Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository

The Politics of Highly Radioactive Waste Disposal Nuclear waste disposal is a political problem, not a technical problem.1 — Dr. Edward Teller 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

(Intro) Yucca Mountain history, landscape, and land geology The Yucca Mountain is a very interesting geological area in Nevada only about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. Located in the large desert area adjacent to Death Valley, it is currently used as a nuclear waste repository designated by the United States Department of Energy. The mountain lies in the mountainous Great Basin with numerous valleys and ridges. The Yucca Mountain has a very rich geological history that dates back hundreds of millions

blunder was picking the Yucca Mountain site and leaving no back ups or alternatives through the NWPAA. It was done before the DOE had even finished evaluating all of its potential sites as Congress had tasked it through the original NWPA. This decision by Congress is what ultimately led to reports of falsified scientific documents as the DOE was essentially forced by the NWPAA to make due with any issues they found at Yucca or face losing the entire federal nuclear repository project. Had the DOE been

Danger Underground: Nuclear Waste Disposal in Yucca Mountain Introduction The U.S. Department of Energy has proposed plans to deposit 70,000 tons of highly radioactive waste underground Yucca Mountain in Nevada. While many environmental questions and concerns have been raised about the safety of the waste disposal plan for the next 10,000 years, there appears to be no alternative. Waste from nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are a serious environmental problem that will be present

The Battle for Yucca Mountain. "Now I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds." These words were uttered by physicist Robert Oppenheimer on July 16, 1945. He was in Alamogordo, Texas and had just witnessed the detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. Three weeks later, two similar bombs, nicknamed Little Boy and Fat Man, were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The next day, Japan surrendered to the United States, signaling the end of the Second World War (Pais & Crease, 2006)

The disposal of nuclear waste is quickly becoming the most important issue facing the environmental community today. Nearly twenty percent of our nation's electricity is being supplied by approximately 100 nuclear power plants that are operating in the United States. Currently, most of the nuclear waste created by these power plants is being housed temporarily in storage facilities and although the total amount of nuclear waste produced in one year is small, the need to find a permanent method

if Yucca Mountain is a suitable long term nuclear waste disposal site, if it is a suitable short term nuclear waste site until other sites are found or other scientific ways to dispose of the waste are found, and lastly if Yucca Mountain is not determined to be a long or short term option for nuclear waste disposal. Option one would be to go ahead with the Yucca Mountain plan of long term storage since it is the only answer we have currently for nuclear waste. Option two would be to use Yucca Mountain

Nuclear waste is the substance that nuclear fuel becomes after it has been used in a reactor. Although the metal rods appear unchanged after their use, the material inside has changed greatly. Before it was used to produce power, the fuel mainly consisted of uranium. In order to create heat energy in the reactor, U235 undergoes fission. Fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts. As a result of this, there is a chain reaction which creates heat. The control

Horse: Yucca Mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada you can find the remnants of the abandoned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site. The safety of storing waste at Yucca Mountain has been an ongoing debate not only for Indian tribes and local communities around the mountain, but a topic that has concerned many people in Nevada and Washington D.C. The topic itself is a very tricky one to grasp at this point because a quarter century after it was signed in to be the national nuclear waste

Yucca Mountains and Nuclear waste Native people have been around the Americas since before the Europeans came. Then the natives land began to shrink. Now in today’s society they have the lowest population amongst groups. Most native people use the land for growing goods like fruits and vegetables to tobacco. With the possibility of nuclear waste site in Yucca Mountains, it could threaten the fertility of their land. Environmental racism is the inequality in the form of racism linked with environmental