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Volunteer Towns Sought For Nuclear Waste

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-all-at-once dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Brian Wingfield writes in Bloomberg that the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future has sent a draft report to Energy Secretary Steven Chu recommending that US communities should be encouraged to vie for becoming a federal nuclear-waste site as a way to end a decades-long dilemma over disposing of spent radioactive fuel and says this 'consent-based' approach will help cut costs and end delays caused when the federal government picks a site over the objections of local residents, 'This means encouraging communities to volunteer (PDF) to be considered to host a new nuclear-waste management facility,' says the commission. Chu named the panelists after Obama canceled plans to build a permanent repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain after the Yucca site was opposed by politicians from the state. 'The United States has traveled nearly 25 years down the current path only to come to a point where continuing to rely on the same approach seems destined to bring further controversy, litigation, and protracted delay,' says the report. The Blue Ribbon Commission cited as a 'success' the US Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico, which has accepted and disposed of some defense-related nuclear waste for more than a decade demonstrating that that 'nuclear wastes can be transported safely over long distances and placed securely in a deep, mined repository.' With the right incentives, 'there will be a great deal of support' for a waste site near the New Mexico facility, says former Senator Pete Domenici."

7 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. How About D.C.? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's been quite a toxic environment in Washington D.C. for the last several Presidencies. So why not store this nasty stuff in D.C.?

    1. Re:How About D.C.? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Funny

      I might suggest Marshall, Texas. No containment necessary.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  2. Why? by Lifyre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why not do the smart thing and REUSE all of that "waste"? It's actually decent fuel and if you reuse it it becomes significantly less hazardous...

    --
    I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      No it can't.

    2. Re:Why? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Give the communities the mineral rights to the spent fuel.

      It's more than a source of nuclear fuel (and I don't necessarily mean plutonium: only a small fraction of the U-235 gets used up in a thermal reactor, and the other transuranics are burnable in a fast-flux reactor). There are billions of dollars worth of rhodium, which is in a stable isotope. Rhodium is more valuable than gold even at today's gold price.
      http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=46164&mesg_id=46304

    3. Re:Why? by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Holy fuck no. I mean, I realize you Americans are scared of shit of plutonium thanks to your rabid environmentalists, and carter. But hey, if you want to cut your nuclear fuel supplies in half. Please keep sending your waste to Canada, S.Korea and Japan so we can have cheap, inexpensive fuel. I mean we all really like it.

      Or you can grow a fucking pair and jump all over the environmentalists and nimby's for being fucking idiots.

      The purpose of the environmentalism is to enforce a kind of soft tyranny. Cheap, abundant, easily accessible energy means fewer people crying out for government to do something about energy, something that everyone uses and everyone needs. The general concept is that government is never going to voluntarily endorse and encourage something that gives people one less thing to worry about. They enjoy appearing to do so because that appeals to the masses, but they do not wish to actually do it. The larger and less local the government, the more true this is. Thus, the local and state governments are not nearly so bad as the federal government with respect to this tendency.

      This is from Niccolo Machiavelli's "The Prince":

      Therefore a wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.

      Unlike 1984, The Prince actually was intended to be something like a manual.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  3. Send it to Hanford Washington U.S.A. by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hanford Washington U.S.A. would love the waste sent
    their way. That would be listed as the State of Washington
    in the article.

    Hanford lost out to Yuca mountain many years ago, lost a lot of jobs
    over night. They were planning on storing nuclear waste at Hanford.

    Even create a religion "OMMMMM do not dig for 100,000 years."
    (Yes it was actually put forth as a plan)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site claims
    two-thirds of the nation's high-level radioactive waste by volume
    are located here, so it makes a lot of sense.

    Some place has to be found and fast as reactor storage pools
    are becoming full and a danger in themselves.

    I used to operate a nuclear reactor producing Plutonium for DoD at
    Hanford, so know well of the desire of becoming a nuclear burial site.