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New Home for Radwaste?

Posted October 17, 2011 7:58 AM

Use of the existing Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico has been proposed as a repository for high-level radioactive waste and defense spent fuel. A comparison of geological and infrastructural characteristics between the site and the abandoned Yucca Mountain, NV, repository leads analysts to conclude that expansion of WIPP to accommodate such waste is feasible. In the absence of fuel reprocessing prospects, should this geological repository be made operational?

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Power-User

Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Atchison Village
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#1

Re: New Home for Radwaste?

10/17/2011 11:42 PM

Have it declared non-toxic, like coal ash, by regulatory fiat.

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Power-User
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#2

Re: New Home for Radwaste?

10/18/2011 8:56 AM

After spending $14 billion on Yucca Mtn, the conclusion was that even solid rock in a desert mountain would not keep even vitrified waste in thick stainless cans out of the groundwater until it was back close to normal levels of radioactivity. There's another project afoot to bribe a tribe in northern Saskatchewan, a wet area, to take the waste for $.0004 billion. Obviously, the 1% have given up on long term safety, and just want to do something cheap that won't blow up right away.

There is no good solution yet, and even the least bad one would eventually cost any local people dearly. There may be no sure way to keep it out of the oceans, long term, and it is orders of magnitude more dangerous that it was as undisturbed ore.

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