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Nuclear Waste Accident 2 Years Ago May Cost More Than $2 Billion To Clean Up (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Los Angeles Times is estimating that an explosion that occurred at a New Mexico nuclear waste dumping facility in 2014 could cost upwards of $2 billion to clean up. Construction began on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico's Carlsbad desert in the 1980s. The site was built to handle transuranic waste from the US' nuclear weapons program. The WIPP had been eyed to receive nuclear waste from commercial power-generating plants as well. According to the LA Times, the 2014 explosion at the WIPP was downplayed by the federal government, with the Department of Energy (DoE) putting out statements indicating that cleanup was progressing quickly. Indeed, a 2015 Recovery Plan insisted that "limited waste disposal operations" would resume in the first quarter of 2016. Instead, two years have passed since the incident without any indication that smaller nuclear waste cleanup programs around the US will be able to deliver their waste to the New Mexico facility any time soon. The 2014 explosion apparently occurred when engineers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory were preparing a drum of plutonium and americium waste -- usually packed with kitty litter (yes, kitty litter) -- and decided to "substitute an organic material for a mineral one."
I don't think I've ever complained about there being dupes on here before....but FFS, this was just posted this past Monday:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
Well, there has been precisely one nuclear nuclear accident with significant casualties (31 killed, about 2,000 have shortened life expectancy). It seems you've already decided you wouldn't trust any investigation overseen by International Atomic Energy Agency or other internationally recognized safety agencies, so I guess you don't trust the investigations of Chernobyl.
On the other hand, 230,000 people were washed away by the Banqiao hydroelectric disaster.