# Transmuting High Level Nuclear Waste

1. Sep 7, 2003

### theroyprocess

FYI

The Roy Process Patent application, apparatus & theory, which contains completed
calculations for transmuting Pu 239, Sr 90 and Cs 137, can only be seen by
scientists representing a company capable of realization who contracts with us.
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It was the TMI partial meltdown that moved Dr. Roy to spend the summer school break proving calculations to see if it was possible to transmute high level nuclear waste cost effectively. He found it could be done with existing infrastructure, commercially available machinery and current supporting technology.

Estimated cost to build a pilot facility was $80 million dollars. A newspaper editor persuaded Dr. Roy to release his Roy Process to the press which was published in November of 1979. (see article on web site below). The Roy Process Brief Description from the web site: http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess Is there a safe process to get rid of nuclear waste? Maybe! One possible solution is a process invented by Dr. Radha R. Roy, former professor of Physics at Arizona State University, and designer and former director of the nuclear physics research facilities at the University of Brussels in Belgium and at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Roy is an internationally known nuclear physicist, consultant, and the author of over 60 articles and several books. He is also a contributing author of many invited articles in a prestigious encyclopedia. He is cited in American Men and Women of Science, Whos Who in America, Whos Who in the World and the International Biographical Centre, England. He has spent 52 years in European and American universities researching and writing recognized books on nuclear physics. He has supervised many doctoral students. Roy invented a process for transmuting radioactive nuclear isotopes to harmless, stable isotopes. This process is viable not only for nuclear waste from reactors but also for low-level radioactive waste products. In 1979, Roy announced his transmutation process and received international attention. The Roy process does not require storage of radioactive materials. No new equipment is required. In fact, all of the equipment and the chemical separation processes needed are well known. Whats the basis for the Roy Process? If you examine radioactive elements such as strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 239, you will see that they all have too many neutrons. To put it very simply, the Roy process transmutes these unstable isotopes to stable ones by knocking out the extra neutrons. When a neutron is removed, the resulting isotope has a considerably shorter half-life which then decays to a stable form in a reasonable amount of time. How do we knock out neutrons? By bombarding them with photons (produced as x-rays) in a high- powered electron linear accelerator. Before this process, the isotopes must be separated by a well-known chemical process. It is feasible that portable units could be built and transported to hazardous sites for on-site transmutation of nuclear wastes and radioactive wastes. To give an example, cesium 137 with a half-life of 30.17 years is transformed into cesium 136 with a half-life of 13 days. Plutonium 239 with a half-life of 24,300 years is transformed into plutonium 237 with a half-life of 45.6 days. Subsequent radioactive elements which will be produced from the decay of plutonium 237 can be treated in the same way as above until the stable element is formed. The Roy Process could be developed in three distinct phases, according to Roy. Phase I consists of a theoretical feasibility study of the process to obtain needed parameters for the construction of a prototype machine. Phase II will involve the construction of a prototype machine and supporting facilities for demonstrating the process. Phase Ill will consist of the construction of large scale commercial plants based on the data obtained from Phase II. Cost estimates for Phase I and II are in the neighborhood of$10 million. For Phase Ill, Roy estimates a cost of $70 million. Says Roy, It will be interesting to do a cost analysis of eliminating nuclear waste by using my process and by burying it for 240,000 years - ten ha if-lives of plutonium - under strict scientific control. There is also an ethical question: can we really burden the thousands of generations yet to come with problems which we have created? There is no God among human beings who can guarantee how the geological structure of waste burial regions will change even after ten thousand years, not to mention 240,000 years." If you are interested in finding out more about this process, please contact Dennis Nester, Roys agent, whose address is listed below. A final note To those who say that a process for transforming nuclear wastes is an invitation to keep making them, I ask, when we find a cure for cancer, shall we say its okay to continue to eat, drink and breathe carcinogens? "There is no way one can change nuclear structure other than by nuclear reaction. Burial of nuclear waste is not a solution." Radha Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus "Do not be surprised if you learn that the nuclear industry makes billions of dollars by being a part of government`s policy of burial of nuclear wastes. It is not in their financial interest to try any other process. They are not idealists. Radha R. Roy, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus The below includes the Patent application claim.....describing other uses for the Roy Process transmutation method http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess/additional-uses-royprocess.html Dennis F. Nester 4510 E. Willow Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85032 USA Last edited by a moderator: Apr 20, 2017 2. Sep 7, 2003 ### wuliheron There also exist other viable alternatives for transmuting radioactive waste including ones that generate power. The issues are not so much technical at this point as they are monetary. As the technology continues to make progress, investiments in new infrastructures are being delayed in the hope that even cheaper alternatives will be found. At just five percent of the population, the US currently produces half the garbage in the world and consumes half the energy in the world. Within twenty years it is estimated the oceans will no longer be commercially fishable and within fifty every wild land animal larger than a dog will be extinct. Making the nuclear industry more environmentally friendly is the just the tip of the iceburg of infrastructure changes required in the near future. 3. Sep 7, 2003 ### selfAdjoint Staff Emeritus And political. The Clinton administration threw the IFR, one of these technologies, as a bone to its green faction. 4. Sep 15, 2003 ### theroyprocess Nuclear Contamination from Earthweek: A diary of the planet by Steve Newman Sat, Sept 13, 2003 http://www.earthweek.com/ Nuclear contamination Japanese researchers warned that marine mammals are being increasingly contaminated throughout the world's oceans by radioactive substances from various sources. The team from the Ehime Prefectural Institute of Public Health and Environmental Science said they have documented the concentrations of radioactive substances in the muscles of dolphins, seals and whales from many regions. They will submit their findings to the U.S. magazine Environmental Science and Technology. They said the coast around Britain provided the worst example, with an average of 17.6 becquerels of cesium-137 detected in 2.2 pounds of muscle from a seal. "Those high figures appear to have been caused by Britain's nuclear fuel reprocessing and the 1986 nucelar reactor accident in Chernobyl in Ukraine," said researcher Ryuji Yo****ome. _________________________ http://www.earthweek.com/ ===== "We're all downwinders!" Check out http://www.downwinders.org 5. Sep 20, 2003 ### jrwnov moron okay, i can find faults in everything, and anything, it's not hard. I just finished reading what you wrote, waht you "downwinders" thing wrote about atomic midnight, b/c that was the first thing that caught my attention, and it was so stupid, i can't continue reading anymore of the web page. do you not understand the need to improve nuclear capabilities? if we are not on the fore front of technology, then we are too far behind! and atomic energy, and other uses (warfare) are some of the best peacemaking tools we have. unless i have misunderstood you, you are an idiot, and as far as i am concerned a tratior to your country, for not supporting its ventures. 6. Sep 21, 2003 ### theroyprocess Reply jrwnov jrwnov, Sounds like you have a severe case of cognitive pain (Cranius, Rectus, Vulgaris). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pressure Reactor Sump Failure http://www.nirs.org/reactors/ucspwrsumpbrief.pdf [Broken] Radiation Basics http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/WhatisRadiation.htm [Broken] From NucNews: David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, contended that the emergency core cooling system "is virtually certain to fail at some plants." Mr. Lochbaum's group used various detailed characteristics included in the report to determine which plant was which, and discovered that the Indian Point reactors were both in the worst five. The lies by alleged regulator NRC and Entergy below are simply astonishing. We're all just guinea pigs as far as they're concerned. If they lie about this, what else do they lie about? NRC needs to be disbanded and a real watchdog put in place. See NRC's web site: http://www.nrc.gov and read just where and how much of their $$comes from whom. Objective? Take the couple of minutes to search http://www.nrc.gov and read for yourself who butters [$$] NRC's bread. About 95% of NRC's funding comes from the nuclear industry. Letters to the editor, calls in to radio & TV programs and face to face discussions need to raise this issue of incestious funding. Referring to NRC as a regulator with a straight face is akin to referring to the mafia as a "gentleman's social club." They're both mass murderers. The mafia just comes in a pathetic second to NRC in their lethality. -Bill Smirnow Last edited by a moderator: May 1, 2017 7. Sep 25, 2003 ### BCRion I'm sure if the NRC were fully funded by the government, you would raise the argument that it wastes the taxpayers money. Where then should the funding come from? This is a no win situation with you. I agree, we should fix all problems in the nuclear industry. The NRC should look to have this problem addressed, if it is needed. They are a very talented and dedicated group of people. I will admit that they have made a few misjudgments in the past. However, overdesign of safety systems compensates for error in judgment as it did with the Davis-Besse plant. I like the NRIS radiation fact sheet and how it references all the important studies on radiation effects on humans such as BEIR. Sarcasm is implied. 8. Sep 26, 2003 ### theroyprocess It's a Psy-Ops World What IS the truth ? ----------------------- http://www.nomorefakenews.com/ PERMANENT COVER STORIES. These are generalized lies that are told over and over, lies that are very useful whenever a situation has to be buried or mis-explained. For instance, we have the ever-wonderful Left versus Right. So many ops are absorbed into that framework. “This happened because the Left was trying to…the Right was trying to…” The Left versus Right cover story always turns out to be a low-level explanation that never gets to the heart of the op. It’s a cover story that is USED, at the highest levels of planetary power, to keep people in the dark. Because the people at the top are neither Left nor Right. Is a snake Right or Left? A snake BITES. That’s what he does. The people at the top CONTROL. It matters not what you call that. PLANET EARTH IS AN OP. Populations are diverted, distracted, repressed, injured, and kept in the dark. As we move into human ant colonies of the 21st century, more and more people are going to be living on the edge. In these great pools of darkness, the controllers are going to shine spotlights on select areas where they tell you you will be safe and protected. They will, in effect, tell you that you can come in out of the cold. For this privilege, you will be asked to give up everything that is at the core of your power. You will be asked to forget that you have any power. For most people, this will be no problem, because they have long ago forgotten about such power. BUT IT IS THERE. It is always there. The game is never over. The adventure is just beginning. JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com 9. Oct 1, 2003 ### theroyprocess Crime Against Humanity And they have the temerity to pitch "education" on their political planks ??? Explain it to your children ! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New York Times Energy Dept. Seeks Power to Redefine Nuclear Waste By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: October 1, 2003 WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - The Energy Department has asked Congress to allow it to redefine some nuclear waste so it can be left in place or sent to sites intended for low-level radioactive material, rather than being buried deep underground. Department officials say they thought they had flexibility in classifying what constituted high-level nuclear waste, but in July, a federal district judge in Idaho ruled that the department's plan for treating waste there violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, a 1982 law requiring the deep burial of high-level waste. The argument concerns tens of millions of gallons of salts and sludges left over from weapons production that are now in tanks in Idaho, South Carolina and eastern Washington. High-level waste is supposed to be encapsulated in glass for burial. The department has chosen Yucca Mountain, Nev., as the repository site, but the site has not yet opened and when it does, it will not be big enough for all the solidified wastes and spent reactor fuel. In the Idaho case, the Energy Department had said that some of the high-level waste was "incidental" and need not be removed from the tanks. The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Snake River Alliance, a local environmental group, along with two Indian tribes, successfully argued that the order violated a longtime policy that high-lev el waste must be deeply buried. The ruling also could affect waste from a defunct civilian reprocessing plant in West Valley, N.Y., near Buffalo. The waste has already been solidified, and department officials said Tuesday that the resulting glass logs would be shipped for deep burial. But the officials said that contaminated buildings and equipment there might be left on site. "This is D.O.E.'s attempt to pawn off highly contaminated stuff on the state," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said on Tuesday. "We are fighting it." Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, the ranking minority member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said that "if the D.O.E. has the authority to change the classification of the waste at will, that pretty much undercuts any Congressional control of the issue." Mr. Bingaman said that one result could be wastes being shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, near Carlsbad, N.M., that did not belong there. A department official said, however, that it would not change what was acceptable at the Carlsbad plant, which is designed for plutonium and other long-lived materials. The Energy Department asked Congressional leaders in August for the authority to decide what constituted nuclear waste. A spokeswoman for the energy committee, Marnie Funk, said on Tuesday that the committee's Republican majority would not accept the Energy Department language, but opponents said that was just one of a series of proposals that the department would make. Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, said in August in a letter to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert that the Idaho case could mean decades of delay in removing the waste from the tanks, and cleanup costs could be 10 to 100 times higher than the$39
billion now estimated.

An Energy Department official said the ruling had
left the department paralyzed.

"The district court decision doesn't say which of
the stuff from reprocessing has to go to Yucca
Mountain," the official said.

Tom Cochran, a nuclear expert at the Natural
Resources Defense Council, said, "Basically what
they're doing is allowing the D.O.E. to abandon
high-level waste and treat it under standards
written for low-level waste."

Recycling Nuclear Waste into commercial
products:

Transmuting Nuclear Waste:
http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess

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10. Oct 2, 2003

### theroyprocess

Russian Caught Selling Nuclear Waste

Russian prosecutors charge official with trying to sell nuclear waste

MURMANSK, Russia (AFP) Oct 01, 2003

http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031001135424.879bugdm.html

Russian prosecutors on Wednesday charged a senior official with trying
to peddle nuclear waste that he collected from the Northern Fleet
stationed in this Arctic port.

Alexander Tyulyakov, 52, deputy director of state-owned Atomflot that
carries out repair work on Russian nuclear-powered ice-breakers based in
Murmansk, tried to sell the radioactive substance in August, officials said.

A regional police spokesman told AFP that Tyulyakov was in possession of
material that could theoretically be used to build a so-called "dirty bomb."

Tyulyakov was arrested after trying to sell the material to Federal
Security Service (FSB, former KGB) agents who were posing as a criminal
gang.

The official faces up to 10 years in prison for trafficking radioactive
material and illegal weapons possession.

In July 1999, two mechanics from the Russian nuclear fleet were arrested
in Saint Petersburg for trying to sell mercury and californium, a
Murmansk.

--

Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 20, 2017
11. Oct 8, 2003

### theroyprocess

What Science?

House: Nuclear Waste Should Not Be Classified Less Hazardous

By J.R. Pegg, DC, October 3, 2003 (ENS)

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2003/2003-10-03-11.asp

Photo: At least 70 of the tanks at the Hanford facility in Washington
have leaked some one million gallons of waste into the soil.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/pics30/hanfordtanks.jpg [Broken]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. House of Representatives has asked the joint
conference committee working on the energy bill not to include a
provision that would allow the U.S. Energy Department to reclassify
millions of gallons of high level nuclear waste as less hazardous.

Critics say the reclassification would allow the agency to leave high
level waste on site instead of burying the waste deep underground.

The Energy Department contends the change is needed to expedite cleanups
of nuclear waste. At issue is some 100 million gallons of high level
nuclear waste created by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the
majority of which is currently stored in underground tanks at federal
facilities in South Carolina, Idaho and Washington.

The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires the Energy Department to bury
this highly radioactive waste deep underground - if the department
reclassifies it as less hazardous, it would be permitted to leave it on
site.

Attorneys general from the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and South
Carolina have formally opposed the proposal.

The federal government should work with states on a technological
solution to expedite the cleanup, "rather than try an end run through
the conference committee," said Representative Jay Inslee, a Washington
Democrat and sponsor of the motion.

"It is very important to clean up this waste rather than just to rename
it," Inslee said.

The House passed a "motion to instruct conferees" to leave out the
provision by voice vote yesterday. This kind of motion is not binding,
but there are signs that the conference committee will heed the request.

Texas Representative Joe Barton, a Republican and conference committee
member, said the conference "had no intention to put in any language on
this issue in the conference report" without the agreement and support
on the issue from the Energy Department and the states who have noted

Barton says the Energy Department is in "advanced negotiations with the
affected governors on a solution."

If a solution is brokered, he added, there is likely to be a renewed
effort to include it in the energy bill.

The Energy Department's attempt to get the language in the energy bill
comes in the wake of victory by environmentalists in federal court that
blocked the department from changing the classification of the waste on
its own.

In July 2003, a U.S. District Court Judge in Idaho ruled that the
department violated the law when it granted itself the authority to
reclassify high level nuclear waste.

The lawsuit, brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in
February 2002, argued that the Energy Department's decision to
reclassify high level nuclear waste in storage tanks as "incidental
waste," violated federal law and would allow the agency to use a
substantially less protective standard of cleanup the DOD waste.

The Energy Department has appealed the ruling - but in a letter sent to
the conference committee this week, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
said the department is not seeking authority to reclassify high level
waste "so as to dispose of it anywhere other than at a repository for
spent fuel."

"All we are seeking is confirmation from Congress of our longstanding
authority to classify various material from reprocessing according to
the risk it presents so that it can be disposed of in a manner
appropriate to those risks," according to Abraham.

The Idaho case did not to blur that authority, says Geoffrey Fettus, an
NRDC attorney who litigated the case.

The judge's decision reaffirmed that the Energy Department does not have
authority to "unilaterally reclassify waste in tanks," Fettus said.

The decision does not bar the department from reclassifying treated
wastes that it removes from the tanks, he said, rather it bars the
department from "not treating the waste, renaming it and pouring
concrete over it."

"The program is not boxed up at all," he told ENS. "The decision had
nothing to do with the pace or flexibility of clean up."

The judge wrote that the Energy Department "does not have discretion to
dispose of defense [high-level waste] somewhere other than a repository
established under [the Nuclear Waste Policy Act]."

The repository chosen for disposal of this waste, which under law must
be encapsulated in glass for burial, is the Yucca Mountain site in
Nevada. The facility, some 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is not
expected to be complete until 2010 and will not be large enough to hold
all of the nation's nuclear waste.

And some in Congress are sympathetic with the Energy Department's view -
Barton told House colleagues, that without further clarification, the
nation could experience clean up delays and could incur "an additional
\$60 billion in cleanup costs."

Others see the administration's motives in a different light.

"The residents of Washington and South Carolina and Idaho are now
finding out what the people of Nevada have known for years," said
Representative Shelley Berkeley, a Nevada Democrat. "The Department of
Energy makes up the rules as it goes along. If it confronts an obstacle
that it is unable to overcome, it simply changes the rules."

--

Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~

Last edited by a moderator: May 1, 2017
12. Oct 22, 2003

### theroyprocess

Yucca Mt. Science Fails

*** P R E S S R E L E A S E ***

For Immediate Release:
Oct. 22, 2003

Contact: Erica Hartman (202) 454-5174
Brendan Hoffman (202) 454-5130

Evidence Mounts That Yucca Mountain Dump Is Flawed

Statement by Wenonah Hauter, Director,
Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board's letter to the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) warning that man-made storage containers at
Yucca Mountain will probably leak should come as no surprise. Despite a
mound of sound scientific evidence demonstrating the flaws of the Yucca
Mountain plan, officials at the DOE have been influenced by the nuclear
industry instead of by fact in their drive to build a high-level nuclear
waste repository. The new finding by the board — the same body that in
January 2002 called evidence supporting Yucca Mountain "weak to
moderate" — further confirms that the project is unworkable and should
be abandoned.

The reliance on engineered barriers to permanently contain dangerously
radioactive waste for thousands of years is a huge safety compromise.
The original law mandating construction of a permanent waste repository,
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, called for a geologic barrier to
permanently isolate the waste from the surrounding environment, not a
man-made one. When it became apparent that the volcanic rock forming
Yucca Mountain could not adequately perform that critical function, the
government waived the requirement. This concession is part of a larger
pattern of making the laws fit the site, not making the site fit the
laws.

Yucca Mountain sits in an earthquake zone where a magnitude 5.6
earthquake damaged a DOE field office in 1992. An earthquake of 4.4
occurred as recently as June 2002. The site itself lies over a
freshwater aquifer supplying drinking water to thousands of people; an
earthquake could exacerbate the problem of water reaching the tanks,
further corroding them and carrying the resulting contamination to the
aquifer below. Again, instead of using this evidence to rule out Yucca
Mountain, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed the law,
making the expected level of radioactive contamination in drinking water
"permissible," a move now the subject of a lawsuit by Public Citizen and
the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The DOE ought to heed the board's warning and drop the Yucca Mountain
project for a safer alternative.

###
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