Comments on: Yucca Mountain Ruled Out for Storing Nuke Waste. Now What?

By: Jodi K

Jodi K — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:11:36 +0000

I don’t know why we are searching high and low to find a viable place on earth, shoot the waste at the sun and be done with it!

By: Bri S.

Bri S. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:50:30 +0000

Although Yucca mountian is a very open area, if any of the Nuclear Waste gets out, a lot of people are in trouble.

I know those who live in Washington, Virginia, or ever Florida may not care since, “It doesn’t affect me,” but there are at least 500,000 people just living inside of Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, and Summerlin.

If that Nuclear Waster gets out, how would we get out of the city? Where would we go? Could everyone afford to leave?

We must think about an emergency situation, instead of how we aren’t around it.

By: Allen Ev.

Allen Ev. — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:33:08 +0000

reply to Martin C:

Martin, I was wondering when you will reread what I wrote and realize that I am pronuclear not con.

By: Martin C

Martin C — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:29:11 +0000

Allen, I was wondering when you will get a brain and realize that nuclear energy plants are much less polluting of the atmosphere and surrounding areas than coal and oil burning electricity plants.

By: Allen Ev.

Allen Ev. — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:54:33 +0000

reply to Jill R who wrote “When will people understand that there Is No safe nuclear option.”

Safe is a relative term. Nothing in life is safe. You can hit by a hydrogen fuel-cell powered bus walking across the street. Please read the link because the author has take great pains to discuss the RELATIVE safety of nuclear energy. The punch-line is that nuclear energy costs the population only 1.5 days of life expectancy and that is according to studies by the most credible, harshest critics of nuclear energy, the Union Of Concerned Scientists.

By: Allen Ev.

Allen Ev. — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:30:33 +0000

reply to andras Scahoofer:

The disposal of nuclear waste is funded by a surcharge on nuclear energy generation not taxes. We all owe it to ourselves and future generations to be better educated wrt nuclear energy. Please review:

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html

for real information on Nuclear Energy written by an expert for the lay public.

By: Allen Ev.

Allen Ev. — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:15:50 +0000

The temporary storage will be filled by the time another permanent site is found and nuclear energy will be forced to cease operations. This will force the US to replace this generation with coal, as has been the case since the moratorium following TMI. Now since burning coal is known to emit radiation (due to the presence of trace uranium and for which there is no regulation) the net effect will be a tremendous INCREASE in radiactive exposure to the civilian population. The death and destruction will be spread around the world in the form of net decrease in life expectancy for everyone. Nice huh? Is it too late to change my vote?

By: Jill

Jill — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 22:02:10 +0000

You can have the best designed facility on the planet and there would still never be a Safe nuclear option because of the terrible potential consequences of something gone wrong. History is full of accidents that shouldn’t have happened but none of them carried consequences that lasted many hundreds or thousands of years the way nuclear contamination would do, not to mention disposing of obsolete plants and the potential for terrorism and that old standby good old human error. Anyone ever hear of Three Mile Island and of course Chernobyl ? Someone wrote that they assumed I meant capitalism when I used the word greed. Not so, to me Greed is putting the greater good of all aside because it interferes with what you want to do right now, regardless of the consequences down the road. Dictators are greedy and they’re not capitalists are they? Did anyone ever mention what happens when you assume?Are we supposed to assume that building a Permanent storage facility is a temporary solution and we won’t build More nuclear plants because of it? I don’t think so. For some reason we seem to want to shy away from dealing with the tough problems. If you read any of the science & technology information out there then you can see how fast we are advancing in solving these complex issues. Proliferating nuclear power plants is Not the answer. Focusing on safe alternatives is the better use of our collective tax dollars. We Can find an acceptable solution.

By: andras Scahoofer

andras Scahoofer — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:09:46 +0000

One thing That I have not seen anyone address -yet; is the fact that- why do we taxpayers are saddled with the disposal of this nuclear waste; when the utilities, make the profits? –maybe nuclear generation is not as efficient as solar, –If we count the disposal, -which is no small problem, 1,000 years? hell the Holy Roman Empire did not last That long…Andas

By: Jon Preston

Jon Preston — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:29:46 +0000

As a former special weapons technician I can only recount my greatest fear and biggest relief when most of the tactical nuclear weapons were moved to central locations or dismantled. Since nearly all warheads would fit into a full sized pickup, the statistical probability of theft increased with dispersal. It was all about centralizing monitoring and security. The military has a well developed infrastucture for dealing with nuclear material. Perhaps we could expand those facilities and provide at least a better temporary solution than the status quo.
I have been to the Nevada Test Site and looked over the storage/containment options at Yucca Mountain. I must say the DOE made a pretty good case for storage there, and a huge pile of money went into that.
Why is it the French towns fight bitter battles to be the recipent of a new reactor located nearby? Could it be they are more rational and pragmatic than Americans? Or are they collectively a nation of the insane?

By: Lisette Root

Lisette Root — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:02:36 +0000

The only thing I can imagine to contain the radioactive waster, in a stable manner, is a container lined with lead, created out of polymers. As I understand it, some polymers won’t break down for a very long time. If the waste could be safely contained in such a fashion, as dark colored polymer cubes perhaps, I would not hesitate to store it, even above ground. The dark colored polymer/lead cubes could also help gather solar energy.

By: Bill R

Bill R — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:18:40 +0000

I am not saying we shouldn’t pursue all of JayWarner’s (and others) suggestions. However, none of them are “here and now” solutions. All of them require a major breakthrough to become a viable replacement on the order of even 5% or 10% of carbon based GENERATION. I am an engineer and understand the difference between a scientist saying “this is feasible” and actually building it out. My favorite is Hydrogen. Ideal conditions say that the best you can EVER do is break even on Hydrogen. It takes energy to break down water into H2 and O. When you burn H2 it recombines with O and makes water releasing the same amount of energy you put into it to break it down. However, there are huge losses too. Hydrogen must be transported in liquid form – lots or refrigeration. It is not useful at all for generation since you need electricity to break down the water and all you get back is the energy you put in minus losses. You can use waste heat from generators to break down the water, but you can also use that heat to generate electricity more directly – a known technology we should be pursuing by the way. As for running cars or homes, that takes infrastructure (delivery systems, gas stations), new cars, etc. With a major push, it will be decades before there are suitable #s of “H2″ gas stations. How long do cars remain on the road? How long will it be once there is some infrastructure before a sizable number of H2 cars will be on the road? Now also look at the safety hazards – H2 is very leaky – it likes to find even the smallest leak – far more so than e.g. your air conditioner system. And it burns very hot and invisibly. Stontium90? How about fires in cars, H2 stations, storage facilities, etc? How well do people maintain their cars? H2 systems need very very good maintenance to keep from developing leaks.
Each solution has its pros and cons. However, the idea of a Chernobyl melt down with the new reactor designs is virtually impossible. Chernobyl was designed in a way that it would run away if there was a core failure. New reactors are designed to shut down. This is not a matter of what the people and control systems do. The design itself is self quenching. Read up on it – its quite interesting how it works.
Solar? So how long before we have flexible solar cells with reasonable efficiencies (the current record is around 6% – in the lab, not large scale production) on a large scale, AND enough homes have them to make a dent? We’ve had the ability to heat water using roof top solar heaters for decades and it has made no inroads at all on a % basis of energy used. And how many people will “paper their homes” with solar cells – by definition they have to be nearly black to work, have some sort of support structure (they require wiring, etc.). They don’t work very well when under snow, need cleaning to maintain efficiency (dust, dirt reduce efficiencies dramatically), etc. Its a great solution, but to overcome the engineering and social issues will take time. Time we don’t have if you believe in global warming.
Bottom line, the one solution to make a sizable dent in the use of Carbon based fuels that exists today, with no requirement for a scientific or engineering breakthrough, no need for major changes in people’s lifestyles, or major change in infrastructure that will take decades to achieve is nuclear. Going forward, if some or many of the alternatives pan out, it will mean we can stop building and even begin to retire COAL plants. But until then, we need clean energy, and nuclear is the only bridge technology we have. BTW, there might be a breakthrough in clean coal too. But we would then have to store CO2 which has its own potential hazards such as a catastrophic release of stored CO2 from an earth quake.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:56:27 +0000

Why dont we send our waste into the sun?

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:46:11 +0000

So much for Oboma’s promise to go with the science..

By: JayWarner

JayWarner — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:26:50 +0000

Bill R Says: [at March 9th, 2009 at 5:05 pm]
“So the bottom line is … we can’t use coal or oil for energy. Natural gas … requires drilling … pipelines which no one wants through their backyard. Solar cells today can provide [enough power so that] … if you cover the roof with solar cells, you can’t even provide enough energy for that home. …[S]olar is … not replacing carbon any time soon…. … not a lot of rivers left to dam. Wind is problematic since the best sites are far from point of use, and it is unreliable requiring large storage facilities and new transmission lines, also objected to by environmentalists. We need all of the above and more. …

“Everywhere is someone’s backyard. … Its time to get realistic about solutions, or stop complaining about carbon based energy.”

Yes, every source of energy has drawbacks. In Wisconsin some environmentalists are very worried about our lack of knowledge of bird flight patterns across Lake Michigan, since ten miles offshore (and out of sight) from Wisconsin is much better, more steady, wind than any local land source. But all of us, ‘tree-hugger wannabes’ or otherwise, need to rank the positives and negatives of the alternatives. We’re guessing most of the time. So make some reasonable guesses, then build small systems to discover the real economics and environmental impacts of each.

You detract from wind power by a need for storage. Only until the wind people in CA learn to handle base load demand, which they are close to achieving now. You discount solar’s low output, without thought of recent developments that _may_ cut the cost and rigidity of panels, allowing us to virtually paper our houses with it. Suppose we cut electricity demand from the grid by only half — would that help?

You neglect to mention hydrogen fuel, which may prove more efficient as an energy storage and transport medium than long distance power lines to bring energy from the Southwest US to population centers. You didn’t mention my favorite — cow manure digesting systems that turn the methane from the manure into electricity as the solids are turned into high grade mulch. Multi-million dollar commercial systems for this are operating today. Dairy farmers need this outlet for turning a ‘waste’ into a feed stock.

But on all these options we are mostly guessing today. What we are _not_ guessing about is the effects of a significant reactor meltdown (as in Chernobyl, with a large swath of city and countryside abandoned and a huge number of people wiped through long term cancer, etc.). We are not guessing about the long term effects of various radiation exposures. Not to mention ingestion of “low level” radioactive species. You don’t have to see a child die from the effects of strontium 90 poisoning to know that you want none of it.