Antinuclear

‘Screw Nevada Bill ” – USA’s nuclear waste model for South Australia

Temple of Doom: How do we warn the future about nuclear waste?, Triple J Hack, by James Purtill, 19 Feb 16 Global waste stockpile continues to grow

“………The cost of building these plans was roughly estimated at $68 million in 1994. Twenty years later, none of these proposals have been realised. The other proposed repository, Yucca Mountain, a couple hours drive from Las Vegas, was approved in 2002, but funding was stopped in 2011. By that point the US had already spent $12 billion on Yucca, which was estimated would eventually cost $96 billion.

The Department of Energy is now urgently looking for a new site.

The waste stockpiles continue to grow. About 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel is currently being stored in casks and pools near reactors in 33 states, and this amount is expected to double by 2055.

The problem of how to store and label nuclear waste remains.

In government and policy circles, the WIPP report and 1980s nuclear semiotics is generally seen as impractical and futile – a historical curiosity that says a lot about the grand ambitions of the nuclear age, but doesn’t help much with explaining ourselves to the distant future.

“It’s a waste of time,” says Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the US’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission and member of the White House Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.

She spoke with Hack from Washington DC where she directs the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University.

“We have no idea how people in the future are going to talk or what’s going to be important to them culturally.

“We don’t know what the pyramids mean, so why should we bother? What we should do is put resources into finding a good place based on the knowledge we have now.”

The White House Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future was tasked with finding another site after the failure of Yucca, which was ditched mainly for political reasons. Nevada had never wanted to host the nation’s nuclear waste, with or without an atomic priesthood.

“Three states were being looked at, and they were all saying ‘Hey we don’t want this’,” Macfarlane says. “The state that was politically the weakest was the one that got stuck with it.”

“They call the 1987 amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act the ‘Screw Nevada Bill’………”http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/temple-of-doom-how-do-we-warn-the-future-about-nuclear-waste/7181278

February 19, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized