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Yucca Mountain Approved for US Nuclear Waste Storage

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the it's-about-time dept.

Cephalien writes "As reported by Reuters (The link is from AT&T Worldnet -- No registration required, etc, etc), looks like congress has pushed this through against Nevada's objections (NIMBY, anyone?). Now all that's left is the licensing from the NRC. I dunno about you folks, but I'm glad I don't live in Nevada." After 20 years in the making and 4 billion in studies construction on the $58b facility can begin. It was this or Cmdrtacos basement.

6 of 631 comments (clear)

  1. Unfortunately... by neksys · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The nuclear waste has to go somewhere. I sincerely feel horrible for the people of Nevada, but the fact remains that a decision had to be made. If it were left up to debate, the waste would continue to build up in unsecure storage facilities. It's a shame that we've let ourselves get to this point, but if not Yucca Mountain, then where? South Dakota? Florida? Canada? The fact remains that a permanent storage facility is desperately needed - and we've only ourselves to blame (or more specifically, our decision-makers) for our lack of foresight into the long term storage needs of our nuclear industry.

    It's sad that tens of billions of dollars are going to this when there are millions of people who are dying of hunger.

    1. Re:Unfortunately... by thales · · Score: 5, Insightful
      "The fact remains that a permanent storage facility is desperately needed - and we've only ourselves to blame (or more specifically, our decision-makers) for our lack of foresight into the long term storage needs of our nuclear industry."

      One of the major reasons this has been put off so long is the fear mongering tatics of anti-nuclear groups. They have constantly opposed any permanant storage facility, AND used the lack of permanant storage as a reason to go "Nuke Free".

      --
      Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
  2. Nope... by cirby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It'd have to be a helluva big car, with some really bad-ass explosives. Six inches of Very Hard Steel, with a lead liner and a thick energy-absorbing outer casing. A simple bomb would just push the thing over. You'd need a shaped charge just to poke a hole in it, and all that would do would be to let some nasty stuff out (which would contaminate a few hundred meters of ground). Collisions? They tested the cask design by running a locomotive into it at 60+ MPH, and all it did was bounce the thing along the track.

    Meanwhile, several thousand tons of extremely nasty chemicals of all sorts (from caustics to poisons to explosives) are running down roads and railroad tracks at speeds of up to 100 MPH.

    And at this very moment, over two BILLION gallons of a horrible chemical (poisonous, explosive, and carcinogenic) are currently being transported around the US in vehicles, and normal folks are allowed to handle the stuff with little or no formal training (at places they call "gas stations").

  3. But we *need* nuclear energy by ch-chuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    to run my electric air conditioner to keep me cool from the global warming caused by all the fossle fuel emissions from conventional power plants because of the enviro idiots who won't permit more safe, clean nuclear power plants to be built. There's still way too much irrational fearmongering about nuclear materials, most of it second hand propaganda spread by entertainers w/o a clue looking for some 'cause celeb' to vent about and completely misleading the public. People who are steadfastly opposed to anything associated with nuclear to such a degree that they tremble with fear over getting a completely safe "nuclear magnetic resonance imaging" scan really should do the intelligent world a favor and study the enemy and get over their misconceptions - get a damn geiger counter and /measure/ what the heck your afraid of, get some low level uranium glass or pitchblende samples and play with it, notice the everpresent background radiation that occurs in nature, measure how fast radiation falls off when you get just a few inches away. Read about the history of radioactivity, Mme Curie, prospecting, etc. Otherwise you're just a clueless puppet of an even more ignorant leadership that show your lack of knowledge with every empty-minded protest. Democracy only works with an educated public - that's why people who know what they're doing are so frustrated by an ill informed public who start wearing black skeleton suits and mushroom clouds at the mere movement of a railroad car.

    Here you have over 40 thousand people perish in the US 'automobile holocaust' every friggin year and nobody ever protests that - but take an industry with an incredibly safe track record and the mere mention of some activity brings out the placard waving idiots in droves.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  4. Re:I worked at a nuclear power station... by shimmin · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The reply was (paraphrased) "We can store about 20 years of waste here, on-site, but it's the government's job to find a perminent solution."

    This isn't, as you frame it, blatant irresponsibility. According to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, it is the federal government's job to construct a permanent storage site, and to have it operational by the end of 1997.

    When the government passes a law binding itself to do something, it may be a little bit naive to assume it will come through on its end of the deal, but I don't think it's too much to ask of Congress to actually build infrastructure their own laws say they will build.

  5. Re:damn, get over that illusion by overunderunderdone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You don't have the worlds largest GNP

    Out of curiosity who does? I can't find any country that even comes close to the USA's $9.6 Trillion (year 2000 current US$). Japan comes closes with $4.5 Trillion (which is larger than Germany, France and the UK combined). Even the combined total of the European Monetary Union is only $6.6 Trillion.

    you're not the leading edge in science or economics any more.

    Well I think we have settled the economics side of things so I'll be generous and grant you the scientific leading edge since I'm not exactly sure how to measure that. I'm still not sure who IS on the leading edge though. Europe taken as a whole seems the only likely contender - still it seems that Europe and the US are peers in terms of scientific research and advances rather than one dominating the other.

    Except for your oversized bloated miliary you're just an average western industrial nation.

    I'll grant you we have a bloated military, in fact we account for about 37% of ALL military spending in the entire world. Then again we can afford it - we only spend about 3% of our GDP on the military which is less than the worldwide average of 3.8%. and significantly less than Russia's 5%. In terms of sheer numbers our military (1,369,000 men under arms) is dwarfed by china (2,310,000) and even Europe's combined total is larger (3,459,000) so despite our massive spending we don't have an inordinately large military just a spectacularly well equipped one ;).

    The problem (if it is a problem) is America's hegemony is a fact that flows naturally from the vast size of it's economy. Despite all the resentments and sour grapes this engenders elsewhere in the world we are probably all lucky that it is the USA that weilds such an unbalanced economic (and thus military and cultural) power. There are other nations and other cultures that would not have been so restrained in the use of such dominance. Considered through the lense of history America has been remarkably restrained, if she wanted she has the resources to be an actual empire in FACT not just in her opponents rhetoric. All the weight that is thrown around is only a fraction of what it could be - with military spending only 3% of GDP it could double or even triple without much effort (It was 6% in 1985, at the same time the soviet Union was spending better than 12% of their GDP on the military). Fortunately American culture ISN'T militarised or imperialistic.