Disposing of Nuclear Waste

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

For years, the State of Nevada has found the Yucca Mountain project unacceptable because of the obvious logical and scientific issues that make the site itself unsafe. Additional support for their argument is that other than being far from the nuclear waste, the repository cannot really separate itself and its dangers from the environment and humans. Even though Nevada started with just being upset about the state having the political finger pointed at them to hold the whole nation’s nuclear waste but now their argument is stronger (Adams, 2010). Not only is Yucca Mountains’ size not big enough for the entire countries nuclear waste, but geologic factors could make the waste

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.

Along with the health risks that a nuclear waste site causes, there are also frequent earth quakes in the area that has been proposed and it is flood land. This poses a threat to not only the people in the area but the surrounding environment too. The radioactive waste would contaminate the water and the ground if there was a flood or earth quake and because Uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years none of us will be alive when the area is no longer

Studies have been performed on activities like disposing in the oceans, as well as on more exotic proposals such as deep geological disposal and launching into space. Some of these methods have been found wanting in terms of feasibility, costs and legal restrictions [1]. The management community in charge of nuclear waste disposal had come to the agreement that the only practical route for ensuring sufficient long-term isolation of HLW from the environment is deep geologic disposal[3].For example, Canada has focused on the concept of Deep Geological Disposal for long term management of nuclear wastes generated from nuclear activities. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is in charge of disposing radioactive wastes in the country. Canada’s long term management plan for used nuclear fuel is called “Adaptive Phased Management” [3] ,The plan is to confine and isolate the used fuel in a suitable host-rock with the help of a multiple barrier system. Selection of the site is based on screening of potential sites followed by a preliminary assessment of

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 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

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 disposal of of nuclear waste is another environmental concern that must be dealt with in a smart manner. This is a highly debated topic for several reasons. Having a half-life of 10,000+ years, some radioactive substances will stay highly dangerous for thousands of years. One possible solution to the storage of nuclear waste is the Yucca mountain project (McCombie). This would provide a universal storage site for all of the nuclear waste of the United States. However; there still are many things to be worked out for this solution such as - how will the nuclear waste be safely transported to Yucca Mountain?

Some scientists mind people that the South Australia Outback is the best, the safest, the most geologically and environmentally stable place on the planet to store the nuclear waste. (Valente,2016) However, as we know, Nuclear Waste is generally mixture of solids, liquids and gases which are produced during the generation of nuclear energy during fission, mining of uranium, nuclear research and weapons production. It is radioactive and that is the primary cause of the negative effects on human health and bodies. When humans are exposed to moderate radiation for a long time, it can lead to permanent problems and even lead to death. Nuclear waste radiation can damage or kill cells of people. Cancer is the primary health effect from radiation

Even though the mining of uranium can cause environmental pollution, the power plant itself does not actually produce pollution. Yes, there is also nuclear waste we have to take care of, but it is stored in Yucca Mountain.On the contrary, people may be afraid of the nuclear waste having an accident while transporting it to the mountain, but it hasn’t happened yet. This is why we should help keep TMI open.

Nuclear waste is a problem that is not going to just disappear so the idea of reprocessing nuclear fuel to control the waste that is left behind is a good way of dealing with it. Some opponents of reprocessing nuclear fuel say that doing this will create a risk of terrorists stealing the plutonium that is separated using this method. The problem with this theory is that the plutonium that is produced is not considered weapons grade plutonium. The other problem with reprocessing nuclear waste opponents say is transporting the material once it has been separated. This would be a vulnerable time for accidents or for someone to try and steal the plutonium for some type of nefarious purpose. Proponents of reprocessing the nuclear waste say

The site was divided into several facilities carrying out various activities to develop weapons and store and dispose of nuclear waste. Within the first two years MEDACE had built a nuclear reactor, underground waste storage tanks and a nuclear fabrication facility. All the facilities were in operation to develop plutonium fuels for military defense (Gephart and Lundgren 1998).

High Level Nuclear Waste (HLW) refers to byproducts from nuclear reactors. The byproducts come in the two forms of spent nuclear fuel, and waste from reprocessing operations. Nuclear fuel is considered spent when the fission rate has slowed to the point where the creation of electricity is no longer an efficient process. While reprocessing operations remove uranium or plutonium from the spent nuclear fuel, the wastes created in the process are still radioactive enough to require the same sort of storage as spent nuclear fuel. Used nuclear fuel and reprocessing wastes can be harmful to life and the environment because they are thermally and radioactively hot, so their storage form must be able to withstand both the heat and

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.