What Fire and Leakage At WIPP Means For Nuclear Waste Disposal 154
Lasrick (2629253) writes "An underground fire and a separate plutonium leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has left the US with no repository for transuranic (TRU) waste--that is, radioactive elements heavier than uranium on the periodic chart, such as plutonium, americium, curium and neptunium. WIPP is a bedded salt formation in New Mexico, chosen because of its presumed long-term stability and self-sealing properties, and it currently holds, among other things, 4.9 metric tons of plutonium. Despite assurances from the DOE that the plant would soon reopen, New Mexico has cancelled WIPP's disposal permit indefinitely. Robert Alvarez, who has served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department's secretary and as deputy assistant secretary for national security, explores what happened at WIPP, and what it means for defense nuclear waste storage."
New Mexico (Score:2, Insightful)
On a more serious note, why are we burying highly radioactive material instead of using it to generate electricity? If it's too hot to throw away, surely it's hot enough to spin turbines.
transuranic (TRU) waste--that is: (Score:3, Insightful)
transuranic (TRU) waste--that is, radioactive elements heavier than uranium on the periodic chart, such as plutonium, americium, curium and neptunium.
Also known, in every country with a halfway-sensible nuclear policy, as "reactor fuel."
Re:Fucking NIMBYs (Score:5, Insightful)
Desert? yes. Worthless? No.
Deserts are usually less exploitable by humans, but they are extremely valuable to the planet. Through sorry experience we have learned that desert ecosystems are easily damaged. Vehicles driving across the surface can crack and break the crust of micro-organisms ("desert pavement") where the damage can last for centuries.
The thought process of "Humans cannot immediately exploit the resources, therefore it is worthless" is extremely foolish.
Just look at what humans have done to resources we consider valuable. Deforestation of entire contents, fishing out oceans to possibly the point of exhaustion. Desert regions are one of the few resources left mostly intact from human destruction.
Re:Oopsie! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another contractor who seems to have been doing the minimum required to get paid. Fire suppression turned off, flammable materials stored after repeated inspections required that they be removed. Outsource responsibility and this seems to be the result.
At what point do we stop blaming the contractors and start blaming a lax regulatory environment (which the contractors probably lobbied for)?
I expect the free market to behave like a 5 year old on a sugar rush.
What I can't accept is the adults' repeated refusal to punish bad behavior.
We have a regulatory framework. Enforce it.
Re:Too bad it's impossible* to reuse nuclear waste (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe we need an all of the above solution (nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, ...). In reality, nuclear is just lip service, it's not really an all of the above solution. So I'm very loud when I sense the lip servicing, in the direction of exposing the lie (the lip service BS).
Nuclear is the only solution that could provide electricity to 100% of the world needs. The ONLY solution. Solar and Wind require huge technological breakthroughs in energy storage that are still in the future.