I couldn’t just let this one slip by, without a brief visit on GMD.
Between 1978 and 2006, Kodak, the company that brought us the Brownie then held a near monopoly on photography through most of the twentieth century, secretly had a nuclear reactor tucked away in the basement.
Though unbeknownst to the good people of Rochester, New York going about their daily lives all around it, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission assures us that they knew all about it.
Matt Pearce of the LaTimes made this wry observation:
A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the Los Angeles Times that the company had enriched 1,582 grams of uranium-235 up to 93.4%, a level considered weapons-grade. Good thing Kodak isn’t in Iran; that’s the kind of thing Israel’s been threatening to go to war over.
The company, which is now in bankcruptcy proceedings
ditched the uranium in 2007 with the coordination of the U.S. government, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Great. One has to wonder what exactly has become of the waste, and how provision for decommissioning will be built into the bankruptcy. Is it going to be stockholders first and the people of the State of New York only second?
Neil Sheehan, a commission spokesman, told The Times that he doesn’t know how many private companies have weapons-grade uranium but that Kodak’s situation was rare. “This was a unique type of device they were using at Kodak,” he said.
I’m sure the folks in Rochester New York might now agree that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not be trusted as the sole decider when it comes to nuclear safety.
is what I said when I saw this. I lived in Rochester and surrounding environs for 5 years. Scary stuff, that this was allowed to exist, without the citizens of the city and county knowing about it.
Wonder what would have happened had something gone wrong… who would have stepped up and admitted they knew about it? And hid the fact that it was there? Did emergency responders know about it? What if the place caught on fire, or if there was some workplace accident that caused major damage?
Do we need another disaster here at home to force the NRC into change?
(or perhaps Atomic Energy Commission) just lost track of Kodak’s little “unique device”.
What will poor Mr.Sheehan do if we ever have legions of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)scattered throughout the land.
And aren’t we told this is the most heavily regulated industry in the US?
…probably has the weapons too. This does not surprise me. Thank you, Sue, for posting this. Isn’t it funny how ‘liberal’ the government is about nuclear energy, something that should be ‘conservatively’ regulated?
Let’s repeat that:
The NRC doesn’t know how many private companies have weapons-grade uranium.
It’s kind of hard to keep a handle on proliferation if you don’t even know where the stuff is, no?
Famers are not allowed to grow hemp but corporations can have weapons grade enriched uranium?!?
I love this country.