Is Yucca Mountain the Only Solution to Radioactive Waste?

Preface Letter

[posted and reprinted with permission]

From: Geerlag@cs.c*om
To: sterlingda@pureenergysystems.c*om
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 10:03 PM
Subject: Re: BG neutralizes radioactive waste

Everything I am doing on deactivation is for all earth people. When the earth people can chose to understand that for a fraction of current DOE costs that all radiation can be eliminated/annihilated, then the baton is passed on. (By the way, it will appear that only high temperature and high voltage eliminates radiation. There are possible methods to obtain 80% reduction of radiation or more at ambient temperature on living tissue or a living human.)

I am working with Global Deactivation of Radiation www.gdr.org to get the word out. You should connect up with Fred Davis at GDR. Also sign up for the GDR news releases to stay current and also catch up on the many years of suppression starting with AEC and greatly in force today by the DOE Secretary.

GDR is posting all the various methods that can deactivate/neutralize radiation.

• Also see Infinite Energy --last three issues
• Also see Brown's Gas
• Also see the Barker Papers
• Also see Searle
• Also see Keller
• Also see www.nuclearsolutions.com -remains from Fred Barker's deactivation efforts
• Also see www.betavoltaic.com
• Also see Moray--1925 deactivation--The FEDS smashed his equipment.
• On and on

The Cold Fusion people find deactivation ever time they use a radioactive isotope in their solutions. Now called LENR Water deactivation was reported at the August Conference by Dan Davidson by Dr. Z.. First report of water deactivation was made over forty years ago. It all disappeared into corporate America aka GE.

Currently Bush is running TV spots in Nevada saying Yucca Mountain is based on "Sound Science." At best it is "Stone Age Science" or more lately known as "Voodoo Science."

Kerry has got it right -- Close down Yucca Mountain. Kerry just needs to understand that it is the optimum solution. By Sonne Ward's Implosion Technology, the spent electric nuclear fuel rods can be deactivated on site for less than $100 million for all of the 62 sites compared to DOE's "VooDoo Science" methods for over $100 Billion and growing. See [Trial begins on U.S. nuclear waste costs]

Recently DOE paid Sonne a visit, Sonne agreed to say nothing about deactivation, and DOE would no longer harass him. All as the trial was being scheduled. DOE buryies a possible witness???????

There are dozens of radiation deactivation/neutralization processes. And more new ones discovered -- FOUR that I know of this year. I am sure that it is more than four this year. Just maybe the hundredth monkey effect is starting. I hope so! Just pick any one of the many deactivation methods and just do it. A few deactivation methods can do 100% deactivation and others less than 100%.

Larry Geer

NUCLEAR HALF-LIFE MODIFICATION TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER 001

IS YUCCA MOUNTAIN THE ONLY SOLUTION TO RADIOACTIVE WASTE?

Radioactive isotope half-lives can be decreased to neutralize nuclear waste and weapons. This phenomenon can be accomplished by using equipment available since the late 1800’s and this technique has been known for the past 40 years. Incorporating this technique can result in vast financial savings, solve the current insurmountable environmental problems of radioactive waste storage and ensure this planet a future free from the threat of deadly nuclear radiation contamination.

Data on these processes have been accumulating for the past 40 years and the database continues to grow. More and more unfunded independent experimenters are reporting their findings and substantiating various methods of Nuclear Half-Life Modification. A basic demonstration of Half-Life Modification can be easily demonstrated in almost any of the high school science laboratories. Currently, the cold fusion (now called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, LENR or Chemical Assisted Nuclear Reactions, CANR) experimental reports are disclosing increased energy release, and also confirm deactivation when radioactive isotopes are used in the solutions, which results in transmutations in the solutions and on the electrodes.

Many renowned scientists may find this half-life modification statement beyond all reason. This I have been told many times by many PhDs over the past 40 years. The Secretary of Energy announced, as was reported April 9, 2003 in the Los Angeles Times, that the DOE Secretary knew of no other way of disposing of the nuclear waste other than burying it at Yucca Mountain (and like sites). This declaration created impedimenta that must be overcome to provide for the safety and health of people on this planet Earth. The continued release of nuclear radioactive materials into the environment happens to involve the entire planet. This presents imminent danger to the entire planet population. Madame Curie is a well-known example of the devastation caused by nuclear radiation. Should the current radioactive nuclear waste disposal practices be continued by the authorities, the steady and mounting degradation of a healthy life on planet Earth will continue to accelerate. Recently this degradation has been significantly increased by the use of depleted uranium (DU) on the military test ranges and on the battlefields covering large areas of this earth, land, air and water.

This newsletter will present the discoveries for modifying radioactive isotope half-lives. Initially in my case Cecil Baumgartner of Glendora, CA experimentally performed the radioactive isotope deactivation for the permanent elimination of radioactive nuclear waste. The first indication of half-life modification occurred in the early 1900’s and very likely, unknowingly. The first half-life modification to be reported occurred in April 1932 (experimenter(s) and location specified later).

My curious nature had to know why the radioactive isotopes half-lives were a specific assigned value and why not a variable value. I was taken aside and told that isotopes had been frozen, heated, crushed, pressurized, grounded, electrocuted, and any thing else that they could think of doing to an isotope, but the isotope always had its assigned half-life value afterwards-just as published. Therefore, I was duly informed to knock it off and just use the published book values.

That worked out very well in my nuclear project assignments. That is until I met Cecil Baumgartner while working on some nuclear projects. I had known Cecil for some time, then one day he decided to share one of his previous nuclear experiences. Cecil had always been very thorough and tenacious in all of his engineering activities. Cecil, as a research engineer, in the late 1950’s was experimentally processing ceramic nuclear fuel elements. This ceramic material was processed at a very high pressure and heated to a very high temperature by an induction coil in vacuum. The finished processed fuel element tested 35% short of the specified fuel mixture. This was immediately interpreted as a weight error in preparing the initial mixture. There was very strict accountability of the fuel, however, and the residual unprocessed nuclear fuel was weighed and verified the correct amount specified for the fuel element had been removed. The vacuum chamber and evacuation filter were checked but no trace of the missing fuel could be found. Was the material stolen? Well, there were no traces of radioactivity and all personnel radiation exposure badges were clear so no one could have carried the radioactive fuel off the premises. No one thought of analyzing the fuel element for transmutations to non-radioactive elements.. The missing fuel remained a mystery.

During the 1950’s several companies were working on many nuclear projects and some probably had experienced the missing radioactive isotopes for some of the fabrication processes. One such incident may have occurred at NUMEC when 8 kg of U235 (total amount of material being processed is not revealed) became missing after some fabricated parts being subjected to some high pressure forming at high temperature. Zalman M. Shapiro and probably others were accused of stealing the U235 by the investigating federal agencies. NUMEC had received many orders and took on first-of-a-kind contracts for nuclear fuels. The nuclear half-life could have very likely been modified by transmutation of the 8 kg of radioactive U235 to non-radioactive isotopes in the high pressure and high temperature processes. Again the investigations failed in finding or even beginning to identify the culprit for the missing 8 kg. It was just lost, but how?

The missing 35 % of the radioactive fuel in the ceramic hot pressing process became a data point for Cecil that would generate great tenacity in his search for modifying the half-life of radioactive isotopes. One day in late 1963, just before JFK was assassinated, Cecil came by my office and asked if I wanted to work on the nuclear waste projects for the rest of my life. I did not find that to be appealing for my interest with so many more interesting projects to be involved in during this time period. Cecil then said he did not want to be working on nuclear waste projects the rest of his life. How could Cecil and I know at that time many people considered playing with nuclear waste to be generational continuous employment for themselves and their children?

Then Cecil shared even more of his nuclear experiences. He was sure that he could deactivate radioactive isotopes. He had a modified diathermy device, voltage equipment, and vacuum equipment that he was using to treat small, low-level cobalt 60 gamma radiating specimen in his garage. They had been subjected to various AC voltage levels at various frequencies at moderate to high temperatures within the limits of the equipment being used. He had been doing these experiments in his garage, not a well-equipped, generously funded research laboratory! At this point he had exhausted his personal allotted funds for his independent research. This then became the start of the brainstorming and discussion sessions regarding the possibility of eliminating radioactivity in nuclear isotopes, especially for the ever-accumulating daily nuclear waste in all forms.

At that time, and still today in the nuclear industry, the nuclear dogma was/is that radioactive isotopes had/have a specific half-life and it has not been proven that nuclear isotope half-lives can be changed by any physical and/or chemical methods known to mankind. Radioactive isotopes are earth’s timekeepers for dating and clocks. Currently the encyclopedia and nuclear textbooks still state that the half-life of radioactive nuclear isotopes can NOT be changed by any physical and /or chemical methods.

Lord Rutherford reported on April 28, 1932 at a meeting of the Royal Society, that J. D. Cockcroft and E T. S. Watson in the Cavendish Laboratory had successfully demonstrated the accelerated release of radioactive energy from lithium elements and other light elements. The most surprising feature at the time was the relatively low voltage necessary. Could this have been the first accelerated decay transformation? Could this be the first indication that the current nuclear dogma that isotope half-lives are immutable is false????

Segre and Wiegart established decay rate mutability in 1949. They showed that decay rate was dependent on the chemical environment for Be7, which decays by electron capture. This was extended to the physical environment by investigators for other isotopes, which can decay either by electron capture or isomeric transitions.

The earth is a negative charged (positive charged for electrical engineers) orb traveling in space with an associated magnetic field. The earth has a surplus of electrons and varies in voltage potential to the ionosphere by 300,000 to 400,000 volts (some times more or less) with respect to the ionosphere. The steady loss of electrons from the earth is called ionic current and amounts to about 9 microamps per square mile of the earth’s surface. The entire earth’s surface and the ionosphere is the oppositely-charged plates of a vast capacitor with the air between them acting as a rather inferior insulator, for it leaks continuously. This ionic current can be rather variable due to many influencing conditions that exist over time. Electrical storms can locally increase the electrical potential many times over the so called normal value. Additionally the magnetic field can vary over the earth’s surface. These various earth conditions cause the decay rate of radioactive isotopes to vary over the earth’s surface and over eons of time. Once one realizes that this is the case, then the next step is to vary certain environmental conditions specifically on an isotope that one would prefer to exhibit an increase in half-life or a decrease in half-life. All that can easily be done.

Infinite Energy magazine, Issue 53, 2004, in the article by Gary Christopher Vezzoli entitled “Gravitational Data During the Syzygy of May 18, 2001 and Related Studies” presented data for changes in the earth gravity field. Amazingly, another section in the article presented data measuring the change of decay rate for Po210 corresponding to a lunar variation. Pu239 decay variations were presented for daily monthly, and yearly time frames. Decay rate variations were observed for the period of September 7-11, 2002, when Jupiter eclipsed a deep space quasar. Not only local earth environment affects decay rate of radioactive isotopes, now data is presented showing cosmic influences on the decay rate on earth from the sun, the moon, planets, and one quasar.

Then in late 1963 it was agreed to change Cecil’s equipment configuration by adding an operating base DC field, negative or positive, for testing the radioactive specimen. This was accomplished by using a full wave rectified center tap transformer that Cecil specified for the power available in a residential garage and to operate with the diathermy equipment. The full wave transformer produced a variable DC voltage due to 60 Hz feed. The initial plan was to let the various frequencies produced by the diathermy to ride on the varying DC field. A variac was used to control the DC voltage to the specimens being tested.

Early 1964 the new transformer had been fabricated. Cecil then installed the new full wave rectification transformer and was ready to start experiments on his cobalt gamma radiation specimens again. A cobalt gamma radiating specimen finally yielded to the available electrical and temperature conditions in a vacuum. It was found that the field provided by the diathermy equipment was not required to produce a permanent change in level of radiation on the cobalt gamma radiating specimen. It was found that a positive DC field even at high temperature did not produce any measurable change in the specimen activity. It was found that a negative DC field of sufficient voltage potential at a sufficient specimen temperature did produce significant measurable changes in the radiation levels measured by a Geiger Counter. By increasing the temperature in what one could call “the critical neutralization deactivation temperature” the treated specimen was reduced to measured background readings with a Geiger Counter. Additional monitoring showed a continued background reading. The radioactive level had been permanently reduced.

Cecil Baumgartner came in one morning early in 1964 and reported that he had deactivated the gamma radiation in the cobalt specimen to background radiation level. The readings for the specimen after a specific treatment were at normal background levels. Eureka!!!!

Can I do the same operation with the equipment for a gamma radiating cobalt specimen and get a similar result? A time was agreed to and with Cecil’s directions and under his watchful eye I operated the equipment to try to obtain a similar result. A specimen that had a high active count was selected for the test. Equipment was checked for radioactivity and indicated background levels. The specimen was placed on the pedestal, arc gap adjusted, bell jar was greased and placed on its platform. Electrical connections were checked for the correct polarity, i.e., a negative charge (positive charge for all you electrical engineers) on the pedestal where the specimen was placed. Electrical equipment was switched on for the vacuum pump and for the electric controls to the specimen.

The vacuum pump had to create a reduced pressure in the bell jar for the purpose of creating an electrical arc (3000 volts maximum from the center tap transformer) and thus the heating effect on the specimen once the electrical arc was established and at the same time placing a negative electric field (less than 3000 volts when operating with the electrical arc) on the specimen for deactivation that was placed on the pedestal in the evacuated bell jar. The major concern was obtaining an adequate temperature (critical deactivation temperature) on the specimen by the electric current in the vacuum and power available from the electrical equipment, since it was limited by available electrical power current. The specimen attained a nice orange glow, probably somewhere around 2400 degrees Fahrenheit. Held at temperature for a minute or so and turned off the vacuum pump. The electric arc was then broken as the bell jar lost its vacuum. The heating stopped since the electrical arc was broken. The electrical field was maintained during cool down of the specimen. The electric field was discontinued after the specimen had cooled down and the bell jar was removed.

The Geiger Counter was then used to make radiation measurements. The specimen showed background readings. The result was very few counts as compared to the high number of counts prior to treatment. The pedestal, bell jar, HEPA filter located between the bell jar and the vacuum pump, vacuum hose, and the vacuum pump were still at their initial background readings. The data convinced me that elimination of radioactivity and deactivation/neutralization had occurred for the treated cobalt specimen.

These cobalt specimens had been irradiated in the Northrup Research reactor to a permitted level of activity not requiring a license or health physics monitoring. Cecil and I were well aware of the hazards of radiation at any level and used very safe procedures in handling of the material for the deactivation experiments.

ANY IONIZING RADIATION IS UNSAFE TO LIVING TISSUE AT ANY LEVEL. This includes X-rays, cell phones, microwave, cathode ray tubes, radioactivity in food, DU, uranium mine tailings, etc.

More testing was confirming for various other materials like alloys of steel and aluminum. The materials were demonstrating that a critical deactivation temperature had to be attained in a negative voltage potential to reduce the activity to a measured background level. When the critical deactivation temperature was not attained, only a partial deactivation/neutralization was recorded for the specimens with varying activity levels.

Starting in March 1964 Cecil Baumgartner conducted the initial experiments on irradiated stainless steel and the radioactivity was reduced 50%. A higher temperature was used, melting the specimen, and the radioactivity was reduced 75%. Carbon steel was tested and the radioactivity count was reduced 98.5%. Cobalt 60 isotope levels were reduced from 3000 counts per minute to a level indistinguishable from background radiation levels. Aluminum specimens at melt temperatures were reduced to background radiation levels.

Materials that were vaporized in the high voltage corona and condensed onto the inner surface of the bell jar and in the HEPA filter to the inlet of the vacuum pump were totally devoid of any radioactivity. Have you ever seen a radiation monitor count go below background or essentially no counts?? The first time can be scary. You immediately think “instrument failure”. The equipment (transformer, bell jar, vacuum pump, HEPA filter, carbon crucibles used in the bell jar, pedestal, bell jar mounting surface) used for these deactivation experiments were thoroughly surveyed by competent safety technicians and found the equipment devoid of any radioactivity.

Year 1964 marked the demonstration of intentional deactivation of radioactive materials for the sole purpose of eliminating radioactivity in waste. This was the foundation for the Baumgartner Nuclear Half-life Modification Technology which has remained dormant these many years.

In 1964 we thought and believed that radioactivity in nuclear waste would soon be history on planet earth. As history has proven us wrong, we now know and understand that there is a fortune, billions yearly, to be made by saving every scrap of radioactive nuclear waste and trying to bury it in Yucca Mountain and in cleaning up spills, leaks, and escaping radioactive particles from decaying containment schemes. We were just looking at the wrong goal post. No one receiving the funds has any interest in eliminating radioactivity in nuclear waste. Nuclear Half-Life Modification Technology could reduce the cost to a fraction of the cost that is experienced today. Someone tried to tell me that the money was mother’s milk of politics.

Cecil Baumgartner can be contacted at cabaum@keyway.n*et

Submitted by Larry Geer at geerlag@cs.c*om