Who is Timothy Frazier?
Tim Frazier
MS, Systems Engineering
Years of Experience in September 2006: 16
EIS Project Manager for Proposed Consolidation of Nuclear Operations Related to
Production of Radioisotope Power Systems...
...The
DPEIS states that RPSs are being developed "for NASA space exploration
purposes and not for military purposes". But it is well known that
military applications are in the background. For example: "The
primary driver for us to start production [of plutonium-powered batteries] is
for national security requirements," said Tim Frazier, director of the
energy department's radioisotope power systems program in Washington, D.C.
"As to what those national security applications are, I would just prefer
to say not in space." (Associated Press July 3, 2005)
Source: http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/pubs/rps/NASA_RPS_FPEIS.pdf
Tim Frazier was raised near Dayton, Ohio, and spent his childhood within sight of the Department of Energy (DOE) Mound Site in nearby Miamisburg. Unfortunately, the plant is not only known for working to advance nuclear technology. It also caused extensive uranium contamination of the groundwater aquifer, and soil contamination including radium, tritium and plutonium-238. Despite problems associated with Mound over the years, Frazier grew up to manage the facility. "I have the utmost confidence in the DOE's construction and maintenance of nuclear facilities," he said. "I even moved my wife and two little girls closer to the site when I took over."
Today, Frazier is the document manager for a proposed plutonium production consolidation project for the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and the DOE's technical expert on plutonium-238. (On February 1, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory-West became the Idaho National Laboratory.)
Frazier was part of a DOE team that recently conducted "scoping" meetings in Idaho and surrounding states to answer questions and quell fears about the plan to bring all the plutonium-238 production to Idaho. Citizens attending the meetings stated concerns that bringing plutonium-238-sometimes referred to as the most deadly substance known to man-to Idaho would jeopardize the environment and health of residents around the INL facility in Eastern Idaho.
Plutonium-238 is an isotope created after irradiating neptunium-237 with a nuclear reactor. It is 275 times more radioactive than weapons grade plutonium, since it decays much faster. Engineers harness the significant heat created by this rapid decay to generate electricity for radioisotope power systems, as well as unmanned NASA spacecraft like satellites and interplanetary probes. The Viking craft that landed on Mars in 1976 and the Cassini Space Probe were two crafts that relied on long-lived plutonium-238 batteries to power their scientific instruments.
But Frazier says that many obstacles keep scientists from making the compact thermoelectric generators as efficiently as they should. "Currently the department produces these systems in a very inefficient and dangerous way," he says. "First we ship neptunium-237 from Idaho to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it gets fabricated into targets. It is then shipped back to Idaho for irradiation, shipped nearly a thousand miles to Los Alamos in New Mexico for processing and finally trucked back to Idaho for construction of the radioisotope power systems. We want folks to know that we could make the process so much safer and cheaper by consolidating it in Idaho."
The DOE claims that centering this entire process in Idaho will streamline nuclear production, improve safety issues dealing with transportation and potentially save millions of dollars. But according to Jeremy Maxand, the executive director of the nuclear watchdog group The Snake River Alliance, the DOE's claims are only half the story.
"Idahoans are being asked to bear the burden of the cost and risk without being told the benefit," Maxand says. "It makes me highly suspicious that on one hand they sell this extremely hazardous process to Idahoans via sleek NASA space batteries, when in fact we've made them for decades using plutonium purchased from Russia's stockpile. Then in the next breath they'll say that the plutonium-238 produced in Idaho will be used for classified national security missions that are not space based at all."
Frazier is guarded in his descriptions of the missions that would be supported by the $230 million proposed facility. He insists, however, "They are no non-military, non-defense related national security; the plutonium-238 will not be used in earth's orbit or for spy satellites, nor will they be in any way space based."
As for the Russian plutonium, Frazier is more forthcoming. "Indeed," he says, "We have been allowed to purchase plutonium for NASA space missions from Russia, but we have made agreements with their government not to use it for our many national security purposes. Plus, just because the Russians happen to be our friends right now doesn't mean they will be in the future. The U.S. needs to decrease our reliance on their plutonium."
Maxand, however, is still not convinced. "O.K., the DOE is proposing a project that could leave Idahoans breathing plutonium for the next 80 years and [they] won't tell us what its for," he says. "Lets talk about something they can't hide from the public. Plutonium-238 is lethal and difficult to contain. Is this secrecy going to benefit Idahoans given the DOE's well-documented and abysmal track record for worker, community and environmental safety?"
Fears over secrecy are nothing new to the DOE. For over 40 years, the department operated the nation's defense nuclear weapons complex without any independent, external oversight. As a result, by the late 1980s, significant public health and safety issues had accumulated at many facilities. In response, Congress created an independent oversight organization, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The DNFSB is charged with providing advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy "to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety." It has also issued stern warnings to the DOE over the past decade about HEPA filtration systems, a safeguard intended to be the last line of defense for the public against toxic emissions.
"The HEPA filtration and passive confinement ventilation systems widely used in nuclear facilities are not adequately capable of containing hazardous materials with confidence since they allow a quantity of unfiltered air contaminated with radioactive material to be released from an operating nuclear facility during accident scenarios," said the DNFSB.
When asked about possible accidents like earthquakes, tornados and fires compromising a building that housed plutonium-238 in Idaho, Tim Frazier's only response is brief: "Those situations are highly unlikely."
Unexpected events and accidents, however, have occurred. In 1957, for instance, a fire began in a glove box at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Golden, Colorado. Combustible gases passed under pressure through ventilation ductwork, ignited the HEPA filters, and caused the exhaust system to explode. Plutonium contamination, spread throughout the building and outdoors through the ventilation system. Observers outside the building saw a "very dark" smoke plume 80 to 100 feet high billowing from the building.
Another fire in 1969, again at Rocky Flats, spread through several hundred interconnected glove boxes in two connected buildings. Caused by the spontaneous ignition of a plutonium briquette, the blaze contaminated the two large buildings and exposed firemen to high doses of radiation. Off-site plutonium measurements after the accident were well above normal.
More recently, in the summer of 2000, wildfires in the vicinity of the Hanford Nuclear Facility hit the highly radioactive waste disposal trenches. Airborne plutonium radiation levels in the nearby cities of Pasco and Richland, Washington, were reportedly elevated to1,000 times above normal.
According to a 2004 report by the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is abundant evidence in areas surrounding the Los Alamos National Labratory-the site after which INL's complex would be modeled-that hazardous emissions are escaping the facility despite DOE's best efforts to contain it. The CDC concluded that the soil surrounding LANL contains as much as 100 times more plutonium than was previously estimated. According to the same report, Los Alamos County has an abnormally high rate of breast, melanoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, ovary, prostate, testicular and thyroid cancers, and Los Alamos residents, even those who have never worked at the lab itself, have more plutonium in their bodies than any one other county nationwide.
Despite reassurances from government officials, many Idahoans remain unconvinced. And if attendance at the first round of public meetings is any indication of disapproval, the plutonium consolidation proposal could meet stiff resistance from all corners of the state.
"Even under the best circumstances, plutonium is difficult to control and could have devastating health and environmental impacts on Idaho's people and environment," says Maxand. "Plutonium is a boomerang that has always come back to bite us, and this project will be no different."
While the DOE is set to release the draft Environmental Impact Statement in late April, DOE officials maintain they intend on starting construction of the INL plutonium facility in October of this year. The Snake River Alliance is organizing public meetings across Idaho to inform people of the potential risks involved with such a proposal. the case against the plutonium space race
Source: http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A480
Tim Frazier was raised near Dayton, Ohio, and spent his childhood within sight of the Department of Energy (DOE) Mound Site in nearby Miamisburg. Unfortunately, the plant is not only known for working to advance nuclear technology. It also caused extensive uranium contamination of the groundwater aquifer, and soil contamination including radium, tritium and plutonium-238. Despite problems associated with Mound over the years, Frazier grew up to manage the facility. "I have the utmost confidence in the DOE's construction and maintenance of nuclear facilities," he said. "I even moved my wife and two little girls closer to the site when I took over."
Today, Frazier is the document manager for a proposed plutonium production consolidation project for the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and the DOE's technical expert on plutonium-238. (On February 1, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory-West became the Idaho National Laboratory.)
Frazier was part of a DOE team that recently conducted "scoping" meetings in Idaho and surrounding states to answer questions and quell fears about the plan to bring all the plutonium-238 production to Idaho. Citizens attending the meetings stated concerns that bringing plutonium-238-sometimes referred to as the most deadly substance known to man-to Idaho would jeopardize the environment and health of residents around the INL facility in Eastern Idaho.
Plutonium-238 is an isotope created after irradiating neptunium-237 with a nuclear reactor. It is 275 times more radioactive than weapons grade plutonium, since it decays much faster. Engineers harness the significant heat created by this rapid decay to generate electricity for radioisotope power systems, as well as unmanned NASA spacecraft like satellites and interplanetary probes. The Viking craft that landed on Mars in 1976 and the Cassini Space Probe were two crafts that relied on long-lived plutonium-238 batteries to power their scientific instruments.
But Frazier says that many obstacles keep scientists from making the compact thermoelectric generators as efficiently as they should. "Currently the department produces these systems in a very inefficient and dangerous way," he says. "First we ship neptunium-237 from Idaho to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it gets fabricated into targets. It is then shipped back to Idaho for irradiation, shipped nearly a thousand miles to Los Alamos in New Mexico for processing and finally trucked back to Idaho for construction of the radioisotope power systems. We want folks to know that we could make the process so much safer and cheaper by consolidating it in Idaho."
The DOE claims that centering this entire process in Idaho will streamline nuclear production, improve safety issues dealing with transportation and potentially save millions of dollars. But according to Jeremy Maxand, the executive director of the nuclear watchdog group The Snake River Alliance, the DOE's claims are only half the story.
"Idahoans are being asked to bear the burden of the cost and risk without being told the benefit," Maxand says. "It makes me highly suspicious that on one hand they sell this extremely hazardous process to Idahoans via sleek NASA space batteries, when in fact we've made them for decades using plutonium purchased from Russia's stockpile. Then in the next breath they'll say that the plutonium-238 produced in Idaho will be used for classified national security missions that are not space based at all."
Frazier is guarded in his descriptions of the missions that would be supported by the $230 million proposed facility. He insists, however, "They are no non-military, non-defense related national security; the plutonium-238 will not be used in earth's orbit or for spy satellites, nor will they be in any way space based."
As for the Russian plutonium, Frazier is more forthcoming. "Indeed," he says, "We have been allowed to purchase plutonium for NASA space missions from Russia, but we have made agreements with their government not to use it for our many national security purposes. Plus, just because the Russians happen to be our friends right now doesn't mean they will be in the future. The U.S. needs to decrease our reliance on their plutonium."
Maxand, however, is still not convinced. "O.K., the DOE is proposing a project that could leave Idahoans breathing plutonium for the next 80 years and [they] won't tell us what its for," he says. "Lets talk about something they can't hide from the public. Plutonium-238 is lethal and difficult to contain. Is this secrecy going to benefit Idahoans given the DOE's well-documented and abysmal track record for worker, community and environmental safety?"
Fears over secrecy are nothing new to the DOE. For over 40 years, the department operated the nation's defense nuclear weapons complex without any independent, external oversight. As a result, by the late 1980s, significant public health and safety issues had accumulated at many facilities. In response, Congress created an independent oversight organization, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The DNFSB is charged with providing advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy "to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety." It has also issued stern warnings to the DOE over the past decade about HEPA filtration systems, a safeguard intended to be the last line of defense for the public against toxic emissions.
"The HEPA filtration and passive confinement ventilation systems widely used in nuclear facilities are not adequately capable of containing hazardous materials with confidence since they allow a quantity of unfiltered air contaminated with radioactive material to be released from an operating nuclear facility during accident scenarios," said the DNFSB.
When asked about possible accidents like earthquakes, tornados and fires compromising a building that housed plutonium-238 in Idaho, Tim Frazier's only response is brief: "Those situations are highly unlikely."
Unexpected events and accidents, however, have occurred. In 1957, for instance, a fire began in a glove box at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Golden, Colorado. Combustible gases passed under pressure through ventilation ductwork, ignited the HEPA filters, and caused the exhaust system to explode. Plutonium contamination, spread throughout the building and outdoors through the ventilation system. Observers outside the building saw a "very dark" smoke plume 80 to 100 feet high billowing from the building.
Another fire in 1969, again at Rocky Flats, spread through several hundred interconnected glove boxes in two connected buildings. Caused by the spontaneous ignition of a plutonium briquette, the blaze contaminated the two large buildings and exposed firemen to high doses of radiation. Off-site plutonium measurements after the accident were well above normal.
More recently, in the summer of 2000, wildfires in the vicinity of the Hanford Nuclear Facility hit the highly radioactive waste disposal trenches. Airborne plutonium radiation levels in the nearby cities of Pasco and Richland, Washington, were reportedly elevated to1,000 times above normal.
According to a 2004 report by the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there is abundant evidence in areas surrounding the Los Alamos National Labratory-the site after which INL's complex would be modeled-that hazardous emissions are escaping the facility despite DOE's best efforts to contain it. The CDC concluded that the soil surrounding LANL contains as much as 100 times more plutonium than was previously estimated. According to the same report, Los Alamos County has an abnormally high rate of breast, melanoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, ovary, prostate, testicular and thyroid cancers, and Los Alamos residents, even those who have never worked at the lab itself, have more plutonium in their bodies than any one other county nationwide.
Despite reassurances from government officials, many Idahoans remain unconvinced. And if attendance at the first round of public meetings is any indication of disapproval, the plutonium consolidation proposal could meet stiff resistance from all corners of the state.
"Even under the best circumstances, plutonium is difficult to control and could have devastating health and environmental impacts on Idaho's people and environment," says Maxand. "Plutonium is a boomerang that has always come back to bite us, and this project will be no different."
While the DOE is set to release the draft Environmental Impact Statement in late April, DOE officials maintain they intend on starting construction of the INL plutonium facility in October of this year. The Snake River Alliance is organizing public meetings across Idaho to inform people of the potential risks involved with such a proposal.
Source: http://www.altweeklies.com/gyrobase/AltWeeklies/Story?oid=oid%3A147839
INTERVIEW...
...an opportunity to talk with the DOE's lead person in regards to the proposed measure to begin the new drive to become more self sufficient in domestic Pu-238 production.
BB: Welcome Tim Frazier to nuclearspace.com.
in 2005.
You are document manager for the Department of Energy: Office of Space and
Defense Power Systems and the Office of nuclear energy, science and Technology.
Could you explain your tasks at the DOE and this particular Environmental Impact
Statement (ESI) and the obligation the DOE has with complying with the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the proposed consolidation of nuclear
operations related to the domestic production of quality radioisotope for power
systems particularly for space operations?
http://www.nuclearspace.com/A_RTG_DOEVIEW2_FIN.htm
TWIN FALLS -- Issues of water and waste weighed heavily on the minds of Magic Valley residents as they gathered at a Department of Energy meeting Wednesday night. "Everybody is interested in the radioactive waste," said Tim Frazier, a DOE spokesman. "We are as well." Last November, the DOE proposed a plan to consolidate the production of radioisotope power systems at the Idaho National Laboratory near Arco. At Wednesday's meeting, Frazier and other DOE officials laid out the details of the proposal. However, it was the details that some nuclear opponents said the presentation lacked. Ester Ceja of the Snake River Alliance labeled DOE's Draft Environmental Impact.
"It just doesn't give us any detail as to what the real impacts are," she said. "DOE has a bad track record. You have lied to us before."
Currently, DOE manufactures the power systems through a combination of steps at three sites: INL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. DOE already uses INL's Advanced Test Reactor when making the power systems. The Energy Department has provided plutonium-238-based power systems for NASA and national security missions for over 35 years. If plutonium-238 production is consolidated at INL, the operations will generate about 20 cubic meters of transuranic waste annually, Frazier said.
Operations at INL currently produce about 10 cubic meters of transuranic waste per year. And, INL houses roughly 62,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste as part of its Cold War legacy. The DOE believes that the national security mission will make the waste eligible for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, Frazier said.
The amount of waste potentially generated by consolidation doesn't trouble John Kotek, department manager of DOE in Idaho Falls. Kotek says the new waste won't hinder current cleanup plans. "We shipped more than 100 cubic meters down to WIPP last week," Kotek said "Yeah, there's a big cleanup job out there. But we're getting it done."
Kathleen Trever, the state of Idaho's coordinator for INL oversight, monitors the DOE's progress toward its cleanup agreement with the state of Idaho. "The INL has a cleanup mission today because during the Cold War the federal government was less accountable for how it managed waste and other environmental impacts," Trever said.
"That lack of accountability resulted in environmental problems and public mistrust." Local podiatrist and nuclear opponent Peter Rickards suggested that the Energy Department's plan for waste disposal isn't what it seems. Rickards says that the department may intend to bury the waste onsite, instead of shipping it to WIPP as DOE officials propose. "Let's do it the Bush way," Rickards said. "Let's do it cheap."
Another environmental problem that consolidation may bring to Idaho is its use of water. Power system production already uses 27.5 million liters of water at the INL site per year. Consolidating operations would raise that to 74.4 million liters of water annually, according to the department's summary. That extra use concerns JoEtta Abo, of Paul, who said she waited six weeks to have her well deepened. "Thank you for using our share of water to produce something that could kill us all," Abo said.
Times-News reporter Michelle Dunlop can be reached at 735-3237 or by e-mail at mdunlop@magicvalley.com.
Source: http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2005nn/0507nn/050728nn.txt