5/3/07 UNIT 3: Waste Management (cont.) Unit 4: Resources

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5/3/07 UNIT 3Waste Management (cont.)Unit
4Resources
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Hazardous Chemical and Radioactive Waste
Management

• Dont put down the drain or
• in the landfill

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Hazardous Chemical and Radioactive Waste
Management

• Dont put down the drain or
• in the landfill

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Hazardous Waste

• Toxic to humans and other living things
• ignite or explode
• corrosive
• Unstable
• 150 million metric tons (excluding radioactive
  waste) generated in the U.S. per year

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Examples of hazardous waste

• Organic compounds
• Organic solvents and residues
• Heavy metals
• Oil
• Pigments

• Acids
• Cyanides
• Dyes
• Ammonia salts
• Radioactive waste

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Hazardous wastes may be produced in the
manufacture of

• plastics
• pesticides
• medicines
• paints

• petroleum products
• metals
• leather
• textiles

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Regulations

• 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
  (RCRA)
• Stringent record keeping and reporting to track
  cradle to grave control of hazardous waste
• 1976 The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)
• gives EPA the ability and authority to track,
  test and ban industrial chemicals currently
  produced or imported into the US

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1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response
Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA)

• Established a revolving fund (superfund) to
  clean up the worst abandoned hazardous waste
  sites
• EPA National Priorities List

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Envi Impacts at Superfund Priorities Sites
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Cost of Superfund

• taxes on oil and some products that generate
  hazardous wastes
• 1980 1.6 billion
• 1986 8.5 billion
• 1990 11.5 billion
• Average cost to clean up a SINGLE SITE
• 30 million (not counting litigation)
• By 2000 30 billion (2000)
• Economic questions has it been worth it
  cost-benefit analysis
• Impact on the housing market

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Hazardous waste disposal

• Hazardous Chemical Wastes
• 1) Secure landfill
• 2) Deep well
• 3) Other
• Incineration
• Neutralized by chemical treatment
• Radioactive Wastes

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Kettleman Hills CWM Hazardous Waste Facility

• CERCLA - approved, TSCA and RCRA permitted, Class
  I, II and III Facility.
• accepts waste from all over the west, but mostly
  serves California.
• one of less than 30 commercial chemical waste
  sites in the country
• one of less than ten sites licensed to take
  PCB's.
• 4 miles from in Kettleman City (95 Latino).
• "The next closest populated area, Avenal, has a
  population of 12,000 people (6000 of which are in
  prison)."

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Kettleman Hills Environmental Justice Issues

• 200 twenty-ton trucks filled with chemical wastes
  like PCBs, benzene, and asbestos pass near town
  center
• 1985 Chemical Waste Management was fined 3.5
  million by the EPA and state for faulty record
  keeping and other violations such as toxic
  leakage into water supplies.
• 1990 Chemical Waste proposed to build a
  hazardous waste incinerator
• farm workers, agribusiness growers, and
  politicians organized to oppose the planned
  incinerator.
• In 1991, a lawsuit filed by California Rural
  Legal Assistance on behalf of the community
• the permit process violated the civil rights of
  residents, as meetings, hearings, and technical
  information were given only in English.
• this allegation of environmental racism was the
  first case in the nation to allege civil rights
  violations in an attempt to block a toxic
  incinerator.
• By 1994, the efforts of protesters, more
  stringent requirements under the Clinton
  administration, and the two successful lawsuits
  filed by California Rural Legal Assistance
  instigated Chemical Waste Management to abandon
  its plans.
• Link to EPA website
• http//www.epa.gov/region09/toxic/pcb/disposal.htm
  l

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Radioactive waste

• Differ from other hazardous chemical wastes
• Half life
• Uranium-238 T1/2 4.5 billion yrs
• Plutonium-239 T1/2 24,000 yrs.
• Strontium-90 T1/2 29 yrs
• Iodine-131 T1/2 8 days
• Type of radiation emitted

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Classification of Radioactive Wastes

• Low level
• Over 90
• States dispose of their own
• High level
• Spent reactor fuel rods
• Currently contained in temporary disposal sites
• 1985 EPA specified that they should be disposed
  so they cause fewer than 1000 deaths in 10,000
  years

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How Much Nuclear Waste is in the United States?

• 49,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from
  nuclear reactors.
• 22,000 canisters of solid defense-related
  radioactive waste

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Where is radioactive waste kept

• temporary facilities at some 125 sites in 39
  states.
• more than 161 million people reside within 75
  miles of temporarily stored nuclear waste.

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Treating radioactive waste

• 1. Leaving it where it is
• 2. Disposing of it in various ways
• ? Sub-seabed disposal
• ?Very deep-hole disposal
• ? Space disposal
• ? Ice-sheet disposal
• ? Island geologic disposal
• ? Deep-well injection disposal
• 3. Making it safer through advanced technologies

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Nuclear Waste Policy Act (1982)

• established a comprehensive national program for
  the safe, permanent disposal of highly
  radioactive waste
• directed the U.S. Department of Energy to study
  suitable sites for a geologic repository
• the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the
  Department of Energy is to build and operate it
• in 2002, Congress and the President approved the
  development of a geologic repository at Yucca
  Mountain, Nevada.

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Selecting a site for permanent high-level
radioactive disposal

• Issues
• Sites with LONG TERM geologic stability
• Social/Political issues
• Arid climate
• Low regional water table
• Low population density
• Appropriate rock and geologic structure
• Engineering technology for containment

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Two sites were in development in U.S.

• Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
• Carlsbad, New Mexico
• Store waste drums in rooms in underground salt
  deposit
• Yucca Mountain, Nevada
• 1987 Congress designated as the only site for
  study
• Storage in volcanic tuff

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Yucca Mountain Projecthttp//www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym
p/index.shtml

• Over 20 years of study
• 4 billion dollars
• February 15, 2002 President Bush recommended to
  Congress the issuance of a construction permit
  for the site

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Most Popular Reasons To Oppose Yucca Mountain
Project

• 1. Accomplishes No Reasonable Objective.
• Not enough space to store all of the waste
• 2. Provides Minimal Protection.
• The casks provide the protection. So why Yucca
  Mntn?
• 3. Creates More Nuclear Waste.
• Facilities have a storage limit. By decreasing
  the storage on-site, additional waste will be
  generated.
• 4. Adverse Effects on Future Generations.
• Average half life of over 200,000 years.
• 5. Earthquake Danger.
• Third most seismically active area in US.

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Opposition to Yucca Mnt. (Cont.)

• 6. Fifty Million People Endangered.
• Routes will move through 734 counties across the
  United States. The high-level radioactive waste
  contained in the casks will endanger 50 million
  innocent people who live within 3 miles of the
  proposed shipment routes.
• 7. Terrorist Attacks.
• 8. Costly Accidents and Limited Liability.
• For each spill that may occur (one out of every
  300 shipments is expected to have an accident)
  the cost of the clean-up is estimated
  conservatively at 6 billion dollars. Paid by
  taxpayer money.

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Continued

• 9. Adverse Impact on Water Sources.
• Yucca Mountain sits above the only source of
  drinking water for the residents of Amargosa
  Valley.
• 10. Violates Treaties.
• Yucca Mountain is located on Native American
  land, belonging to the Western Shoshone by the
  treaty of Ruby Valley. The Western Shoshone
  National Council has declared this land a nuclear
  free zone and demanded an end to nuclear testing
  and the dumping of nuclear wastes on their land.

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Alternate Disposal Methods

• MOX fuel burning mixing plutonium with uranium.
  Burns up the plutonium by nuclear fission
• Vitrification borosilicate glass logs buried in
  deep (over 3km) boreholes
• Subductive Waste Disposal

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Mineral Resources
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Resources--General Definition

• All things necessary to human life and
  civilization that have some value to individuals
  and/or society
• What are some resources weve already studied?
• Renewable
• Replaceable on a human time scale

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Resources reserves

• 1) Reserves
• The quantity of a given material that has been
  discovered and can be legally and economically
  extracted with existing technology.
• A conservative estimate
• 2) Subeconomic reserves (conditional reserves)
• Deposits already found but cannot be legally or
  economically extracted with existing technology
• 3) Speculative resources
• Undiscovered resources that are expected to be
  found

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Projections about resource availability and price
depend on

• Projections of future supply
• Size of reserves
• International politics
• Projections of future demand
• Population, standard of living, technology
• Projections of future cost of extraction
• Including environmental costs

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Projected lifetime of reserves (years)(Mineral
Commodities Summaries, 1996)
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Metal Recycling in the US( of consumption)
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Earth Resources

• Fuel earth resources
• B) Non-fuel earth resources
• 1) Metals (mineral resources)
• Al, Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, Pb, Mn, Ni, Sn, Zn, Au, Ag,
  Pt
• 2) Non metals (mineral resources)
• Clays, gypsum, phosphate, salt, sulfur
• 3) Construction (rock resources)
• Sand and gravel

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Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Reserves
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Fuel Resources
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Non fuel mineral-rich countries

• Cuba
• 40 of nickel
• Chile
• 30 of copper
• South Africa
• 50 gold
• 75 chromium
• 90 platinum
• 50 manganese
• diamonds

• US
• 50 of molybdenum
• Australia New Guinea
• 50 of aluminum ore
• Congo
• 50 of cobalt

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Non fuel mineral-rich countries

• Cuba
• 40 of nickel
• Chile
• 30 of copper
• South Africa
• 50 gold
• 75 chromium
• 90 platinum
• 50 manganese
• diamonds

• US
• 50 of molybdenum
• Australia New Guinea
• 50 of aluminum ore
• Zaire (Congo)
• 50 of cobalt

WHY ARE NATURAL RESOURCES SO UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED?
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• Ore
• Rock in which a valuable or useful metal occurs
  at a concentration sufficiently high to make it
  economically worth mining.
• Concentration factor
• (Conc. in ore)/(conc. in average cont. crust)
• Ores are unusual rocks with an uneven worldwide
  distribution

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Formation processes

• 1) igneous
• pegmatites
• magmatic processes
• kimberlites
• 2) hydrothermal
• Sulfide minerals
• lead (PbS),
• zinc (ZnS),
• copper (CuS, Cu2S, CuFeS2)

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Formation processes (cont.)

• 3) metamorphic
• Graphite (carbon) from metamorphism of coal
• Asbestos
• 4) sedimentary
• BIF (Banded Iron Formations)
• evaporites
• phosphorites

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Mining

• Underground mines
• Surface mines
• A) open pit
• Large, 3-D ore body located near the surface
• B) strip mines (used mostly for coal)
• Ore in a strata parallel to the surface

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Federal Regulations governing mining

• National Environmental Policy Act.
• Federal Land Policy and Management Act
• Clean Air Act
• Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Clean Water
  Act)--Safe Drinking Water Act
• Solid Waste Disposal Act
• Comprehensive Environmental Response,
  Compensation and Liability Act
• Toxic Substance Control Act

• Endangered Species Act
• Migratory Bird Treaty Act
• Rivers and Harbors Act,
• Mining Law of 1872,
• National Historic Preservation Act,
• Law Authorizing Treasury's Bureau of Alcohol,
  Tobacco and Firearms to Regulate Sale, Transport
  and Storage of Explosives, and
• Federal Mine Safety and Health Act.

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Modern mine operations

• NMA Website
• Gold production
• http//www.nma.org/technology/gold_production.asp

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Reclamation

• contouring of land
• the placement of topsoil or an approved
  substitute on the graded area
• reseeding with native vegetation, crops and/or
  trees
• years of careful monitoring to assure success
• NMA website Process of reclaimation
• http//www.nma.org/technology/gold_production.asp

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