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Obama and the Politics of Nuclear Waste | Newsweek Project Green | Newsweek.com

Obama’s Nuclear Reservations Political squabbling over how to store waste could hold back the industry.

By Daren Briscoe | NEWSWEEK

Published Nov 22, 2008 – “……………..A bigger problem than the safety of the reactors themselves is what to do with the deadly waste they produce. Nuclear power is praised for its zero carbon emissions, but it comes at a price—radioactive fuel rods that remain toxic for thousands of years. If you’re looking for a reason to feel queasy about building more nuclear reactors, this is it. While politicians bicker over where to put it all—nuclear waste is the ultimate “not in my backyard” dispute—the stuff is piling up. As things are now, a lot of it is simply stockpiled at the plants, submerged in open pools of water for as long as five years and eventually sealed in steel and concrete casks. “You have more than 100 reactors storing waste on-site, under what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission calls a temporary license, in the worst of all possible places,” says Rochelle Becker of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, a nonprofit that monitors the nuclear-power industry. “In California, it’s stored next to earthquake faults. In the rest of the country, you find that most waste is sitting very close to water supplies.”

Obama and the Politics of Nuclear Waste | Newsweek Project Green | Newsweek.com

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radiation

November 23, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized