Nuclear Waste Management Essay

Yucca Mountain is a long flat ridge of volcanic ash that reaches 5,000 feet high. The site is attractive for several reasons. First of all, Nevada receives an average rainfall of only seven inches, which is important because corrosion due to water is a major concern with nuclear waste storage. Also, Yucca Mountain is located within Nye County, an area with only a few hundred residents. Lastly, the Nellis Air Force Base is located nearby, providing a certain amount of protection, which helps to address many fears raised by the threat of terrorist attacks and a generally unstable world situation (Environmental Protection Agency/ Yucca Mtn. Standards).

While reading Richard A. Muller Nuclear Waste a professor of physics from the University of California. I really enjoyed the reading and learning how nuclear waste “is one of the biggest technical issues that any president is likely to face”. In this chapter he also spoke of Plutonium which is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with symbol Pu and atomic number 94. Richard also went on to say that there is a “safe” nuclear waste disposal located in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In order to keep the waste disposal safe, it is buried in a storage room in which is 1000 feet below the surface.

The discovery of rainwater and chlorine-36 made opponents sure that the project could never be viable. After a long fight, Yucca Mountain was taken “off the table” (Brown). The Obama administration withdrew approval of the project in 2009. However, in his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama insisted that “a need to [build] a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” exited (Koch).

In 1987 Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) which made the department of energy (DOE) responsible for investigation and determination of the Yucca Mountain site. For more than twenty years the DOE has investigated and come up with preliminary designs for the mountain. Option one is to continue with the plan to use Yucca Mountain as the permanent storage site for nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain would function by Receiving spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in shipping casks certified by the NRC, then unloading, handling, and packaging spent nuclear fuel and

The word “Nuclear” instills fear in the general American public’s mind. The simple utter of said word brings memories of huge mushrooms clouds and destruction, or the thought of communism and 50 years of an uncertain, yet terrifying Cold War. Whatever it may be the fact of the matter is that Americans are extremely afraid of anything that has the word Nuclear in it. In the article “Nuclear Waste” published in 2008 by physics professor, and winner of the MacArthur Fellowship award, Richard Muller claims that storing nuclear waste under the Nevada Yucca Mountains can prove to be a safe and efficient way to solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal. Muller supports his argument by first providing the reader with the anti-nuke

Nuclear Waste The essay “Nuclear Waste” by Ricard A. Muller talks about the controversial matter of the disposure of radioactive waste. Despite the overwhelming concerns of citizens, Richard Muller believes the dangers associated with the transportation and deposit of nuclear waste is not as paramount as the issue may seem. The concepts that seems most alarming to the public are the number of year it takes for the radioactivity of the waste to subside and where it will be stored in the mean time that will not affect their safety. As Muller explains, ”Even after 100,000 years the radiation will still be above 10% of the level it had when it left the reactor.

Today, a considerable amount of energy is provided by nuclear energy. The technology is well organized and developing every passing day and as a result the cost of operation is falling. Using radioactive resources to produce energy generates waste. Waste that contains radioactive materials is called nuclear waste. The secure and environmentally-friendly disposal of nuclear waste is a crucial aspect of nuclear power programs. [1]

In 1982, Congress passed the nuclear waste policy act that said the Department of Energy (DOE) was to build and operate a repository for used nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste (NEI). The DOE had until 1998 to find a location and build a site. In 1987, the nuclear waste policy act was amended and the DOE was told to study the Yucca Mountains only because it was a remote desert location (NEI). Even thought it is a desert location it still affects the nearby civilizations. The federal government in 2008 filed a construction license application to

Some politicians can even make inaction excusable and difficult to prevent, potentially disrupting lifestyle routines. However, how the world disposes of it can lead to further issues down the road if not stored correctly. Scientists have been working on a solution to storing nuclear waste, and have come up with a couple possible

Highly radioactive waste disposal has become one of the most controversial aspects of nuclear technology. As the amount of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear reactors and high-level radioactive waste from defense-related processing plants has continued to mount, the issue has become increasingly contentious and politicized.2 The politicization of this issue is especially evident in the site selection process of a permanent national repository for the disposal of highly radioactive waste.

In response to the potential scientific perjury, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Majority Staff issued a report in 2006 concluding that the Yucca Mountain depository site has consistently been proven in scientific studies to be an appropriate location for the disposal of nuclear waste (Yucca Mountain: The Most Studied Real Estate on the Planet, 2006). Later that same year, the DOE announced contracts with multiple private laboratories and scientific associations for the purpose of conducting expert scientific review of the Yucca Mountain project (DOE, 2006). Despite the efforts made by the DOE to legitimize the science behind their project, the planned repository still faced questions regarding the quality of science behind it by the State of Nevada and other Congressional members. The Yucca Mountain project remained the nation’s answer to nuclear waste until the Obama Administration took over the Executive branch in 2008, and in 2009, had announced the discontinuation of the Yucca Mountain project amid scientific uncertainty and growing political and public pressure (Government Accountability Office). Making this announcement a reality, in 2010 the DOE filed a motion with the NRC to withdraw the Yucca Mountain project licensing application, of which the NRC had almost

The primary concern when disposing of nuclear waste and cleaning the facilities that produce it is the duration of half-lives of the elements that make up nuclear waste. One example is Uranium-235, which is used widely by nations that have a nuclear weapons program. U-235 has a half-life of 703,800,000 years. This means that U-235 will take over 700 million years for it to decompose by half. It is estimated that these elements will still be hazardous for ten times their half-lives. At this rate, U-235 will take around 7 billion years for it to become non-threatening to humans. It should be noted that seasons, temperature, or any known solvents will not affect the rate of decay. During the Cold War, very little attention was paid to the high volume of radioactive waste generated and even less to its effects on the environment. U-235 is an extreme example, we still have to contend with low level radioactive waste produced daily by Industry and Medical facilities. Some of the effects on the environment are; groundwater contamination, soil contamination, buried soil and water containing waste, and underground disposal facilities storing large volumes of hazardous, radioactive waste. One such facility was the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, which was designated in 1987 by the NWPA Amendments, and located on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in Nye County, Nevada some 80 miles Northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Congress approved the site in 2002,

The world as we know today is dependent on energy. The options we have currently enable us to produce energy economically but at a cost to the environment. As fossil fuel source will be diminishing over time, other alternatives will be needed. An alternative that is presently utilized is nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is currently the most efficacious energy source. Every time the word ‘nuclear’ is mentioned, the first thought that people have is the devastating effects of nuclear energy. Granting it does come with its drawbacks; this form of energy emits far less pollution than conventional power plants. Even though certain disadvantages of nuclear energy are devastating, the advantages contain even greater rewards.

The use of nuclear energy is a big topic for debate. Many countries have fully embraced it while others, such as the U. S., haven’t. Nuclear energy is feared for its danger and scorned because of its wastes. On the other hand, nuclear energy does have some pros like cheaper cost of energy and environmentally safe. Reactor breeders show great promise in nuclear waste, but are it enough to convince the nation?

We have not found a way to dispose of nuclear waste produced from nuclear reactors. In Canada, there is about 200 million tons of radioactive waste from uranium mining. We also have not found a way to dispose of the waste, safely, from nuclear power stations. This waste will remain active for hundreds of thousands of years. In 1978, in Canada, the Ontario Royal Commission recommended that world class ecologists should study the long-term problem of finding a way to safely contain radioactive waste and so that the future of nuclear power can be assessed. The government has ignored all of these requests. In 1975, they evacuated St.Mary’s school in Port Hope because high level of contamination in the cafeteria. In the construction of that building and many other buildings in town large volumes of radioactive wastes, they soon learned, had been used .The world is relying on a brighter, smarter future generation to solve our problem of creating a way to dispose of this waste. When we think of the world as a biodome, we are stuck on earth; we cannot just destroy it and then jump to another planet. Currently we are digging ourselves in a deeper and deeper hole. We have already created a mess that we cannot take care of. This is unfair to the next