As nuclear waste piles up, Obama must step up

[jpak]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2011/04/10/as_nuclear_waste_piles_up_obama_must_step_up/

THE OBAMA administration’s decision last year to cancel the long-planned federal nuclear waste depository in Nevada has never seemed more irresponsible. The dangers of unsafely stored nuclear waste have been vividly illustrated in Japan, where spent nuclear fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant caught fire, releasing radioactive material. The administration should reverse itself before pursuing any expansion of nuclear power.

Right now, most spent nuclear fuel in the United States is stored in wet-storage pools at reactors, in much the same manner as the fuel storage system at Fukushima. Nationally, 71,862 tons of waste have accumulated, packed into pools that were never intended to hold so much. Massachusetts is home to 701 tons of spent nuclear fuel, with much more stored across New England.

The Yucca Mountain depository, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was designed to hold radioactive waste for 10,000 years. The facility would not be a complete solution — the nation’s waste stockpiles have already grown too big for Yucca to hold — but it is a viable plan that the federal government spent more than $10 billion developing. The administration’s decision to cancel the depository was a profile in craven political calculation: candidate Obama promised to cancel Yucca Mountain to curry favor in the 2008 Nevada caucuses, and he followed through on the urging of a key political ally, Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada.

While canceling Yucca, Obama also named a blue-ribbon panel to come up with new strategies for dealing with waste. The panel is expected to consider ways to reuse spent fuel, and may also recommend more dry-casking of waste, a process that moves spent rods from wet pools into safer concrete-and-steel boxes. That would be an improvement, but it is not a substitute for long-term, permanent storage.

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[madokie]

1. We need to quit making any more of the shit

first things first, stop the production of the waste until they've figured out a viable way to deal with it. So far the industry has come up with not one safe way to deal with it, not one. When PSO,AEP was planning to build blackfox near here they were telling us the same lies as the industry as a whole is telling the American people today. We okies seen through their bullshit and put a stop to their plans pronto. Thats what the whole country needs to do.

With the loss of our manufacturing base I wonder if maybe we couldn't shut down the more dangerous, ie older, nuke plants we have today. This is bullshit that we're leaving for the civilizations that come after us all this poisonous shit that more than likely they won't know how to deal with it any better than we do today.

rec

[enough]

2. Right. Number One quit making it. Number Two dry casks temporarily. Number Three

figure out permanent storage. Until Number Three is achieved, no more new stuff.

Of course the problem is nobody makes any big money on any of this, so how likely is it to happen?

[Kolesar]

3. The Globe claims that canceling Yucca Mountain was political, but there were geological problems

...with the water table.
If I recall correctly.