Obama: Build more nuke plants & close Yucca mountain

[grumbler]

How much would Nevadans get paid to act as a nuclear dumping ground?

A lot more than Nebraska, or Washington State, or South Carolina got when they were made nuclear dumping grounds. Or, for that matter, Scotland and Spain.

[The Brain]

If anyone is remotely interested in the Swedish handling of the storage issue, which seems to be a LOT smoother and more competent, this site offers some info: http://www.skb.se/Templates/Standard____23875.aspx

It may seem obvious but both final contenders were existing NPP sites.

[Caliga]

This sucks.  I was really hoping that Yucca Mountain would be finished, but then leak, so that the Beast of Yucca Flats could be created. 

[Barrister]

If anyone is remotely interested in the Swedish handling of the storage issue, which seems to be a LOT smoother and more competent, this site offers some info: http://www.skb.se/Templates/Standard____23875.aspx

It may seem obvious but both final contenders were existing NPP sites.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that many moons ago (1996) I did a work term for AECL, Canada's nuclear company, doing a small part of the environmental assessment report for Canada's underground nuclear storage proposal.  They attempted to get around the NIMBY issue by doing the assessment for no paarticular site, but doing a generic assessment.

But even then the government chickened out and shelved the proposal, and Canada has no plans for permanent nuclear storage.

[The Brain]

If anyone is remotely interested in the Swedish handling of the storage issue, which seems to be a LOT smoother and more competent, this site offers some info: http://www.skb.se/Templates/Standard____23875.aspx

It may seem obvious but both final contenders were existing NPP sites.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that many moons ago (1996) I did a work term for AECL, Canada's nuclear company, doing a small part of the environmental assessment report for Canada's underground nuclear storage proposal.  They attempted to get around the NIMBY issue by doing the assessment for no paarticular site, but doing a generic assessment.

But even then the government chickened out and shelved the proposal, and Canada has no plans for permanent nuclear storage.

I seem to remember you mentioning this. Canada FTL.

[Barrister]

Since my personal knowledge on the subject is literally a decade out of date, I googled and found this summary of what's been happening.  Apparently the plan is now to identify a willing community up front, and then try again.

Brain - it suggests that 'Wiles said Canada is in the upper echelon of countries that are looking at taking care of its nuclear waste. Finland began burying spent radioactive fuel two years ago and Sweden and Canada are "neck and neck" when it comes to their programs."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/19/f-nuclear-waste-storage-options.html

[The Brain]

Unlike your neighbors you actually seem to look at what has worked elsewhere. How about that.

[Barrister]

Unlike your neighbors you actually seem to look at what has worked elsewhere. How about that.

But that's all we're doing.  Looking and talking.  We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and not one stick of fuel is in permanent storage. 

[The Brain]

Unlike your neighbors you actually seem to look at what has worked elsewhere. How about that.

But that's all we're doing.  Looking and talking.  We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and not one stick of fuel is in permanent storage. 

But think of all the consultants that have bought new homes, cars.

[Barrister]

Unlike your neighbors you actually seem to look at what has worked elsewhere. How about that.

But that's all we're doing.  Looking and talking.  We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and not one stick of fuel is in permanent storage. 

But think of all the consultants that have bought new homes, cars.

True enough.  And the unviersity students that earned money to go to law school...   

[KRonn]

Maybe they could build a storage site to bury nuclear waster off the Massachusetts shore, right under the wind turbine field that may actually, finally, at long last, be close to nearing an affirmative answer to begin construction. 

[viper37]

Ah, found some more things (thanks Wiki! )

Re-use of waste

Another option is to find applications of the isotopes in nuclear waste so as to re-use them.[52] Already, caesium-137, strontium-90 and a few other isotopes are extracted for certain industrial applications such as food irradiation and radioisotope thermoelectric generators. While re-use does not eliminate the need to manage radioisotopes, it may reduce the quantity of waste produced.

The Nuclear Assisted Hydrocarbon Production Method,[53] Canadian patent application 2,659,302, is a method for the temporary or permanent storage of nuclear waste materials comprising the placing of waste materials into one or more repositories or boreholes constructed into an unconventional oil formation. The thermal flux of the waste materials fracture the formation, alters the chemical and/or physical properties of hydrocarbon material within the subterranean formation to allow removal of the altered material. A mixture of hydrocarbons, hydrogen, and/or other formation fluids are produced from the formation. The radioactivity of high-level radioactive waste affords proliferation resistance to plutonium placed in the periphery of the repository or the deepest portion of a borehole.

A 1990 proposed type of breeder reactor called a traveling wave reactor is claimed, if it were to be built, to be able to be fueled by depleted uranium, which is currently considered nuclear waste. [54]

National management plans
See also: High-level radioactive waste management

Most countries are considerably ahead of the United States in developing plans for high-level radioactive waste disposal. Sweden and Finland are furthest along in committing to a particular disposal technology, while many others reprocess spent fuel or contract with France or Great Britain to do it, taking back the resulting plutonium and high-level waste. "An increasing backlog of plutonium from reprocessing is developing in many countries... It is doubtful that reprocessing makes economic sense in the present environment of cheap uranium."[56]

In many European countries (e.g., Britain, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland) the risk or dose limit for a member of the public exposed to radiation from a future high-level nuclear waste facility is considerably more stringent than that suggested by the International Commission on Radiation Protection or proposed in the United States. European limits are often more stringent than the standard suggested in 1990 by the International Commission on Radiation Protection by a factor of 20, and more stringent by a factor of ten than the standard proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository for the first 10,000 years after closure. Moreover, the U.S. EPA's proposed standard for greater than 10,000 years is 250 times more permissive than the European limit.[57]

Conclusion:
US a backwater country, Canada is slightly ahead, Europe rulez!!!

I'm not feeling good, suddenly

[jimmy olsen]

$8 Billion for nuclear power. This administration is schizophrenic.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35421517/ns/business-oil_and_energy/

[Faeelin]

$8 Billion for nuclear power. This administration is schizophrenic.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35421517/ns/business-oil_and_energy/

Why is it schizo? Yucca is not necessary to biuld power plants any time soon.

[jimmy olsen]

I find it irresponsible in the extreme to build nuclear plants when you have no where to put the waste.