Broad Scope License: Licenses issued to large facilities
authorizing possession of a wide variety of radionuclides.
(B&W) Babcock & Wilcox: Major nuclear manufacturer and maker of pressurized water nuclear reactors (PWRs), fuel rods etc.
(Comb.Eng.) Combustion Engineering: Maker of PWRs
(DOE) Department of Energy: Successor agency to Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Responsible for nuclear weapons and cleanup programs/promoter of nuclear power.
Curie: A quantity of nuclear material undergoing 37 billion disintegrations per second(equivalent to one gram of radium and named after Marie Curie). Stored irradiated fuel contains approximately 25,000,000,000 (25 billion) curies.
(DU) Depleted Uranium: Uranium 238 left over after "enrichment." Massive quantities of Depleted Uranium are used in ammunition and tank construction creating a major contamination problem.
(EPA) Environmental Protection Agency: Responsible for rad-waste Super-Fund sites. In the process of listing all known rad contaminated sites. Sets radiation standards for DOE, NRC and Superfund sites.
(FUSRAP) Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program: 44 contaminated sites previously used by the AEC or its predecessor, the Manhattrm Engineering District .
(GE) General Electric: Major nuclear contractor and maker of boiling water reactors (BWRs).
Heap Leach / In-situ Leach: Process by which uranium ore (sometimes copper) is leached(in a heap or in place) using a highly toxic acidic solution to extract uranium.
Hot Cell Operations: Processing, fabrication of reactor fuels, chemical operations to recover uranium or plutonium. Remote handling of fissionable material (plutonium or uranium 235).
(INEL) Idaho National Engineering Laboratory: Major weapons production complex; rad-waste storage/severe contamination.
(MTU) Initial Metric Tons of Uranium: Initial weight of enriched uranium contained in fuel rods at nuclear power reactors. Weight used to determine the weight of irradiated fuel rods in storage on site.
(LANL) Los Alamos National Laboratory: Location where Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were designed; still major weapons factory.
MM3: Minute Man 3 intercontinental ballistic missile.
NAS; NS; SNWC; NSB: Naval Air Station/ Naval Station/Surface Naval Weapons Center/Naval Submarine Base.
NPL Site: National Priorities List Sites "informational & managerial tool, identifying facilities & sites or other releases which appear to warrant remedial actions."
Nuclear Laundry: Licensed to launder ciothes and other fabrics used by workers in nuclear facilities. (There have been several instances where sewage treatment plants near nuclear facilities have become seriously contaminated)
(NRC) Nudear Regulatory Commission: Successor to AEC. Licenses nuclear reactors & approximately 22,000 other nuclear facilities/promotes nuclear technology.
NRC Agreement States: 31 states which license their own nuclear facilities (approximately 15,000 licensees) under NRC rules.
Phosphate By-Product: Process by which uranium and radioactive phospoorus is extracted as a by-product of phosphate mining for phosphoric acid production (mainly in Florida and Louisiana).
Radioactive: Material that spontaneously emits ionizing electromagnetic energy in the form of rays (gamma rays & X rays), or sub-atomic particles (beta particles, alphaparticles, neutrons, protons etc.) (Ionizing radiation is energy of a high enough level to remove electrons from an atom creating free radicals, a process which is especially dangerous for living things).
(SDMP) Site Decommissioning Management Plan: 47 former Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed sites seriously contaminated by radiation. The SDMP sites were established after congressional hearings and are widely seen as cosmetic.
SD: Shut-down facility.
(SM) Source Material: uranium or thorium; Source of fissionable materials.
(SNM) Special Nuclear Material: Plutonium, uranium 233 or 235; fissionable material.
"Spent Fund: A highly misleading term used to describe irradiated fuel rods. Irradiated fuel rods contain approximately a million times the radioactivity of "fresh" fuel rods.
TPD: Tons per Day' (used to categorize the size of uranium mills).
(UMTRAP) Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Program: Controversial program to provide disposal, or stabilization and control of uranium mill tailings piles and vicinities. There is strong evidence that the cleanup program hasn't worked.
(WIPP) Waste Isdation Pilot Project: Controversial project to isolate plutonium and other transuranic rad-waste in salt caverns near Carkrbad, NM The caverns are becoming flooded and the project is doubtful after billions of dollars spent.
(West.) Westinghouse: Major nuclear contractor and primary maker of PWRs and steam generators.
< / >: Less than / Greater than
copyright Louise Franklin-Ramirez