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.

NRC reports that 63 sites already have dry cask storage installed

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published a map, dated November 2010, showing that 63 nuclear power plant sites in 33 states -- both operating and permanently closed plants included -- already have dry cask storage installed for high-level radioactive waste. Another 10 sites have applied for permission to install dry cask storage. Only 11 sites in the entire country, storing high-level radioactive waste in indoor pools, have yet to apply to NRC for permission to construct an "independent spent fuel storage installation" or ISFSI -- dry cask storage. As shown in the NRC graph at the left, almost all pools in the U.S. will be full to capacity by 2015, requiring dry cask storage if those reactors are to continue generating high-level radioactive waste.

"Homeland Security warns about threats against utilities"

Although this story by CNN does not mention nuclear power plants explicitly, it does feature a photograph of one! As the anti-nuclear movement has warned since even long before the 9/11 attacks, but especially so since, nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage facilities are potentially catastrophic targets for terrorist attack, dirty bombs in our backyard of immense size.

For this reason, nearly 200 environmental groups, representing all 50 states, have urged for nearly a decade now that high-level radioactive waste be put in "hardened on-site storage," rather than kept in indoor pools and outdoor dry casks vulnerable to attacks.

Update on July 21, 2011 by admin

ABC News was explicit about nuclear power plants in its coverage of this story, reporting:

"U.S. officials were stunned last year in Yemen with the arrest of an alleged American recruit to al Qaeda, Sharif Mobley, of New Jersey, who had been employed as five different U.S. nuclear power plants in and around Pennsylvania after successfully passing federal background checks."

Defending Western Shoshone treaty rights against Yucca dump

CNN Money has quoted Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps, defending Western Shoshone Indian Nation treaty rights against the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump proposal:

"...Yucca was originally Shoshone land, taken by the federal government in 1951 for weapons testing, said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

And Nevada was chosen not because it was a good site, but because it had the fewest representatives in Washington of any state under consideration, critics say.

"The most common name for that legislation was the 'Screw Nevada Bill,' " said Kamps. "It never should have been targeted to begin with."..."

The U.S. government signed the "peace and friendship" Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone Indian Nation in 1863; it recognized Western Shoshone sovereignty at Yucca Mountain, throughout most of what is now the State of Nevada, as well as portions of California and Idaho.

The "Screw Nevada Bill," enacted into law in 1987, singled out Yucca Mountain as the only targeted site in the country to undergo further study as a potential high-level radioactive waste repository. The States of Washington and Texas, also on the target list, joined forces, and in coalition with eastern states also on the dumpsite target list, ganged up on Nevada. Texas and Washington had 32 and 12 Representatives in the U.S. House, respectively, whereas Nevada had but one. Texas and Washington also split between them the powerful positions of Speaker of the House and House Majority Leader at that time. Even Nevada's U.S. Senate delegation consisted of two low ranking first-term Senators. But one of those rookies was Harry Reid, who has since devoted his political career to stopping the Yucca dump, and now serves as Senate Majority Leader.

U.S., Japanese, Mongolian nuclear establishments conspire to dump high-level radioactive waste in Mongolia

Reuters cites a Mainichi Daily report that such U.S.-Japanese nuclear industry corporate players as General Electric-Hitachi and Toshiba-Westinghouse, in cahoots with Japanese federal ministries and the Mongolian government's uranium mining and nuclear development arm, were close to finalizing a deal on turning Mongolia into an international dumpsite for irradiated nuclear fuel, until the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe derailed the schedule. Undeterred by that, the partners in crime (or, at least it should be a crime) are still pursuing the plan.