Nuclear Waste In The Yucca Mountain

Should nuclear energy be used? Throughout the article “Nowhere to go”, the author objectively reviews the use of nuclear energy, using the text and graphics to provide details that demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of its use. Nevertheless, the consequences of using nuclear energy outweigh the benefits. One of these consequences is that working with nuclear energy can cause many health problems. The text states, “Dangers include radiation sickness, cancers, and other health problems. High level radioactive waste can present hazards ‘for a million years or more,’ Kamps says.” This means that using nuclear energy can cause health problems for future generations.

Nuclear waste should be stored in Texas because Texas has a big area where it is enough space to store in nuclear waste because it’s better storing it in Texas than in Yucca Mountain because Yucca mountain

The government started researching disposal sites for nuclear waste in the early 1970s. Experts around the world agreed that the safest place to store nuclear materials is deep underground, so most site proposals were located deep below mountain ranges (Yucca Mountain Project website). The Nuclear Waste Policy Act was passed in 1987, which eliminated all prospective sites but one: Yucca Mountain in Nevada (Ewing and Macfarlane 2002). More than 4 billion dollars has been spent on researching this site in the last twenty years.

The existing policy for American nuclear waste disposal was set fourth in 1982 with the passing of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). What followed was an unpredictable series of management and policy design failures that led to the closing of Yucca Mountain as America’s federal nuclear waste repository, costing taxpayers billions and leaving the nation without long term option to deal with nuclear waste. The Act tasked the federal Department of Energy (DOE) with finding and investigating a location for two federal geologic depositories for nuclear waste, one in the West and one in the East, and construction of the facilities. It also named the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), a government organization that regulates the construction

So i’m going to do the same thing, i’m gonna explain the reasons(or as I use to call them uses) and then the bad reasons. Yucca Mountain may be a proper place to store nuclear waste since it has a very low population, it is very remote, it’s closest city being Las Vegas which is 100 miles away. Evidence suggests that the last time a very destructive earthquake (6.5 on the richter scale) occurred in the Yucca Mountain area that was 50,000 years ago so there is a minimal threat of earthquakes happening. Even with no population, an earthquake might spread the nuclear waste around or into the atmosphere. Another reason for considering Yucca Mountain is that the earth material in this region tends to absorb contaminants. This could stop waste from spreading in the event of leakage from the waste containers. Now for the bad uses, To reach Yucca Mountain it would take nuclear waste to travel 43 states by truck to reach Yucca mountain. Las Vegas has about 500,000 people and it’s 100 miles away from Yucca mountain so it is still in relative proximity to the city and why residents are against storage of nuclear waste there. Nevada is in fourth place of the highest earthquakes. An extinct volcano’s eruptions formed Yucca mountain, although 27 miles away from Yucca mountain are more volcanos (7 are stable). In a bad situation, the volcano could re-awaken spreading waste around. I hoped you noticed i explained this the same way I did In “Storing Waste On Yucca Mountain”. Now before I Conclude this I want to compare one more thing, I want to tell you the lower amount of rainfall in the site in Yucca Mountain compared to Hanford, Washington and the one in Texas. The lower amount is important because there would be less chance of the containers becoming damaged and leaking

Craig Welch from the Washington Post Company also agrees with Caldicott. He states: "But now the worst waste from the country's most polluted place has nowhere to go.” Currently, all the wastes that are waiting to be transferred to another repository are still awaiting the construction of new repository sites. Because of the recent Obama administration's decision to withdraw licensing to build a high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the worst and most dangerous nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project is left undecided. Some people also worry that Hanford (the most contamination nuclear site in the United States) will have to handle the nuclear garbage it currently has on site and it is possible that the waste from elsewhere

for a terrorist attack. There would be no way to hide a biohazard convoy, so

Another reason why nuclear power is bad, it can be used to create nuclear weapons. nuclear power can be turn into nuclear weapon. In Article 3 in the last paragraph states “In the same way U.S nuclear power plants have not eliminated the threat of nuclear weapons despite 20 years.” Just because we have not seen nuclear weapons in the past 20 years does not mean that they can not make a comeback. Moreover, “Spent fuel, if not disposed of properly could contaminate water supplies or be used by terrorist to create a dirty bomb”(1,8). Terrorist could use this against us causing a lot of damage. Lately with all the craziness happening around us it will not be the best decision.

The Superfund Program has provided technical assistance and funding to assess potentially contaminated sites and develop a response. In August of 2007, the Superfund Program compiled a Comprehensive Database and Atlas assessments of all known Uranium mines on the Navajo Nation. At the request of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the EPA, along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, and the Indian Health Service developed a coordinated Five-Year Plan to address Uranium contamination in consultation with Navajo Nation EPA. In January of 2013, six Federal agencies, in consultation with the Navajo Nation, completed a five-year effort to address Uranium contamination in the Navajo Nation. The effort focused on the most imminent risks to people living on the Navajo Nation. While the last five years represent a significant start in addressing the legacy of Uranium mining, much work remains and the same federal agencies have collaborated to issue a second Five-Year Plan. The purpose of the second Five-Year Plan is to build on the work of the first plan, make adjustments based on information gained during this period, and plan the next steps in addressing the most significant risks to human health and the

The overarching question of, ‘Should Nuclear Waste be Disposed of in South Australia?’ will be answered in this outcome. Nuclear waste is material that has been used in a nuclear reactor. It looks exactly the same on the outside, as it did when it went into the reactor (see Figure 1). Once nuclear fission has taken place inside the reactor to make electricity, the Uranium breaks into many unstable isotopes. These isotopes will remain radioactive for thousands of years. Hence, the need for more nuclear waste storage facilities. A storage facility in South Australia would be geographically perfect and hold low level (plastic), intermediate (see Figure 2) and high level waste, like spent uranium fuel cells. The answer will be supported and derived from multiple sources, including; my survey data, expert reports, statistics, graphs and tables.

Yes, nuclear power does not release greenhouse gasses into the environment, but it does release other harmful substances. First, the process of mining and transporting uranium can be very dirty and even dangerous. Second, the waste that nuclear power produces can be very dangerous. If we build more power plants, more radioactive waste will pile up, since it lasts between 200-500 thousand years. If too much of this waste piles up, where are we going to put it? We can't just put radioactive waste anywhere. Third, one of the biggest problems with nuclear power is nuclear accidents. Yes, they may not happen often, but if more power plants are being built, the more at risk we are for a nuclear accident. Nuclear accidents can be solved with quick actions, but if not dealt with right away, nuclear accidents can poison the surrounding land for miles and make it uninhabitable for thousands of years. Fourth, nuclear power plants are a potential target for terrorists. Terrorists could use ground attacks on equipment which could lead to a reactor core meltdown or external attacks such as an aircraft crash into a

On the other hand, the problem is that nuclear fission has the consequence of producing radioactive waste, which in some cases will still emit radioactivity in several thousand years, and radioactivity is after all very hazardous and a permanent disposal site for this waste hasn’t been found till today, despite decades of searching for one. Another disadvantage is that the material for the fuel rods is finite, so it will be also just a temporary solution although possibly for some decades. The third disadvantage is the cost as all nuclear power plants, which I know of, needed substantial subventions to be build and to operate them. This will also not change, or just to the worse, as the material for the fuel rods gets scarcer.

In 1987, the U.S. Congress passed the Amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that designated Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the top site to store nuclear waste from across the country.

Should we be letting the rest of the world use our backyard as a dump for nuclear waste? South Australia is considering to build a nuclear waste dump which would ultimately hold 13% of the worlds high level nuclear waste. Currently this waste is being held around the world in different locations, i agree this is not a permanent solution but neither is burying it in the ground. I don't agree that we should be building a nuclear waste dump in South Australia but instead putting our time and money towards something more renewable would be a better investment. Nor is it necessary because in thirty years the world will run on renewable energy.

Nuclear waste needs a proper and safe place to be put in, because if you don't, you could put others lives in danger and contaminate certain things, such as the water supplies or the plants that the wildlife would have to eat for example, storing nuclear waste in the Yucca Mountain would be a bad idea because the containers that they store nuclear waste in are known for corroding and leaking and eventually getting into the water supply in the ground. The Yucca Mountain would not be a safe place to store high level nuclear waste because the Yucca Mountain is an active volcano right now and if an earthquake should happen, the toxins from the nuclear waste would contaminate the water line in the ground.