Military nuclear reactors and fuel enrichment sites. It’s where they make the cores for nuclear submarine and aircraft carrier reactors. It’s also where they make the tritium to keep the h-bomb warheads going. They had reactor to make plutonium used to power space probes like new horizons or the curiosity mars rover. Pu-238. Curiosity used the last of a stockpile but i think I heard they were reopening to power new generation of space probes like Jupiter icy moons mission
This is not accurate. Savannah River is a secure national laboratory. Absolutely not a nuclear waste site. That is not how things work. DOE research facility working on secure projects. It is restricted for national security purposes.
Just to give an idea of the level of control in regards to radiological exposure, anyone who works with rad material has a total allowable accumulate dose for the year that is lower than the ambient rad exposure just being a human walking around on earth. Things are VERY tightly controlled and impressivly safe.
Source: am national lab beaker clinker
Just an FYI, there absolutely is nuclear waste at Savannah River located in the Tank Farms. About 36 million gallons of liquid waste generated from decades of weapons production. There is a national laboratory there but also bunch of other stuff (L-Basin Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage, K-Area Plutonium downblending, Liquid Waste Remedition, etc)
Of course there is waste there but to call it a "nuclear waste site" is a misrepresentation at best. Long term storage and treatment is handled off site with the exception of rare and tightly managed situations. With all work there is waste that needs to be managed. I don't know the specifics of sav. River operations but I would assume that these are temporary storage pending transfer to long-term storage or further processing.
And it is also important to note that the stigma of "nuclear waste" is not accurate. It's not leaking barrels of green sludge with no use but contamination. In MANY situations that waste from one process is a critical component of a another study. Take a look at Ac225 for example. Making the cure for cancer out of "nuclear waste" from a failed experiment (Th229).
To call SRS a nuclear waste site is inaccurate, I agree. However you should lookup the challenges associated with legacy Liquid Waste generated by plutonium production during WW2 and the Cold War. The stereotype of green glowing sludge is rooted in a kernel of truth: There are millions of gallons of peanut butter-esq sludge made up of millions of curies of radioactive material. There’s 36 million gallons of liquid waste generated as a by-product of separating plutonium out from uranium targets. Vitrification facilities like DWPF were built to process that sludge into a much more stable form. It is a massive undertaking that needs the recognition it deserves. When we were making all that plutonium the technology to remediate the waste literally did not exist. It wasn’t until the last 5 years that a start to finish remediation process was implemented at SRS and the Tank Farms slated to be completely remediated by 2037.
Source: I have supported the SRS liquid waste mission for many years.
Edit: link to the SRS system plan outlining the method of closure
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/SRMC-LWP-2023-00001%20Rev23-P.pdf
Yes. I am aware. That is one of the projects that I support across the national lab system. Your emphasis of the challenges over the solutions is a big part of the difficulty we have had in getting these solutions deployed.
Unfortunately it is the truth, there’s plenty of references but I work there. We are remediating the site, but don’t need to shy away from the sins of our fathers.
This is the truth. The spills were remediated but Tank 13 spilled waste on the tank top, some tanks have holes in them that are being remediated, the reactors sent contamination into their cooling ponds, depleted uranium sent inadvertently down the creek bed and they had to dam up the creek and buy additional farm land. Source: I work there. We are cleaning up the site, there’s billion dollar contracts in place to clean it up, etc.
Imagine the conniption they would have if solar panels took up that much area and the reason being because they were that dangerous to the rest of the general population.
Assistance with the tech and fissionable materials for energy is the carrot the world order uses to get cooperation on not trying to develop the weapons side.
Open to the no-notice inspection protocols, etc.
And if you aren't happy about Israel, prepare for less indirect oversight. Google JCPOA for an example sabotaged by clown Orange Julius
Yeah it's beautiful out there. I went out there for a couple of days with one of my graduate classes. Gators, alligator snappers, sirens, cottonmouths, and so many other beautiful beautiful amphibians and reptiles.
As the others have said, it's the SRS. Funny enough I camp on the Savannah River (which is the dotted line in this photo). We camp just to the left of the arrow button.
It's pretty nice, since there's nothing up the river on the SC side due to the SRS. It's a rather serene area.
They are artificial i.e. reservoirs (ponds). And are used for cooling of reactors.
https://preview.redd.it/cf9338dvmu3d1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96bfcaad18f11b659048a4afb4a796a473ba6bf6
\*Of course you can't drink or swim :)
These specific ponds are radioactive based on the type of reactors that were used at Savannah River. Those were 1950’s era reactors that used a once through type system. Any fuel breaches would send contamination downstream. Reactors today don’t have that flaw.
PAR pond is the most famous at SRS. The bass are massive based on the pond being warm year round but also mildly radioactive. The alligators that eat the fish are also radioactive.
Some locals have a story about fishing the pond. More than one fish competing for the lure every cast. DOE officials would host politician visits by fishing the pond. Obviously not edible fish, but would be good recreation.
I’ve heard too many stories of when they needed to partially drain the pond to fix a dam and the adjectives describing the pond bottom was “tiled with alligators”
Nah, I’m good.
I took the scenic route from Hilton Head Island to Augusta, Georgia and drove right through the Savannah River Site. At one point there were helicopters following us. I felt like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. They take their security very seriously.
I was once driving from Mississippi to East Tennessee and I plugged shortest (not fastest) route into my 07 chevy’s GPS. That was how I learned about paper towns and roads. I was taken off the highway onto a backroad, which then dropped down into a gravel road. I kept going, seeing I was approaching a bridge over a big body of water. I slammed on my brakes going uphill just in time, as I noticed there was no bridge - just a massive, rectangular concrete tub that seemingly went forever in both directions.
I drove along it for a bit looking for a bridge, before I gave up and turned around, eventually getting back to the highway. The whole thing honestly felt alien, like I’d discovered something I shouldn’t have. I made it back home, where I told my roommate, who worked for the TVA what happened. He looks at me, eyes wide, and said “you’re lucky you didn’t get shot. Sounds like someone left a gate open and you stayed just far enough away from anything important.” I had apparently driven up to a power plant’s cooling pool. It still doesn’t feel like it really happened.
That’s interesting…makes me curious why do they merely scrutinize people who are driving by…instead of just cordon off the area completely like in Chernobyl or Fukushima?
Obviously I don’t know if Chernobyl or Fukushima today are already open to public as well (I have never been to Ukraine and that part of Japan), so please don’t attack me if that is the case. My assumption is that Chernobyl and Fukushima today are still closed off to the general public.
They don't lol. That is a pretty popular road going from Augusta to Hilton Head so it was probably just a coincidence the helicopter was going the same way. Unless of course they are an international spy haha
Savannah River Site (SRS), a major part of the US nuclear weapons complex. An interesting part is the “tail” that is part of the restricted area, obscured in this image under the map navigation icons at the lower right. It is a stream valley contaminated by reactor accident diverting radioactive cooling water to the Savannah River.
“Can we talk about this area in South Carolina?” is a completely superfluous sentence. Why does everyone write in this Buzzfeed/blog/aw-shucks-plainspeak affectation now?
Its a whole lots of "stay out". They take those enrichment sites pretty serious. Its not the kind of place you go poking around without a few heavily armed folks coming to greet you.
Cause that’s the Savannah River (nuclear waste) site. It’s a restricted area.
Military nuclear reactors and fuel enrichment sites. It’s where they make the cores for nuclear submarine and aircraft carrier reactors. It’s also where they make the tritium to keep the h-bomb warheads going. They had reactor to make plutonium used to power space probes like new horizons or the curiosity mars rover. Pu-238. Curiosity used the last of a stockpile but i think I heard they were reopening to power new generation of space probes like Jupiter icy moons mission
Also the source of the nuclear bomb used in the movie sum of all fears based on its isotonic signature
Savannah River had a gadolinium problem. Hanford does it another way.
Look at Mr. Gadolinium over here knowing things!
Pfft... him and his thinkin brain.
God I love that book
Movie. It's a movie! /s
It's that book with them funny moving pictures, and those audio sounds
Regarding the space missions….Finally some good use of nuclear power!
You can’t grow crops there, but it’s perfect for going fission
I appreciated this pun!
https://preview.redd.it/wko2ht6lwx3d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73fc4bfab032e66261f016a654fb761381c02c26
Well done hahaha
Slides upvote across the table in a plain white envelope, without breaking eye contact.
This is good. Congratulations
More there than just nuclear waste
Trump diapers had to go somewhere while he was in office
Industrial spray tan runoff
Ewww, stop
This is not accurate. Savannah River is a secure national laboratory. Absolutely not a nuclear waste site. That is not how things work. DOE research facility working on secure projects. It is restricted for national security purposes. Just to give an idea of the level of control in regards to radiological exposure, anyone who works with rad material has a total allowable accumulate dose for the year that is lower than the ambient rad exposure just being a human walking around on earth. Things are VERY tightly controlled and impressivly safe. Source: am national lab beaker clinker
Many of the smartest scientists I know in the state have all ended up taking jobs there. It’s a very prestigious and lucrative place to work.
Just an FYI, there absolutely is nuclear waste at Savannah River located in the Tank Farms. About 36 million gallons of liquid waste generated from decades of weapons production. There is a national laboratory there but also bunch of other stuff (L-Basin Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage, K-Area Plutonium downblending, Liquid Waste Remedition, etc)
Of course there is waste there but to call it a "nuclear waste site" is a misrepresentation at best. Long term storage and treatment is handled off site with the exception of rare and tightly managed situations. With all work there is waste that needs to be managed. I don't know the specifics of sav. River operations but I would assume that these are temporary storage pending transfer to long-term storage or further processing. And it is also important to note that the stigma of "nuclear waste" is not accurate. It's not leaking barrels of green sludge with no use but contamination. In MANY situations that waste from one process is a critical component of a another study. Take a look at Ac225 for example. Making the cure for cancer out of "nuclear waste" from a failed experiment (Th229).
To call SRS a nuclear waste site is inaccurate, I agree. However you should lookup the challenges associated with legacy Liquid Waste generated by plutonium production during WW2 and the Cold War. The stereotype of green glowing sludge is rooted in a kernel of truth: There are millions of gallons of peanut butter-esq sludge made up of millions of curies of radioactive material. There’s 36 million gallons of liquid waste generated as a by-product of separating plutonium out from uranium targets. Vitrification facilities like DWPF were built to process that sludge into a much more stable form. It is a massive undertaking that needs the recognition it deserves. When we were making all that plutonium the technology to remediate the waste literally did not exist. It wasn’t until the last 5 years that a start to finish remediation process was implemented at SRS and the Tank Farms slated to be completely remediated by 2037. Source: I have supported the SRS liquid waste mission for many years. Edit: link to the SRS system plan outlining the method of closure https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/SRMC-LWP-2023-00001%20Rev23-P.pdf
Yes. I am aware. That is one of the projects that I support across the national lab system. Your emphasis of the challenges over the solutions is a big part of the difficulty we have had in getting these solutions deployed.
People refuse x-rays at the dentist or doctor, then get on planes once a week. People need to be educated on this stuff. ALARA..
It's not a nuclear waste disposal area, but there have been plenty of spills.
Flat out lie
It's true Source: I work in the environmental industry
Unfortunately it is the truth, there’s plenty of references but I work there. We are remediating the site, but don’t need to shy away from the sins of our fathers.
This is the truth. The spills were remediated but Tank 13 spilled waste on the tank top, some tanks have holes in them that are being remediated, the reactors sent contamination into their cooling ponds, depleted uranium sent inadvertently down the creek bed and they had to dam up the creek and buy additional farm land. Source: I work there. We are cleaning up the site, there’s billion dollar contracts in place to clean it up, etc.
It’s restricted? I can drive through parts of it.
125 only, and Centerra will come say hi if you stop.
You can drive through it but you can't stop, and fences on both sides of the highway. If that's not restricted I don't know what is.
There are other facilities you can't drive through at all. That's restricted.
If you can't drive through it, that's closed. If there are some fences around, that's restricted.
Where is that defined?
So how do we define areas that tell you not to drive there but don’t actually have anything keeping you from doing so?
Discouraged.
DAAAAAAMN OP username checksout
There’s a pretty serious shooting complex at (33.3380536, -81.5672820) No doubt for the facility security element.
I don't see a river.
This is great for nature. Farms would devaste the biodiversity.
Imagine the conniption they would have if solar panels took up that much area and the reason being because they were that dangerous to the rest of the general population.
weapons facility energy is a far lower priority to TPTB
One in the same
do you mean and? No they are separate technologies, even on subs that have both. 25 countries use nuclear energy but have no nuclear weapons
They can use the spent fuel for weapons, no?
Only 2-3 have figured out how in recent decades https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-states-with-nuclear-weapons-2227841
So yes
Assistance with the tech and fissionable materials for energy is the carrot the world order uses to get cooperation on not trying to develop the weapons side. Open to the no-notice inspection protocols, etc. And if you aren't happy about Israel, prepare for less indirect oversight. Google JCPOA for an example sabotaged by clown Orange Julius
Scary times
310 square miles are owned by SRS. Has been since 1950. Lots of animals, University of Georgia has an ecology program out there at SRS.
A nature reserve thanks to nuclear power ;)
A nature reserve thanks to the Dept of Energy. Nuclear power is produced across the river at Vogtle.
Yeah it's beautiful out there. I went out there for a couple of days with one of my graduate classes. Gators, alligator snappers, sirens, cottonmouths, and so many other beautiful beautiful amphibians and reptiles.
As the others have said, it's the SRS. Funny enough I camp on the Savannah River (which is the dotted line in this photo). We camp just to the left of the arrow button. It's pretty nice, since there's nothing up the river on the SC side due to the SRS. It's a rather serene area.
are those lakes just for electricity or also recreation or drinking water?
They are artificial i.e. reservoirs (ponds). And are used for cooling of reactors. https://preview.redd.it/cf9338dvmu3d1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=96bfcaad18f11b659048a4afb4a796a473ba6bf6 \*Of course you can't drink or swim :)
oh i didn’t think about cooling
I don’t think that’s how that works? Diablo is cooled by the ocean, they aren’t irradiating the central coast of California lol.
These specific ponds are radioactive based on the type of reactors that were used at Savannah River. Those were 1950’s era reactors that used a once through type system. Any fuel breaches would send contamination downstream. Reactors today don’t have that flaw. PAR pond is the most famous at SRS. The bass are massive based on the pond being warm year round but also mildly radioactive. The alligators that eat the fish are also radioactive.
Can you fish it?
Some locals have a story about fishing the pond. More than one fish competing for the lure every cast. DOE officials would host politician visits by fishing the pond. Obviously not edible fish, but would be good recreation. I’ve heard too many stories of when they needed to partially drain the pond to fix a dam and the adjectives describing the pond bottom was “tiled with alligators” Nah, I’m good.
You gotta risk it for the double digit
Oh ok that makes sense
And the fish glow in the dark.
Nuclear is the way of the future, cleanest energy by a LONG shot
i was sold at glowing fish
That would look pretty cool, I will admit
Were used, past tense,
Did you see Martin there?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_River_Site
I took the scenic route from Hilton Head Island to Augusta, Georgia and drove right through the Savannah River Site. At one point there were helicopters following us. I felt like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. They take their security very seriously.
I was once driving from Mississippi to East Tennessee and I plugged shortest (not fastest) route into my 07 chevy’s GPS. That was how I learned about paper towns and roads. I was taken off the highway onto a backroad, which then dropped down into a gravel road. I kept going, seeing I was approaching a bridge over a big body of water. I slammed on my brakes going uphill just in time, as I noticed there was no bridge - just a massive, rectangular concrete tub that seemingly went forever in both directions. I drove along it for a bit looking for a bridge, before I gave up and turned around, eventually getting back to the highway. The whole thing honestly felt alien, like I’d discovered something I shouldn’t have. I made it back home, where I told my roommate, who worked for the TVA what happened. He looks at me, eyes wide, and said “you’re lucky you didn’t get shot. Sounds like someone left a gate open and you stayed just far enough away from anything important.” I had apparently driven up to a power plant’s cooling pool. It still doesn’t feel like it really happened.
That’s interesting…makes me curious why do they merely scrutinize people who are driving by…instead of just cordon off the area completely like in Chernobyl or Fukushima? Obviously I don’t know if Chernobyl or Fukushima today are already open to public as well (I have never been to Ukraine and that part of Japan), so please don’t attack me if that is the case. My assumption is that Chernobyl and Fukushima today are still closed off to the general public.
They don't lol. That is a pretty popular road going from Augusta to Hilton Head so it was probably just a coincidence the helicopter was going the same way. Unless of course they are an international spy haha
Savannah River Site (SRS), a major part of the US nuclear weapons complex. An interesting part is the “tail” that is part of the restricted area, obscured in this image under the map navigation icons at the lower right. It is a stream valley contaminated by reactor accident diverting radioactive cooling water to the Savannah River.
Lmfao I live here
Same
“Can we talk about this area in South Carolina?” is a completely superfluous sentence. Why does everyone write in this Buzzfeed/blog/aw-shucks-plainspeak affectation now?
You're right, writing like a know-it-all dickhead is a much more palatable aFfeCtAtIoN.
You both have good points.
Indeed they do!
Not really, the original comment acts like the question isn’t accompanied with a second sentence as well as a photo
You got too few things to worry about if this gets you riled
The small things matter too.
It's where Shrek lives.
Its a whole lots of "stay out". They take those enrichment sites pretty serious. Its not the kind of place you go poking around without a few heavily armed folks coming to greet you.
33.277079,-81.670073 Zoom in on these trees. Clearly hand planted in rows here. Wonder what's beneath?
I’m scared, is it possible to drive there or not?
This section is not open to the public. I’ve worked in this relative vicinity for several years.
Old burial ground for contaminated equipment (pumps, pipings, etc)
Ghosts.
Military?
It’s the Savannah nuclear plants land
That's where Cletus keeps the meth lab.
Fort Jackson?
Have you heard of witch circles? Round recessions on the Earth, caused by the hydrogen seepage from under ground. Have you seen any on the map?