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ARTICLE ARCHIVE

Radioactive Waste

No safe, permanent solution has yet been found anywhere in the world - and may never be found - for the nuclear waste problem. In the U.S., the only identified and flawed high-level radioactive waste deep repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada has been canceled. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an end to the production of nuclear waste and for securing the existing reactor waste in hardened on-site storage.

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Entries by admin (643)

Friday
Aug262011

Wildfires at INL threaten radioactive wastes

INL photo of fire crews battling a July 2010 blaze that grew to 170 square miles in size overnightJust a few months ago, wildfires threatened a large inventory of plutonium-contaminated radioactive wastes at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexcio. Now, reports Reuters, high-level radioactive waste storage, handling, and even experimentation facilities at Idaho National Lab (INL) are in harm's way, amidst fast-spreading wildfires. INL is a catch-all "interim storage site" for irradiated nuclear fuel, including from U.S. Navy nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers; "Atoms for Peace" high-enriched uranium (HEU) foreign research reactor fuel, originally supplied by to the U.S. to 41 countries overseas, but returned here as a nuclear weapons non-proliferation precaution; and even melted down nuclear fuel from the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry, including from the 1966 "We Almost Lost Detroit" Fermi 1 partial meltdown, and the 1979 Three Mile Island 50% meltdown. INL has published a map and emergency updates on the wildfire; the map contains links with more detailed information about what risky activities take place where on the INL site. As MSNBC reported, a July 2010 wildfire at INL (photo, left) burned power lines, forcing radioactive waste facilities to rely on emergency diesel generators.

Tuesday
Aug232011

Regulator has long warned of earthquake risks at Palisades

NRC's file photo of Palisades nuclear power plant on Lake MichiganToday's "unusual event," declared by owner Entergy Nuclear at its Palisades atomic reactor on the Lake Michigan shoreline, in the wake of the Mineral, Virginia 5.9 tremor 700 miles away, yet again serves as a stark warning about earthquake risks to the high-level radioactive waste dry cask storage facility built on a sand dune just 100 yards from the drinking water supply for millions of people downstream. A retired NRC inspector, Dr. Ross Landsman, has been waving this red flag for 17 years, but his warnings have fallen on deaf ears at NRC, as well as in the federal courts, not to mention Congress and the White House. Beyond Nuclear issued a media release. Eartha Jane Melzer at the Michigan Messenger reported on Dr. Landsman's warnings about earthquakes. The Kalamazoo Gazette reported on media releases by Palisades and D.C. Cook, another, twin reactor nuclear power plant also located in southwest Michigan on the Lake Michigan shore.

Thursday
Aug182011

Crosby Stills and Nash "Don't Dig Here" music video on YouTube

Crosby Stills and Nash's music video "Don't Dig Here," about radioactive waste dumpsites, is posted on YouTube. Viewers beware: there are disturbing images of atomic bombing and atomic reactor accident victims. Crosby Stills and Nash performed this song at the August 7, 2011 Musicians United for Safe Energy concert in Mountain View, California.

Friday
Aug052011

Take Action on radioactive waste

A week ago, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (BRC) published its draft report on U.S. high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) management policy in light of President Obama's and Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chu's wise and praiseworthy decision to cancel the proposed Yucca Mountain dumpsite in Nevada. But incredibly, despite the still unfolding Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, the BRC claims there are no safety, security, or environmental risks associated with the "mountain of waste 70 years high" stored in indoor wet pools and outdoor dry casks at U.S. atomic power plants and nuclear weapons sites. BRC proposes immediate site searches nationwide for one or more "consolidated interim [surface] storage" sites, as well as deep geologic repositories, for "temporarily" storing and permanently disposing of 65,000 metric tons of already accumulated commercial HLRW, more than 10,000 metric tons of DOE (nuclear weapons, Nuclear Navy, and research reactor) HLRW, as well as many tens of thousands of additional tons that the nuclear industry intends to generate in the decades ahead. Either away-from-reactor scheme would launch an unprecedented radioactive waste transport program that would take decades to carry out, just as opening "interim" parking or permanent dump sites would take decades to accomplish. BRC has invited public comments on its draft till October 31st.
 
Write the BRC, urging that hardened on-site storage be instituted as an essential measure, to secure wastes against attacks, safeguard them against accidents, and build dry cask storage well enough so that it will last for the decades into the future that wastes will be stuck at reactor sites regardless of away-from-reactor policy developments. Advise BRC that "centralized interim storage" could become de facto permanent parking lot dumps; it would represent a dangerous radioactive waste shell game, as wastes would have to be moved a second time to permanent disposal sites, doubling transport risks; and it would likely worsen environmental injustice, targeting people of color or low income communities already bearing a disproportionate radioactive burden, such as Native American reservations or Department of Energy nuclear weapons sites. Further, unless we stop making nuclear waste, we will need still more sacrafice zones to store it, making it a problem that will never end. Point out to BRC that learning lessons from "successful" repository programs in Finland and Sweden is risky, as shown by the film "Into Eternity": heaping yet more radioactive risk, in the form of dumpsites, on reactor host communities by offering "financial incentives" (buy offs or bribes) is not basaed on scientific suitability or morality, and does not represent consent by future generations, the protection of which cannnot be assured; the geological site studies are not complete; the price tag is astronomical; and the proposed Scandinavian repositories would serve just a handful of reactors, while U.S. dumpsites would take wastes from 104 still operating, and dozens of permanently closed, nuclear plants. Finally, urge BRC to require that HLRW transportation accident and attack risks -- many thousands of potential Mobile Chernobyls, dirty bombs on wheels, and floating Fukushimas targeted to pass through most states and many metropolitan areas -- be addressed, and not launched onto our roads, rails, and waterways for no good reason.
 
For more background information, see Beyond Nuclear's response to the BRC's draft report.
Friday
Jul222011

EU aims to bury high-level radioactive waste in "deep geologic repositories"

Reuters has reported that the European Union has set a deadline of 2015 for its 14 member states with nuclear power industries -- comprising a total of 143 atomic reactors -- to come up with plans for "deep geologic disposal" sites for burial of their high-level radioactive wastes. However, the EU admits it will take as long as 40 years to construct those repositories. Deutsche Welle also reported on this story, including on the loophole in the new EU directive that will still allow high-level radioactive waste exports to foreign countries for reprocessing, so long as those countries also have deep geologic repositories.