It is not some greenie expressing concern about where the nuclear energy industry is going to store its radioactive waste. No, it’s the Wall Street Journal that is worried.
The WSJ reported:
The majority of the country’s (US’) waste — about 50,000 metric tons — is stored in pools of water known as spent-fuel pools. The circulating water gradually cools the hot radioactive fuel rods.
The hazards of such a system became clear in March, when an earthquake and tsunami knocked out power to Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. In the ensuing disaster, water levels in at least one of the plant’s spent-fuel pools dropped to dangerous levels, allowing radiation to escape….
“That’s a daunting challenge, to find a place that’s secure for 10,000 years into the future,” said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that has been critical of the U.S. nuclear industry. “No one else on the planet has a solution either.”
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Its a level-headed and scary article, not fear mongering. The output from nuclear reactors has high levels of very nasty radioactive elements which will continue to be dangerous for a long-long time. Caesium 137 has a half-life (length of time for radiaoactivity to reduce by 50%) of 30 years. Its particularly nasty because the human body “thinks” its calcium….yeah…goes into babies and children’s bones and teeth and liver and brain and everywhere… Plutonium 239 has a half-life of….24,000 years…get it ? If you cut away all the spin and double-talk, the fact of the matter is there is no humanly… Read more »
Possible solution: Maybe swap with Malaysia?
1) Throw in some cash and annual maintenance fee.
2) Get IAEA to write a report.
3) Project how it may generate multiplier effect on the economy.
4) Advertise as employment opportunity for unemployed graduate.
5) Close one eye in sodomy cases.
Worth considering i think.
No earthquake location…I know, next to one of your mini markets. Can be used as a sales gimmick.
After 3 decades, billions of $ spent and multiple contractors, the plant to process all US nuclear waste at Hanford Nuclear Reserve has not even solved the technical problems. When that is done, it will take decades more to complete. – The Star, 2010 The world’s first geological repository for nuclear waste at Onkalo in Finland cost RM 12.5 billion. The waste is supposed to be stored for 100,000 years, a task we claim to be able to impose on people of the very distant future. The Star, 2011. “Risk is, above all, a question of who is put at… Read more »
Just store the waste at no earthquake location. Safe for all 🙂
This is called fear mongering by some people.