The Effect Of Nuclear Waste Disposal On Public Health

Nuclear waste is a radioactive waste that is dangerous, and a fair percentage of people would agree on this topic. However, is it really dangerous or is it just harmful to an extent? In society, many debates are held over trying to prove to the world that this substance is harmful. In the essay, “Nuclear Waste,” Muller states clearly that he sides with the anti-nuke of the debate and how he pinpoints the facts of nuclear waste with great persuasion. Yet, it is uncertain whether Muller clearly has a good argument and/or answers the questions that many people linger to know.

•     Waste from nuclear energy stays radioactive for thousands of years. Great care has to be taken in storing this waste safely.

The Institute for Energy and Environment offered and alternative in 1999 for the management of nuclear waste. For short term storage the Institute for Energy and Research (IEER) recommended nuclear waste should be stored as near and safely as possible from where it was produced. IEER suggests that the sites need to be dry and as close as possible to the place where the waste was generated to avoid a potential terrorist disaster. The funding for the extra storage on the site should come from the Federal Governments Nuclear Waste Fund. For short term storage the Institute for Energy and Environment Research (IEER) recommended nuclear waste should be stored as near and safely as possible from where it was produced. IEER suggests that the sites need to be dry and as close as possible to the place where the waste was generated to avoid a potential terrorist disaster. The funding for the extra storage on the site should come from the Federal Governments Nuclear Waste Fund. Many repositories should be looked and studied for more than a decade and none prioritized. Finding a permanent and safe solution is very difficult and would require a lot of time because of the want for good science (Ledwidge,

Disposal of the high level nuclear waste that comes from nuclear power plants continues to be a big problem. It has been challenging and costly to find safe ways to store this waste. According to a report from the U.S National Academy of Sciences, it will take 3 million years for radioactive waste stored in the U.S. as of 1983 to decay to background levels (thinkquest.org). Who wants this amount of waste stored in the environment where they live? Currently in the U.S. nuclear power plants produce 3,000 tons of this high level waste each year (thinkquest.org). If nuclear power continues to be produced, this amount of waste will only continue to increase, causing a bigger dilemma as to what to do with the waste. As the waste is removed from the plant it still contains a high level of radiation. Exposure to radiation whether it occurs in the moving process or leakage from storage not only has a negative impact on the environment but also can pose a major health threat to humans. Based on the level of exposure, symptoms to humans can range from nausea and headaches to damage of nerve cells, loss of white blood cells and even death (think .org). The potential risk of exposure is not worth human life.

The paper provides vital information on the implementation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and how the act has served as the hallmark for hazardous waste management in the United States. Created in the late 1970s, the RCRA has provided generators of hazardous with policy guidelines and how these processes are implemented to protect public health. As an article review, this paper will address the implementation and the challenges associated with the RCRA and how the Act continues to experienced tremendous changes since its foundation. The paper will also examine the RCRA contingency plan that seeks to address and minimize public health hazards in the environment.

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]

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.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 was enacted and passed by Congress based on bipartisanship between parties of congress, recommendations from various interest groups, and presidential leadership from Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Authoured by the 97th U.S. Congress, this policy aimed to create both a safe and permanent repository to store highly nuclear nuclear waste left over from the production of nuclear weapons in the 1950’s. Up until the bill was signed into law, the disposal of nuclear wastes was widely unmanaged. Residue from reactors and other facilities were kept in temporary storage units, however they were considered ineffective in the long term.(Mcalester, 2010) As stated in a paper by Brett Madres (2011), nuclear wastes can remain potently radioactive for extended periods of time. Recognizing the need to create a long term repository to safely store nuclear wastes, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 due to bipartisanship efforts between the Democrats and Republicans, cooperation from numerous interest groups, and nuclear policy initiatives from both Presidents Carter and Reagan.

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 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 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

Nuclear energy is the energy released by a nuclear reaction, it uses fuel made from mined and processed uranium to generate heat and electricity. It is the world’s largest emission free energy source. Nuclear energy also has the lowest impact on the environment than other energy sources. But it can still be very harmful because of the radiation is causes and the radioactive waste it produces. Radioactive wastes are the ruins of nuclear materials that are used in providing nuclear energy. These wastes contain high levels of radiation that can be very hazardous to humans and the environment. Some people accept and support the idea of using nuclear energy and others don’t. In the following paragraphs, some major nuclear accidents and the public acceptance of nuclear energy will be discussed.

The problem with nuclear waste is getting worse everyday while we try and find a solution to dispose of the waste properly, however there are some people who think that the nuclear waste project for waste disposal is not that serious and it does not have an affect on the environment, but they are wrong because our lack of care for proper disposal of nuclear waste is having a tole on the environment where the waste is buried and the life forms around these waste sites.

The current management strategies are based around ensuring that no significant environmental damage will occur over tens of thousands of years after the wastes have been disposed off. The three current principles for radioactive waste

Secondly, nearly 150 tons of nuclear waste is produced every year, which, leads to a thorny problem. Nuclear waste is so radioactive that it has to be isolated and confined in appropriate disposal facilities for a sufficient period of time until it is no longer hazardous. However, the period of time ranges from a few days for short-lived isotopes to millions of years for spent nuclear fuel. Today in Taiwan, the low-level wastes are currently stored at Orchid Island and the temporary storages of three nuclear power plants. As for the most dangerous used fuels, they are placed at the underground tank in nuclear power plants. Obviously, except the storage facility in Orchid Island, other methods are not permanent ways at all. On the other hand, the increasing number of protest of calling for the