States Struggle to Deal with Radioactive Fracking Waste

[Ksheed]

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-06-22/hot-mess-states-struggle-to-deal-with-radioactive-fracking-waste

[retired nuke]

Well, ya reaps what ya sows....
Everyone wants cheap fuel. Fracking brought us cheap oil and gas, many liked that. Greenies started fighting it, as fracking looked to cause environmental damage (contaminated water, runoff, waste, direct gas leaks to air) but public liked cheap fuel, so little is done.
Now.... nuke plants in deregulated areas can't compete with cheap fossil power, and are shutting down. Fracking issues are starting to show. Fewer people support pipelines (MA has pretty much shut down the proposed one there), and oil glut actually is slowing production and exploration.
Looks like there will be a change in the electric market, and I doubt prices will go down.
If fracking gets any serious restrictions / remediation costs put on it, things will slow on the production front.
All large scale energy production has environmental and societal costs... all that's happening now is identification of those costs. Whether producers or govt pays them, it'll be the public that eventually does.
Sux when the new paradigm isn't perfect, doesn't it...

[Rerun]

That is well said

[Marlin]

Not a new problem fracking has been around for a long time just not to the volume and pressure used today. Alarming landfill monitors for radioactive material not from fission or activation is not new either but is a growing problem as monitors have been installed at landfills. Large volumes of ceramic insulators from switchyards, vitrified brick from walls, and pea gravel from roof tops all react the same way as described by the article. They may or may not alarm the monitors depending on ratio of the material to the load as in the article and complicate disposal especially if the source is a site that has regulated radioactive material.

A more rational take on TENORM from fracking is here:

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a50/

[GLW]

It all about focus,...

Florida has millions of yards of TENORM from decades upon decades of phosphate mining piled up in thickly vegetated, man made drumlins covering hundreds of acres of the Sunshine State,...

South Africa has tailings from gold mining that contain some impressive levels of uranium TENORM, all in uncovered, wind blown mounds soaring tens of meters into the sky,...

no one wants to pay for it to be dealt with, a back door subsidy for the waste generators I reckon,...

prior to TENORM being defined and becoming a regulatory target, it was just so much barren dirt and dust,...

it was out of focus,...

now it's in focus,...

but who the hell is gonna pay for it to be dealt with?!?!?!?

besides, if the tree huggers turn their "radioactive" focus to TENORM, who is gonna stay focused on the nuke plants?!?!?!

there's only so many tree huggers to go around too you know,...

[Ksheed]

...besides, if the tree huggers turn their "radioactive" focus to TENORM, who is gonna stay focused on the nuke plants?!?!?!

there's only so many tree huggers to go around too you know,...

Oh, but they are starting to reproduce...