A Blivet. More nuclear waste than the planned repository at Yucca Mountain can hold will pile up at reactor sites as the government continues to approve license extensions for power plants, an environmental research organization claimed in a study to be released today.
If a repository is built by 2010 in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, its 77,000-ton capacity will be filled by existing spent fuel awaiting shipment. That's not counting another 9,900 tons that will have accumulated in the meantime from license extensions, according to the study by the Environmental Working Group.
posted by kablam
on Oct 23, 2004 -
10 comments
all aboard! next stop, yucca mt. the proposed yucca mt nuclear waste storage site has been approved by the senate. while only a handful of senators believe "we are being forced to decide this issue prematurely," and others are concerned with "thousands of waste shipments crossing 43 states" - most worry only about the risk of the next proposed dump site being in their state if yucca mt falls through. apparently the buildup of toxic waste at the power plants is getting pretty bad - "I believe it is a safe repository," said Lott. If the country does not find a central place for the waste, he said, "we're going to have to shut down" the nuclear industry.
is shutting down the industry a bad thing? if the waste produced by these methods is so deadly and destructive... why aren't we questioning the risk/reward factor of nuclear power plants, instead of just worrying about where to stash the glowing green ooze? they've spent 4.5 BILLION dollars just researching the yucca mt site... could that money have been spent on developing clean power generation and maybe even helped fund its deployment?
posted by ggggarret
on Jul 9, 2002 -
15 comments