1,800 Tons of Radioactive Waste Has an Ocean View and Nowhere to Go
July 2nd, 2017Via: Los Angeles Times:
The massive, 150-ton turbines have stopped spinning. The mile-long cooling pipes that extend into the Pacific will likely become undersea relics. High voltage that once energized the homes of more than a million Californians is down to zero.
But the San Onofre nuclear power plant will loom for a long time as a landmark, its 1,800 tons of lethal radioactive waste stored on the edge of the Pacific and within sight of the busy 5 Freeway.
Across the site, deep pools of water and massive concrete casks confine high-power gamma radiation and other forms of radioactivity emitted by 890,000 spent fuel rods that nobody wants there.
And like the other 79,000 tons of spent fuel spread across the nation, San Onofre’s nuclear waste has nowhere to go.
The nation’s inability to find a permanent home for the dangerous byproduct of its 50-year-adventure in nuclear energy represents one of the biggest and longest running policy failures in federal government history.
And this is true of all nuclear power plants all over the world, at least as far as I know. I really have to marvel that the engineers and scientists who dreamed up nuclear power didn’t think this would constitute something of a problem! And keep in mind we’re talking about a problem that’s going to be around for 250,000 years. Human civilization is only about 10,000 or 12,000 years old so far.
The nuclear power plant Indian Point up the Hudson from NYC is set to close in 2021. It provides 25% of the power to the NYC area. While the nuclear waste will eventually pose major problems it would help if we could recycle spent fuel like is done in Europe and Japan.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/10/01/why-doesnt-u-s-recycle-nuclear-fuel/#41cb877e390f