Lecture 11 - Radioactive Waste

Lecture reading: Please, select after interest from the bibliography below.

 

Handouts 2022

 

Links to videos that we (tried to) view in the lecture
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N.B. Be aware of position of the producers of the videos. View critically!

 

Question regarding “heavy water”

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I did not answer this question in the lecture. The reactors that uses heavy water are heavy water reactors (HWRs) and pressurized heavy-water reactor (PHWR). The reactors in Sweden are of BWR (boiling water reactor) and PWR (pressurised water reactor); neither uses heavy water (actually, the closed one in Ågesta in suburban Stockolm did and the planned one in Marviken as well). It is mainly Canada and India that uses heavy water reactors, along with Romania and South Korea, with a few reactors also in other countries. (An overview, although possibly not fully correct is given at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors Links to an external site.)



Question regarding “radioactivity in tailings”
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I did not have time to answer this question fully. Please, see the table below from Radiochemistry and Nuclear Chemistry (3d Ed. by Choppin, Liljenzin och Rydberg. There is a compilation of disposal methods by Peter Waggitt from 1994, that you can access on :
https://www.awe.gov.au/system/files/resources/7baf0bdd-a928-4d58-a0a7-1e7e5647ca3c/files/tm48.pdf Links to an external site.
Old, but still gives some type of picture. Today, remediation of uranium mine sites is also ongoing.  

22222.jpg


Question regarding uranium mining in Sweden
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I did not have time to answer this question fully. Today, it is not permitted to mine for uranium in Sweden. In the late 1960s (at the same time the nuclear power plant in Marviken was planned (with the capacity to produce plutonium)) there was mining in Ranstad, Billingen close to Skövde in Vätergötland where about 200 ton of uranium was mined. From 1953 until 1960 another 50 ton were extracted at Kvarntorp, outside Örebro in Närke.

Here is a link to where uranium deposits are found in Sweden: https://www.sgu.se/en/physical-planning/energy/uranium/ Links to an external site.

Sources are normally shales.

In Finnslätten in Västerås nuclear fuel is produced from enriched uranium dioxide.

 

SVT film from the uranium mining in Kvarntorp

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/har-bryts-svenskt-uran-se-den-unika-arkivfilmen-1 Links to an external site. 

Mining for Uranium in Kvarntorp, Sweden. Voice in Swedish. SVT. The film was originally broadcast in December 1957 in the program ’Sådan är atomen – räddar liv, ger kraft åt miljoner’. (Eng., freely translated: ’Such is the atom - saves lives, gives power to millions".) Reporter is Bengt Feldreich.

 

 

Bibliography
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Links to an external site.
Links to an external site.