A diagram of a dry storage cask for nuclear waste. (Photo courtesy of the US Energy Information Administration)
President Barack Obama is
proposing billions to build
new nuclear power plants in
the US. But Shawn Allee reports the President
is also trying to tackle a
problem facing the country’s
old nuclear reactors:
Transcript
President Barack Obama is
proposing billions to build
new nuclear power plants in
the US. But Shawn Allee reports the President
is also trying to tackle a
problem facing the country’s
old nuclear reactors:
President Obama mentioned the future of nuclear power in his State of the Union Address.
“But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.“
At the same time, Obama’s dealing with an old nuclear problem: what to do with the hazardous radioactive waste building up at reactors in thirty one states. Obama gave up on an old plan to bury spent fuel inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. That project dragged on for decades and cost nine billion dollars.
Recently, the President set up a panel that recommend what to do with all this waste. That panel’s supposed to report to the President in less than two years.
Meanwhile, spent nuclear fuel is stored at nuclear power plants.
For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.