nuclear-news

AUDIO about USA’s mounting nuclear waste problem

AUDIO: http://www.pri.org/stories/science/environment/fukushima-s-continuing-struggles-raise-questions-about-america-s-nuclear-waste-storage-14875.html  30 Aug 13, Fukushima’s continuing struggles raise questions about America’s nuclear waste storage Nuclear waste is piled up around the United States. Similar waste were part of the problem at Japan’s Fukushima plant, which continues to leak even 2.5 years later. That continued crisis has some asking if the U.S. is asking for trouble with its waste storage…… In the United States, there’s no urgent disaster, but there is the still-unsettled question of where U.S. radioactive waste will be stored.

Back in the 1980s, Yucca Mountain in Nevada was chosen as the nation’s nuclear waste dump, but widespread resistance has stalled the project. The waste is still with us, though, and Ed Lyman, the nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists says that’s a problem.

Back then, Lyman says, the Department of Energy was supposed to collect all of the radioactive waste by 1998. But that hasn’t happened — and it’s not going to happen any time soon.

With Yucca seemingly off the table, the government is starting over to find a permanent disposal site……. nuclear wastes continue to pile up, at the approximately 60 operating nuclear plants, at the decommissioned nuclear plants and at other places around the country.

“Most of the spent fuel is stored in swimming pool type structures called spent fuel pools,” Lyman said. “These are concrete, steel-lined pools filled with water, and the fuel is submerged under there. However, many of these pools have been overstuffed over the years because there’s been no place to send them.”

Beyond just being overstuffed — far beyond what they were originally designed for — they also represent a security risk, he added…… In the meantime, a group of Senators have proposed creating a new entity to manage nuclear waste, and to find a new long-term storage site for all of the country’s nuclear waste.

August 31, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Resources -audiovicual