Skull Valley
On Friday, The U.S. Department of Energy announced that it has awarded Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight nuclear power plant operators, a $3.1 billion contract to build a nuclear waste storage facility on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Skull Valley, Utah. The plan is, over the next twenty years they'll cart about 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste out to the site where it will be stored until the Yucca Mountain site is ready. There are so many problems with this plan I don't even know where to begin.
First off, carting 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from various parts of the country is incredibly dangerous. One mistake and we'd have a huge accident on our hands. Second, though the plan is to relocate the fuel, the proposed Yucca Mountain site is exactly that. Proposed. It is on hold right now because of major protests against that location being used for nuclear waste. There are some good reasons here why the Goshute Reservation is a really bad place to put this stuff, including the fact that the proposed site is right next to a bombing range.
First off, carting 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel from various parts of the country is incredibly dangerous. One mistake and we'd have a huge accident on our hands. Second, though the plan is to relocate the fuel, the proposed Yucca Mountain site is exactly that. Proposed. It is on hold right now because of major protests against that location being used for nuclear waste. There are some good reasons here why the Goshute Reservation is a really bad place to put this stuff, including the fact that the proposed site is right next to a bombing range.
posted by Sara Ch. at 3:23 PM
3 Comments:
Don't let facts bother you, it just gets in the way of your rant. Why don't you read a newspaper account of this, even the Las Vegas Sun and Review Journals got it right.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Sep-10-Sat-2005/news/27184888.html
I read several newspaper accounts of it, including the one you posted. I'm not sure what exactly you think I got wrong?
First, all nuclear waste isn't spent fuel rods. There's process materials, PPE, used equipment, and even some things that aren't radioactive but are procedurally treated as nuclear waste.
Second, there's some waste that lasts 250,000 years and some that's highly radioactive. These estimates assume that the waste will be highly radioactive for 250,000 years, which is not true.
Third, I'd like you to point to a failure which has affected something during transport of radioactive materials. Anti-nuclear organizations make statements about defects in train tracks, train accidents, etc., yet, with all the hazmat transports every year in this country, somehow the sky hasn't fallen in.
No, this should not be used. It's safe, but that's not the point. We absolutely need to recycle this spent fuel. The technology exists. We don't use it, and that's the really bad idea.
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