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1、Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, thats what critics accuse the U.S. Department of Energy of: making the same mistakes over and over in a project that has already squandered billions of dollars in taxpayers money.
2、 But the risk here is far greater than financial, since it involves highly toxic nuclear waste. At stake are millions of gallons of radioactive liquid waste left over from the making of nuclear bombs, including the one that was dropped on Nagasaki. This waste has been sitting in underground tanks in
3、 Hanford, Wash., ever since, while the government tries to figure out how to clean it up. As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, the waste is so lethal that a small cup of it would kill everyone in a crowded restaurant, in minutes. 60 Minutes recently visited Hanford, where the witches brew is being
4、 stored. Hanford, located along the Columbia River, is home to the most contaminated piece of real estate in the world outside of Russia. It is contaminated by waste left over from the production of nuclear weapons. There are 53 million gallons of highly radioactive liquid waste stored in undergroun
5、d tanks that are now so old they have leaked one million gallons of the stuff.Some of it leaked into the groundwater, and its heading right for the river. With a million people downstream, theres a sense of urgency about cleaning up the site, which is huge. It takes up 586 square miles in southeaste
6、rn Washington. But for the Energy Department, which runs the project, its been a case of easier said than done. In the nearly 16 years 60 Minutes has been covering this story, its been one foul up after the next. Charles Anderson, the Energy Departments official overseeing nuclear clean up, gave Sta
7、hl a tour of what has been built so far at Hanford, starting with a replica of the underground tanks. This is a model of tanks that are already built that have waste in them. Be careful with your head here as we go in, Anderson told Stahl during the tour.The tank can hold 750,000 gallons of waste. M
8、any of the tanks, built for the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapons, are more than 60 years old. Anderson explains there are a total of 177 tanks holding high-level waste at this site. The plan is to pump the waste out of the tanks and route it through miles of pipes to a yet-to-b
9、e-completed pre-treatment facility. The idea is to convert the radioactive waste into glass logs. This is where the radioactive waste will come from the tank farms, will come from those tanks and will come in here and be treated in different chemical processes and be turned into glass logs for final
10、 disposition to be disposed of in a landfill, Anderson explains.Stahl last visited the area in 2001, when the site was just a field. Anderson says significant progress has been made. The plants 35 percent complete in regard to construction, he says.But the place is a total ghost town. What happened?
11、What happened here is that after three years of welding, pouring cement and laying miles of pipes and tons of steel, construction came to a screeching halt in 2005 because the Energy Department underestimated by 40 percent how strong the building must be to withstand an earthquake. Were talking abou
12、t a building that would be full of radioactive liquid. In a building like this, you need to build it to ensure that it withstands whatever an earthquake may pose - if there is one - because we absolutely do not want a breech of this radioactive material in the atmosphere, says Gene Aloise of the Gov
13、ernment Accountability Office (GAO), Congress investigative arm.But heres what 60 Minutes has learned: that the Energy Department and the contractor, Bechtel, went ahead with the plant knowing their seismic standard might be off. Just as construction was about to begin in July 2002, an independent s
14、afety board sent a letter, warning the department. Energy debated with the safety board for almost two years over the standards, says Aloise.Ok, let me understand this. This is brought up as an issue in 2002. Instead of going back right then, they debate until 2005, during which time theyre building
15、 the building? Stahl asked Aloise.Theyre building the building, he replied.They were building it using the wrong seismic standard. Because they did factor in some margin of safety, the contractor, Bechtel, has told the Energy Department there is no restructuring required on the foundation or the wal
16、ls. But Aloise says what they do have to fix are the internal components of the building. Hangers, piping, vessel supports, all of this interior of the building, where the technologys going to rest. That all has to be re-engineered, he explains. They have to re-do tens of thousands of designs.The seismic miscalculation is costing at least $800 million and a two- to four-ye
