| News Letter of the American Nuclear Society- | Oak Ridge/Knoxville Section |
| February, 1998 | Vol. 98-1 |
|
|
||||
|
|||||
Robert Brown, with DOE Reindustrialization, addressed the Local Section in September at the Oak Ridge Country Club. His subject was the need to diversify the local economy away from its dependency on federal spending. DOE's budget was $ 19 billion in 1997. In 3 to 4 years it is expected to drop by $ 1 billion. In 2010, it is expected to drop another $ 1 billion. LMES gets roughly $1.1 billion in federal funding, while LMER gets roughly $380 million. Total employee numbers for DOE supported operations in Oak Ridge are down from a peak of 24,583 to 18,449 in 1996. Looking at the future, Science and Technology are expected to stay constant, National Security will drop, and Environmental Management will undergo a radical drop.
DOE's vision is to create an integrated science, technology, and education complex, which operates in cooperation with the private sector. To get there, they plan to focus on a changing mission. Current plans are to reduce environmental risks, reduce the weapons footprint at Y-12, reindustrialize K-25 and Y-12, and enhance the science infrastructure.
K-25, which , was recently renamed the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), is the primary focus of DOE's reindustrialization activities. It is approximately 1500 acres in size, 772 acres of, which is fenced. The surplus materials at the site include 22 million pounds of nickel, 17 million pounds of aluminum, 835 million pounds of steel and 47 million pounds of cobalt. Business opportunities include:
The BNFL contract, alluded to above, cost DOE $ 238 million and will result in the cleanup of 3 old process buildings by 2003. One of the buildings, K-33 is 66 acres in size. DOE's range of estimates to complete the same work varied from $ 800 million to $ 1.2 billion, with a completion time of 2035. BNFL previously decommissioned Capenhurst, England's Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Due to this experience, they require little or no R&D. Their -payments will be based upon completed units of work. They must pay all up front funding, and obtain performance bonds and environmental insurance. BNFL expects to create 350 to 500 jobs during cleanup of these buildings. They anticipate receiving $ 50 million in revenues from recyclable metals.
DOE expects to be out of the K-25 site between 2006 and 2010. They also expect either Paducah or Portsmouth to shut down in the next 5-6 years and revert back to DOE for cleanup.
October 1997Dr Jose Alonso, the National Spallation Neutron Source (NSNS) Coordinator, spoke to the Local Section on the NSNS in October. A partnership between 5 labs, ORNL, LBNL, LANL, BNL, and ANL, has been formed to design, fabricate, install, and commission the NSNS. The NSNS is an accelerator, which smashes high velocity protons into a target of mercury. The resulting reaction unleashes approximately twenty-six 30 Mev neutrons per proton. The neutrons are emitted in sharp pulses which provides a high efficiency of utilization. The scientific production of the NSNS is anticipated to be equivalent to the ILL or HFIR.
The NSNS will have 18 beam ports, 2 liquid hydrogen moderators, and 2 water moderators. Ten instruments will be built to support neutron scattering. The NSNS should attract between 1,000 and 2,000 users per year.
The President's budget calls for a 7-year construction schedule to start in 1998 and finish in 2005 at a total cost of $1.33 billion. Operations would begin in 2006; the NSNS will require an operations budget of $100 million/year.
November 1997
Dr George Kabalka (pictured in center with Jack Richard [left] and George Dillworth [right] spoke to the Local Section about Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT). BNCT is a radiotherapy technique utilized to treat victims of glioblastoma multiforme, a virulent and lethal form of brain cancer.
BNCT was first tried as a treatment for cancer in the 1950s. It involves the injection of a non-toxic boron compound into the body. The boron is attached to sugar, which is attracted to areas of the body with high metabolism, which includes cancerous regions. The earlier tests were unsuccessful as it was difficult to focus the neutron beam, hard to localize the boron in cancer cells, and it was not possible to
image the boron compound while in the body. I These shortcomings have been overcome. Today it is possible to focus the correct energy neutron beam onto the tumor site, there are better boron agents which localize in the cancerous cells, and it is possible to image the boron agent inside the body using boron MRIs.
American reactors currently conducting experimental treatments of patients utilizing BNCT are the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor (BMRR) at Brookhaven National Lab and the MITR reactor at MIT. At the BMRR, treatment is initiated by injecting the patient with approximately I-liter of boron phenyalaline (BPA). After I hour the patient is treated with neutrons from the reactor for about 20 minutes. The treatment is completely painless. The peak dose administered is 10.5 Gy-eq.
There are approximately 5,000 glioblastoma multiforme cancers diagnosed each year in the US. The median survival time without treatment is 3 months. With conventional treatments, such as chemotherapy and surgery, the median survival time is increased to 13-14 months. With conventional radiation treatments (not BNCT), the patient receives 30-40 radiation treatments; the median survival time is 9 months. Also, with conventional treatments the patient is sick most of the time.
The Brookhaven patients treated to date with BNCT may be segregated as follows:Generally the patients who had recurrence had the tumor grow back on the opposite side of the brain from the side which was treated. The quality of life for the treated patients was generally better with BNCT as compared to conventional treatments.
As has been noted in previous Acorns, the Tower Shielding Facility is being investigated for use as a BNCT Treatment Center. Cancers being investigated for treatment include glioblastoma multiforme, melanomas, colon cancer, prostrate cancer, and lung cancer.
January 1998
Joseph Nemec, President of Bechtel Jacobs, spoke to the Local Section about Bechtel Jacobs, the new Managing and Integrating (M&I) contractor in Oak Ridge. Bechtel Jacobs plans to make use of their proven leadership to expedite clean up activities at the Oak Ridge sites. They will prioritize safety, industrial safety in particular, and implement work by maximizing use of subcontractors. Bechtel Jacobs will have 10 core Project Managers who will control budgets and costs and be held accountable for completion of work. Safety will be a line management responsibility, safety advocates will assist workers and subcontractors in complying with safety rules.
Bechtel Jacobs will assume responsibility for work on April 1, 1998. They are currently individually interviewing nonbargaining unit Lockheed Martin employees, meeting with bargaining unit employees in groups of 30, and reviewing permits. On April 1, 2,500 Lockheed Martin employees will transfer to Bechtel Jacobs. Over the two following years, Bechtel Jacobs plans to transfer 93% of the Lockheed Martin employees to subcontracting firms. At that time, Bechtel Jacobs employees will constitute 7% of the workforce. Of the work, which is subcontracted out, 50% of it, will go to small businesses.
Bechtel Jacobs also made a commitment to bring in $427 million in non-DOE related future payrolls to the Oak Ridge area (defined as Roane, Anderson, Loudon, & Knox counties). Execution of this commitment will affect their performance award from DOE. They must bring in $11 million in the first 6-months of their contract, and $121 million by 2003. They plan to reach these goals by bringing affiliated businesses into the area (relocating management and hiring resources locally), matching industries with excess DOE facilities, creating a venture capital pool, and assisting start up businesses.
According to an article in the Environmental News Network, which quotes the Nuclear Energy Institute; new industry and government policy initiatives, combined with the federal government's acknowledgment of the need to expand the role of clean energy sources, have shifted policymaker's attitudes with respect to the use of nuclear energy. This has resulted in an increased public support for nuclear energy programs around the world. Support was especially evident with regards to worldwide initiatives to curb "greenhouse gas" emissions and in nuclear technology exports to China.
Nuclear energy supplies 20% of the US's and 17% of the world's electricity. Electricity production costs at US nuclear plants were 1.91 cents/kwh; compared to 1.83 cents/kwh for coal, 3.38 cents/kwh for natural gas, and 4.14 cents/kwh for oil. In 1996, nuclear power plants prevented the release of 147 million metric tons of carbon, 2.5 million tons of nitrogen oxide, and 5 million tons of sulphur dioxide. Carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is thought by many to contribute to global climate change.
Electricity is the fastest growing source of energy in China. China already has 11 nuclear power plants in operation or under construction and has plans to add 50,000 megawatts of new nuclear generating capacity by 2020 (this equates to 2 new nuclear plants/year). President Clinton recently announced his intention to lift the current trade barriers, which have prevented commercial nuclear trade with China since 1985. Opening up the China market could potentially produce more than $1.6 billion/year in US exports, which would support more than 25,000 US technical jobs.
Newsweek recently published an excellent article on food irradiation. Brian Hajek, the Interim Executive Director of the ANS, sent the following message to thank them:
Thank you for your fine coverage of the Hudson Foods E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak and the threat it poses to the American public. Your inclusion of food irradiation as a potential solution is well recognized by many national and international health organizations. Food irradiation is being used in over 25 nations world wide, and has been commercially used in several, including Japan, since as early as 1973. As in the use of x-rays for human diagnostic purposes, no radiation remains with the food. The American Nuclear Society endorses its use along with several other scientific professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Dietetic Association, and the Health Physics Society.
However, to characterize environmental organizations in general as being against food irradiation is too broad a statement. Instead, it's groups with narrower agendas, such as Food & Water in West Danville, Vermont, that protest against food processors, such as Hudson or Hormel, to keep them from even attending food irradiation conferences to learn about the science of the process. Scientific advances thrive through open peer-reviewed discussion. If food processors cannot keep up with advances in science, or cannot even strive to understand the science of alternative methods, then how are we as a country to protect our citizens from disease in real time as scientific advances are made?
Brian K. Hajek
THIS LARGE SINKHOLE RECENTLY MATERIALIZED CLOSE
TO THE ENTRANCE TO THE TOWER SHIELDING FACILITY
AT ORNL. IT IS ABOUT 7 FEET ACROSS, HAS A
VERTICAL SHAFT, AND APPEARS TO BE ABOUT 40 FEET
DEEP. A LARGE AMOUNT OF WATER CAN BE HEARD
RUNNING IN THE BOTTOM OF IT.
|
Any person wishing to contribute to the newletter may do so by sending their article, comment, or opinion to: |