|
Netherlands Nuclear Plant is the Model for N.M.
Aug 15 - Albuquerque Journal Herald Voschezang says New Mexicans need not fret over stored waste from Louisiana Energy Services' proposed $1.2 billion nuclear fuel factory in Lea County. Urenco, with two similar plants in Great Britain and Germany, supplies about 19 percent of the worldwide nuclear power refining needs. The company describes itself as an independent, global group using its own centrifuge technology to do uranium refining for power generation. The LES plant proposed for New Mexico near Eunice would be patterned after the Almelo plant and would be the first centrifuge uranium refinery in the United States. It would refine uranium for use as nuclear power plant fuel. LES seeks U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission authority to build the plant outside Eunice, but a controversy over where and how long to keep the waste produced by the plant remains a stumbling block. LES would like to start construction next summer with a late- 2008 completion date. The New Mexico plant would be the fourth in Urenco's international network. Voschezang, one of five shift managers at Almelo, said he sees no problems with storing waste in steel cylinders on site, as they do at Almelo. "You may store them in my back garden. I have no problem with that," he said as we looked over an open field with several hundred of the containers. It is the storage of those cylinders containing uranium waste -- "tails" -- that is causing consternation in New Mexico. The New Mexico plant would generate about 8,000 tons of radioactive waste annually. "Leakage is no discussion," Voschezang added. "The enriched part of the uranium is used to make fuel, and you have the depleted part and that's the tails. And that is what is in the barrels and they can be stored safely." Voschezang, who has a degree in engineering as well as a master's of business administration, said the cylinders are filled to between 50 percent and 60 percent capacity. If there were a leak, he said, the reaction of the waste material inside to the atmosphere would seal it. Each cylinder at the New Mexico plant would be 4 feet in diameter and 8 feet long. The cylinders would contain uranium hexaflouride, a substance that resembles rock salt. Asked why the waste byproduct, which still contains some uranium that could be turned into power plant fuel, isn't used, he said it is less expensive for now to buy newly mined uranium. "It is cheaper to buy new fuel. If the price of uranium should soar, it then might be feasible to reprocess the tails, but now it isn't," Voschezang added. The Almelo plant is impressive in its size, cleanliness and modernization of its operation. Walking into a control room, one sees banks of TV monitors as technicians keep a check on every aspect of an operation that is completely computercontrolled. The teams that operate the system average 13 on each of five rotating shifts. "Everything is automated," Voschezang said. "That's the reason we can have a performance level of 99.9 percent. Nearly all the systems are redundant." "The plants have sensitive detection devices that would quickly show whether anyone has any contamination. The detection levels are so low that rain or snow will have more radiation than there is in the plant," said Voschezang, a 21-year employee at Almelo. "The air coming out of our plant has less radioactivity than the air which goes inside. There is more radiation in the soil, the air, the water, everywhere. It's a natural activity and that's part of life. I can wear the same clothes to church on Sunday that I wear to work." And the plant is only a few days short of operating four years since its last lost-time employee injury occurred. He pointed out that residents of Almelo, which has a population of about 72,000, have accepted the plant, noting that a children's campground was located adjacent to the plant's chain link fence. Pointing eastward to a house across the roadway, he said, "That's one of the most expensive houses in Almelo, just 200 meters that way. And there is a new housing area under construction just 500 meters, also to the east." Urenco customers are around the globe. In addition to the Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain, the company has customers in the United States, Japan, Spain, South Korea and other countries. "The New Mexico plant will be mainly for the U.S. customers," Voschezang said. He said most of the parts for the New Mexico facility's centrifuge "will be made in a machine factory ... and the parts will be assembled in New Mexico. New Mexicans will receive training in the Netherlands and some of our operators will go there." The Almelo plant has 180 employees plus about 100 contract workers, including construction crews. The New Mexico plant will employ about 210, including security, in the operation of the plant. This would be in addition to construction crews. "Don't worry," Voschezang said, about having a facility that will process uranium for use as fuel in nuclear power plants. "And especially when you see the distances in New Mexico. Here, we are only two kilometers to the center of Almelo." Harry Moskos can be reached at 823-3837 or hmoskos@abqjournal.com
|