Tim BROWN /606 words/16 November 2009/Manawatu Standard/TEVEST/11/English/© 2009 Fairfax New Zealand Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Despite our searches, we have yet to find a power source that does not have a downside. Even renewable resources such as wind, sun and water all have costs in some form. There are no free lunches in the power-supply business.
Nuclear power has been used successfully for many years in many parts of the world.
Britain's plants have been operating without problems for more than 55 years. There have been only two major accidents, at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
Public pressure caused the closure of four plants in Italy and that resulted in Italy being held to ransom for power by Russia. An Italian nuclear engineer reliably advises me that the new reactors are environmentally friendly. That, however, is not the problem. Nuclear waste remains for a long time, up to 100,000 years.
CRESP Newstories and Links related to risk-based cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons production facility waste sites and cost-effective, risk-based management of potential future nuclear sites and wastes. CRESP seeks to improve the scientific and technical basis for environmental management decisions by the Department of Energy (DOE) and by fostering public participation in that search.
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Showing posts with label Editorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Editorial. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2009
A mountain of a problem
537 words/13 November 2009/Augusta Chronicle/AGCR/All/A6/English/© 2009 Augusta Chronicle. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
No one signed up for this.
While the federal government does its best to get into an area it doesn't belong - your health care - it is retreating from one of its most solemn and necessary national security obligations: storage of nuclear waste.
Now, after the investment of more than 20 years, some $13 billion - and study after study, expert after expert - the Obama administration has decided the federal government won't have a national nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Scientists long ago studied several dozen possible sites for a nuclear waste repository and decided on Yucca Mountain - largely because it is geologically the safest site.
It is also a national security issue, in that Yucca would have provided one secure location for storage of nuclear waste, instead of dozens of sites throughout the states.
But perhaps to assuage Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada - who is facing a tough re-election battle next year - the Obama administration has announced it is abandoning Yucca.
There are a great number of problems with that - not the least of which is the fact that the country has no Plan B.
No one signed up for this.
While the federal government does its best to get into an area it doesn't belong - your health care - it is retreating from one of its most solemn and necessary national security obligations: storage of nuclear waste.
Now, after the investment of more than 20 years, some $13 billion - and study after study, expert after expert - the Obama administration has decided the federal government won't have a national nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Scientists long ago studied several dozen possible sites for a nuclear waste repository and decided on Yucca Mountain - largely because it is geologically the safest site.
It is also a national security issue, in that Yucca would have provided one secure location for storage of nuclear waste, instead of dozens of sites throughout the states.
But perhaps to assuage Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada - who is facing a tough re-election battle next year - the Obama administration has announced it is abandoning Yucca.
There are a great number of problems with that - not the least of which is the fact that the country has no Plan B.
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