I'm not sure that's a entirely fair description of the accident.
> CEMRC's independent monitoring data shows that except for the brief detection of americium and plutonium in the nearby ambient air samplers, there is no persistent contamination and no lasting increase in radiological contaminants near WIPP that can be attributed to the 2014 radiation release.
Specifically, vastly more radiation is released by coal plants and yet more is included via ash into civil building materials.
It also reopened in 2017 and the "bypass" was a leak around a filter, not deliberate misconfiguration like it sounds in the article, and exposure was within limits and on the scale of chest x-rays at the maximum.
Also it's only possible for the currently open "panels" to be connected to the ventilation system. Once they're sealed they're no longer able to vent to the surface at all, so it's a failure mode that is mostly irrelevant to long term storage. A additional deliberate feature of the site is that the salt is self-sealing.
For any "mission zero" system, there will be scathing reports about process flaws afterwards, because any mistake at all is unacceptable. But this doesn't actually translate into a major harm. In this case, there was a vehicle fire that damaged equipment, a breached barrel due to a mistake in filling it with the wrong cat litter, and a filter leak, and an entire "comedy" of other poor processes in place and yet the effect was undetectable outside within months (and that's really saying something for radiation detection). Sounds like it worked pretty well to me, to be honest. It's pretty much the worst possible case, short of actually setting off a bomb in there. The really high level material isn't packed into these kinds of barrels or is dispersible either - it's in solid form.
There'd be similar reports about "never events" when a plane wheel falls off and the plane crash lands with no injuries. Should it ever have happened? No. We there bad processes at play? Presumably. Can we learn and improve? Yes. Should we conclude air travel is a non-starter? No. And a plane crash would easily kill hundreds, far more than any nuclear waste release from such a site ever could even in the absolute worst of the worst cases.
> And a plane crash would easily kill hundreds, far more than any nuclear waste release from such a site ever could even in the absolute worst of the worst cases.
I think you're lacking imagination here. The Asse II mine in Germany[1] is in danger of getting flooded, which could release large amounts of radioactive material into the groundwater.
> I think you're lacking imagination here. The Asse II mine in Germany[1] is in danger of getting flooded, which could release large amounts of radioactive material into the groundwater.
Wrong. It was a political decision by the GREEN party to make a lot of fuss and try to dig it up again for extra political points
Check this recommendation out by the actual experts of the radiation protection commission:
> Four of the five assessment fields (safety during the operating phase,
environmental effects in the event of an uncontrollable inflow of solution, feasibility and time
requirements) indicated that there was a clear benefit to retaining the radioactive waste in the
Asse II mine rather than retrieving it.
And only anti-nuclear NGOs with flawed estimates think it there would be enough radiactive material released to be of danger
> Both estimates assume, for example, that after an uncontrollable inflow of solution, the
radionuclides present in the waste will fully dissolve in the inflow water and then be squeezed
out into the hydrosphere and biosphere as a result of convergence and gas formation in the
mine. However, the estimates fail to take into account the solubility limits in the saline solution
and drinking water, both of which have a significant effect on the result, and also omit the
sorption effects that occur when passing through the overburden. They also fail to consider the
fact that only a very small proportion of the uranium and thorium is soluble; otherwise the
solubility limit of uranium and thorium would be exceeded in the saline solution.
...
> As a result, the SSK holds the view that an uncontrollable inflow of solution does
not represent a hazard to the public
The green party is just trying to try to get the country to stay in fear of nuclear energy, so their favorite policy (i.e. shutting down nuclear power plants) can stay.
> CEMRC's independent monitoring data shows that except for the brief detection of americium and plutonium in the nearby ambient air samplers, there is no persistent contamination and no lasting increase in radiological contaminants near WIPP that can be attributed to the 2014 radiation release.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02659...
Specifically, vastly more radiation is released by coal plants and yet more is included via ash into civil building materials.
It also reopened in 2017 and the "bypass" was a leak around a filter, not deliberate misconfiguration like it sounds in the article, and exposure was within limits and on the scale of chest x-rays at the maximum.
Also it's only possible for the currently open "panels" to be connected to the ventilation system. Once they're sealed they're no longer able to vent to the surface at all, so it's a failure mode that is mostly irrelevant to long term storage. A additional deliberate feature of the site is that the salt is self-sealing.
For any "mission zero" system, there will be scathing reports about process flaws afterwards, because any mistake at all is unacceptable. But this doesn't actually translate into a major harm. In this case, there was a vehicle fire that damaged equipment, a breached barrel due to a mistake in filling it with the wrong cat litter, and a filter leak, and an entire "comedy" of other poor processes in place and yet the effect was undetectable outside within months (and that's really saying something for radiation detection). Sounds like it worked pretty well to me, to be honest. It's pretty much the worst possible case, short of actually setting off a bomb in there. The really high level material isn't packed into these kinds of barrels or is dispersible either - it's in solid form.
There'd be similar reports about "never events" when a plane wheel falls off and the plane crash lands with no injuries. Should it ever have happened? No. We there bad processes at play? Presumably. Can we learn and improve? Yes. Should we conclude air travel is a non-starter? No. And a plane crash would easily kill hundreds, far more than any nuclear waste release from such a site ever could even in the absolute worst of the worst cases.