Phil McKenna, correspondent
If leading US energy experts have their way, the US will be storing tens of thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste above ground for decades to come. But are dry casks, originally intended as a short-term fix for nuclear waste, a safe bet?
Researchers from MIT and Harvard University fielded questions from US Senator Tom Carper in Cambridge, Massachusetts on what the US should do with its nuclear waste now that plans for Yucca Mountain, a national underground repository, have been put on hold by the Obama administration………..Surprisingly, the assembled scientists unanimously told Carper not to worry, saying existing aboveground storage would be perfectly save for another 60 to 70 years. ….again, let our kids worry about it.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/05/goodbye-yucca-mountain-hello-d.html
It is the same everywhere
With nuclear waste piling up, FPL seeks Turkey Point rezoning
9:50 AM EDT, June 18, 2009
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/sfl-fpl-turkey-bn091809,0,3945072.story
Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant Monday night began loading the facility’s first dry cask storage containers for highly radioactive used reactor fuel
And from the NRC :
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Dry Cask StorageIn the late 1970s and early 1980s, the need for alternative storage began to grow when pools at many nuclear reactors began to fill up with stored spent fuel. Utilities began looking at options such as dry cask storage for increasing spent fuel storage capacity. See the graph of nuclear fuel storage pool capacity. It is the same everywhere. From Peach Bottom in Pennsylvania, to Diablo Canyon in California nuclear power plants will now have FILLED pools (where the waste must cool before “packing” ) PLUS acres of concrete casks waiting to go somewhere, sometime…. These are potential time bombs sitting in highly populated areas subject to earthquakes, sabotage or terrorist attacks . Help stop this push for new nuclear power plants , call your representative. |