nuclear structure other than by nuclear
reaction. Burial of nuclear waste is not a solution.”
Radha Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus
Original article appeared in Eadhletter, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1993,
by Lita Lee, Ph.D. Updated May, 1997. P.O. Box 516, Lowell, OR 97452.
Phone: (541) 937-1123, Fax: (541) 937- 1132. Voice Mail: (541) 746-7621.
www.litalee.com
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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.....
For more information, please contact:
Dennis F. Nester
(agent for the late Dr. Roy)
4510 E. Willow Ave.,
Phoenix, AZ 85032
phone: (602) 494-9361
email
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