North Star International Enterprises, Inc.
MAJOR APPROACH
TO THE PROBLEM OF RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSALOur NSIE methodology has four main sections to it:
1. Container
2. Transportation
3. Storage
4. Disposal
For each of these sections, our primary concern focuses on ensuring that all of our work is Safe, Secure, Permanent, and Affordable.
NSIE METHODOLOGY - 1
CONTAINER
SAFE
Our canisters for containerizing, transporting, storing, and disposing of radioactive nuclear waste will be made of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC). UHPC is a new industrial development in the past forty-plus years. It is much stronger than standard concrete, much more impervious to water, and less susceptible to invasion by microcontaminants. These containers will be designed to withstand compressive pressure of 15 tons per square inch. The special ingredients selected for our formulas are resistant to the transmission of radiation.
SECURE
Our UHPC containers will remain temporarily at the site where the nuclear waste has originally been produced, as is the current practice as mandated by the U.S. Congress. Each of these sites is already very well guarded and secured according to the standards of the US government. There is the added security that comes from the major logistical difficulty of anyone trying to seize and flee with what will be a solid concrete container weighing approximately 24 tons.
PERMANENT
The overall strength and integrity of our containers and their radioactive contents are assured by the historic record of the concrete structures and monuments of antiquity, which have stood the test of time in the face of the elements for many hundreds and thousands of years. Our formulas are designed to produce a product that contains a properly balanced blend of ingredients of varied and specific microscopic sizes. The sizes provide a superior combination of materials that fill in the microscopic spaces of the overall cement matrix between the particles. This provides for the best binding of special additives with the cementitious ingredients, thereby producing a finished product of superior strength and durability.
AFFORDABLE
These newly designed UHPC containers will be created using a variety of readily available and affordable ingredients. An added benefit of some of these ingredients is that using them for UHPC concrete can reduce the immense supply of industrial waste from other sources, such as steel industry slag, copper mining tailings, paint industry residue power, and other types of hazardous waste. Many of these waste products are becoming a major environmental hazard; Vast amounts of this waste are steadily accumulating across the country. Our methodology and our own proprietary formulas will serve the dual purpose of creating UHPC containers for radioactive nuclear waste disposal, and ridding the environment of large amounts of a variety of other polluting contaminants.
NSIE METHODOLOGY - 2
TRANSPORTATION
SAFE
The US government, with over 60 years of experience, has an extensive and well-tested program for the safe transportation of radioactive waste. There has never been one example of any transportation event resulting in the release of radiation from a shipping container. Most all international nuclear power nations have a similar safety report.
SECURE
The U.S. government has overseen the transportation of well over 3,000 shipments of radioactive waste for more than sixty years. These shipments are always overseen by security personnel. There has never been any successful attempt, nor even an unsuccessful attempt, to hijack any shipment of radioactive waste in the United States. Most all international nuclear power nations have a similar security record. In France, which is a major supplier of nuclear electrical power for much of Western Europe, radioactive nuclear waste is transported as if it were just another entirely normal industrial product.
PERMANENT
Our UHPC containers are designed and intended to be very long-lasting. This will not require any changes or reloading of the radioactive contents either before, during, or after the transportation process. Once the waste is loaded into our UHPC containers, no further steps or changes are needed to ensure the permanence of our methodology.
AFFORDABLE
All interstate and intrastate shipping rates for the transportation of radioactive waste are already clearly set by the government. NSIE will not need or request any modifications of these universal standards.
NSIE METHODOLOGY - 3
STORAGE
SAFE
Our national supply of radioactive nuclear waste is categorized in three levels: high-level waste (mostly spent fuel rods), medium-level waste, and low-level waste. Most high-level waste consists of spent fuel rods of radioactive nuclear pellets about the size of small peas and is stored on site near the nuclear power plants that used these rods to generate commercial electricity. The fuel rods will be placed into our UHPC containers in an upright position. The rods will be held in place by a matrix designed to hold them stably in place, as wine bottles are held in place in a cardboard carton to prevent their motion and vibration against one another. After the fuel rods are inserted into the matrix inside the container, the container will then be filled with fresh UHP concrete to safely immobilize the fuel rods in place inside the containers.
SECURE
After NSIE containerizes the radioactive waste in our UHPC containers, these containers will remain on-site for secure medium-to long-term storage while awaiting the government’s plan for final disposition of our national stock of nuclear waste. Nuclear powered electrical generating plants typically take up roughly one square mile of space, including employee parking, offices, administration buildings, maintenance and storage spaces, and, finally, the power plant itself. Nearby are the cooling towers where spent fuel rods are stacked up to be air cooled inside what looks like an old- fashioned barn silo, about 10 feet in diameter and 15 to 20 feet tall. These facilities have a long history of being secure from hostile intervention of any sort. Most every nuclear power plant already has several tons of spent fuel rods stored on location, either in water cooling ponds or in air cooled silos, or similar facilities. They are securely contained and protected, and have not been successfully attacked by demonstrators, agitators, criminals, or terrorists of any sort. Newly encapsulated in our UHPC containers, this radioactive waste will be even more secure than before.
PERMANENT
Our UHPC containers will be designed for safe storage and transportation as necessary, and will be suited for temporary, long-term, and/or permanent storage at whatever location the U.S. government finally selects for the permanent disposal of this radioactive waste. Modern formulas for concrete have been developed and tested by engineering schools all around the world. It is reasonable to suppose that these greatly improved UHP concrete formulas will equal and surpass the longevity and durability of the formulas of previous engineers.
AFFORDABLE
A major advantage of our UHPC containers is that they are more affordable than current containers being tested and used for the temporary or long-term storage of radioactive nuclear waste. Many current containers are constructed of expensive metallic alloys, or of vitreous or ceramic materials of various sorts. They are, in fact, expensive to manufacture and are often adversely affected by the residual radioactive energy of the nuclear materials being contained. Our UHPC containers will be more affordable than current containers being used for transportation and short-term and long-term storage of radioactive waste. Our formulas will utilize vast quantities of materials that are waste byproducts of other industrial operations. This includes materials resulting from the mining, production and manufacturing of iron and steel, and of copper mining, and paint manufacturing, among other things. Currently, there are tens of millions of tons of those hazardous materials that have run out of suitable places for their disposal. Our methodology will not only create affordable containers for nuclear waste disposal, but will also make a major contribution to cleaning up our environment by utilizing and disposing of large quantities of the hazardous waste byproducts of other industrial activities.
NSIE METHODOLOGY - 4
DISPOSAL
SAFE
There are currently 440 nuclear power plants in 32 countries around the world, including over 100 in the United States. There are at least an additional 60 power plants under construction, with more planned for the near future. Each one of them must face the problem of radioactive waste disposal. Virtually every country is looking at inground disposal, typically 1000 to 2000 meters underground. Whether the US government eventually decides on above ground, or shallow, or deep burial into secure, stable geologic formations, our UHPC containers add another major level of safety to the radioactive waste being disposed of. Our containers are as strong as, or stronger than, other types of containers currently in use.
SECURE
If our government decides to dispose of the containers of radioactive waste in deep underground burial sites, 1,000 - 2,000 meters underground, they should be secure from malignant or unfriendly intrusion into the unforeseeable future. Insofar as one may predict the long-distant future, the containers should be secure from hostile tampering. This choice of disposal will require long-term (and potentially expensive) guardianship and maintenance and will remove the above-ground area surrounding the site from any other use far into the future.
PERMANENT
Currently, the thirty-two nuclear power nations in the world are all considering plans for the final disposal of their nuclear waste by creating geologic burial sites 1,000 to 2,000 meters underground in what they believe to be the safest and most long-lasting locations available. In the meantime, all are storing their radioactive waste at short- or long-term sites of relative safety and security. Whatever final plans these nations may develop for final disposal of their radioactive waste, it is critically important that they have containers that are provably safe and durable for the very long time span necessary to assure that the hazardous radioactive waste will be securely contained long into the unforeseeable future. We believe that our UHPC containers can provide them with the greatest degree of certainty for this indefinitely long-term task.
AFFORDABLE
Once these UHPC containers have been filled with radioactive waste and transported to their final site for storage/disposal, there are no further costs to be incurred for guardianship, maintenance, or repair. There are no significant legacy expenses for future generations to contend with, as far as the radioactive waste is concerned. As a direct result of our proposal, nations will be able quickly to move forward with plans to recommence the construction of new and updated nuclear power plants. This will provide affordable, clean, safe, and dependable electricity to people almost anywhere on earth. It will be possible to make significant improvements to the overall environment of the air, land, and sea of the entire planet while easing much international tension caused by the quest for oil and other limited fossil-based energy sources.
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The use of nuclear power for electricity generation has only one serious, unsolved problem: how to provide for the safe, secure, permanent, and affordable disposal of radioactive nuclear waste. North Star International Enterprises Inc. has developed a proprietary method for accomplishing this goal and thereby paving the way for the unlimited production of affordable, clean, and dependable nuclear electricity for endless generations to come.
By an act of Congress, nuclear power generation companies in the U.S. are required to store their radioactive waste onsite and to maintain the safety of that waste for 60 years – with an automatic extension (as mandated by Congress) for an additional 60 years. The public pays a high price for the ongoing “temporary” storage and management of this waste; according to government reports, dangerous radioactive elements are leaching into the local groundwater at every nuclear waste site in our nation. In addition, the nuclear waste remains at risk of destructive intervention by any criminal or terrorist organization that may try to wreak havoc or to extort financial or political concessions from our nation.
NSIE’s solution is the creation of a strong, secure, and provably safe container for the containment, transportation, storage, and disposal of radioactive waste. We have designed and developed a container made of Ultra High Performance (UHP) concrete with a compressive strength of well over fifteen tons per square inch. Our containers are easy to manufacture, create a very small environmental footprint, and are much less expensive than any other type of container currently in use for merely storing – not disposing of – radioactive waste.
Each container will have embedded computer chips for unique identification and will include monitoring and GPS location sensors for real-time tracking. The sheer size and weight of each container provide security from any attempts to seize and escape with them for any unlawful or destructive purposes. The sensors and GPS locators will provide instantaneous monitoring of each container and will ensure that each can be precisely located at any given moment, from its manufacture, to its loading with radioactive waste, to its transportation, and to its final disposal.
Our nation has a perfect record, for well over 60 years, of safe transportation of radioactive waste materials, without a single mishap resulting in death because of radiation exposure. There has never been an example of any criminal or terrorist intervention against the safe transportation of radioactive waste in our country.
Various governmental agencies estimate our nation's total amount of high-level radioactive waste at about 100,000 tons. This waste is mainly in the form of spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. In addition, scientists and nuclear power industry experts estimate the amount of low- and medium-level waste at 150 to 200 million tons. Neither governmental agencies nor nuclear power industry experts have created any practical solution that can realistically and affordably solve the problem of the permanent disposal of all this radioactive nuclear waste.
NSIE will transport the UHP containers following the well-established regulations and procedures created and overseen by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Transportation. The safe transportation of radioactive nuclear waste via the highways, railways, and waterways of our nation is already well provided for and has been well-tested for many years without a single death caused by the release of radioactive materials. NSIE will strictly comply with these regulations and guidelines.
The current U.S. Government position on radioactive nuclear waste focuses on managing and storing the waste, not disposing of it. There is currently no program in operation for the final disposal of that waste. The danger to the public and to the natural environment grows steadily worse. Speculative proposals for the safe storage of waste in underground depositories fifteen hundred to two thousand feet below the surface of the ground cannot guarantee the long-term security of the radioactive waste. All such proposals for underground geologic disposal are very expensive. Nor can they guarantee the long-term safety of the human and natural environment from future radioactive contamination. The possibility of a natural or man-made disaster is almost inevitable. NSIE’s methodology, utilizing the UHP containers for the storage and disposal of radioactive nuclear waste, can help ensure that unlimited quantities of dangerous radioactive waste will never endanger the human or natural environment again by disposing of all of it safely forever.
The only serious, unsolved problem with the nuclear production of electrical power is the question of what to do with the dangerous radioactive waste. Our disposal methodology will allow for the rapid expansion of clean, affordable, safe, and dependable nuclear power in our nation and around the world, and for the early decommissioning and replacement of all fossil fuel electrical generating plants. That alone will provide a remarkable enhancement of the environment and a major improvement in the overall health of people all around the world. The World Health Organization calculates that over 1.2 million people die each year as a direct result of the air pollution caused by coal-burning power plants and other uses of fossil fuels. The beneficial effects on the world environment will be immeasurable, permanent, and ongoing. Our methodology can also provide for the complete disposal of all other forms of hazardous materials as well, such as industrial, chemical, biological, and medical waste of every sort. NSIE offers a comprehensive solution, providing for the safe, secure, permanent, and affordable containment and disposal of all radioactive waste in unlimited quantities and in perfect safety, forever.
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