Tag: radioactive waste

Nuke Waste Storage at Power Plants

The federal government is being blocked by judges and state officials from building a
nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. While the legal fight goes on, nuclear power
generators store their radioactive waste at their plants. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The federal government is being blocked by judges and state officials from building a
nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. While the legal fight goes on, nuclear power
generators store their radioactive waste at their plants. Lester Graham reports:


The Department of Energy has been stumbling through legal hurdles and political
setbacks for 20 years now. It’s been trying to establish Yucca Mountain in Nevada
as the nation’s storage site for spent nuclear fuel and other highly-radioactive
material.


The Los Angeles Times reports the most recent challenge was a judge’s
ruling that makes it difficult for the Energy Department to drill test holes at the site. It
will likely cause a domino effect of delays.


Many environmentalists and others don’t want Yucca Mountain to ever receive the
nuclear waste. But, in the meantime thousands of tons of spent nuclear power rods
are being stored at the nuclear power plants… and many of those power plants are
located near rivers, lakes and towns. Some of the storage is in buildings, some of it
in casks, sitting outside.


For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Radioactive Waste Dump Near Great Lakes?

A member of Congress is trying to get the US to investigate a Canadian plan to build a radioactive waste dump. Lester Graham reports the radioactive materials would be put in an underground site less than a mile from one of the Great Lakes:

Transcript

A member of Congress is trying to get the U.S. to investigate a Canadian plan to build a radioactive waste dump. Lester Graham reports the radioactive materials would be put in an underground site less than a mile from one of the Great Lakes:


Ontario Power Generation wants to construct a Deep Geologic Repository, basically an underground dump, for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Ontario’s nuclear power plants. Bart Stupak is a member of Congress from Michigan. He says the proposed site would be built near Lake Huron at the Bruce Nuclear Site, where there have been reports of problems with radioactive contamination of water in the past.


“It’s gonna be within a mile of the Great Lakes. I think that’s not appropriate. You know, you’re lying within the watershed and we know no matter what great efforts we may make to keep pollution at a minimum, it does occur. And, unfortunately in this case we’ve seen at that site some radioactive contamination already.”


Stupak has called on the U.S. EPA and other agencies to look into what risks the Canadian radioactive waste dump might pose to the U.S. cities and the ecology of the Great Lakes.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Fight to Store Waste Under Mountain Persists

While the Department of Energy faces several lawsuits
to its proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada,
tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste are stored at nuclear
plants. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

While the Department of Energy faces several lawsuits to its proposed Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste site in Nevada, tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste are stored at
nuclear plants. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:


A U.S. Court of Appeals recently sidelined a lawsuit challenging the Energy Department’s plans to transport high-level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, but at least seven other lawsuits are waiting in the wings.


The plan to store radioactive waste such as spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants
under Yucca Mountain has been in the works for two decades. The government had
planned to open Yucca Mountain in 2012. That schedule has
been pushed back five years to 2017. The government needs the time to get approvals
from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and to prepare environmental impact reports
that are expected to face further court challenges.


Nuclear power plants, which are often situated near rivers or lakes, are storing the
radioactive waste on site and some plants are running out of room and are to store the waste
in containers outside.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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