$5.5 Billion Dollars for Nuclear Waste Cleanup is Not Pork

Uranium 238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. It constitutes 94% of of all spent fuel. Plutonium 239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. The spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors emit large amounts of gamma radiation. There are High Level waste and Low Level waste, there is also transuranic waste which in small quantity (and can be dealt with by remote-handling technology) do not emit beta or gamma radiation in any significant amount.

Yucca Mountain, which has a facility 250 meters below the surface will mainly house more than 200 radioactive isotopes. Among these isotopes, carbon-14, chlorine-36, cesium-135, neptunium-237, iodine-129, curium-245, and technetium-99 are especially focused upon for long term isolation and security. Carlsbad,N.M. houses the WIPP(Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) for military-origin transuranic waste, approximately 655 meters below the surface. Special casks and embedding procedures in salt will be used to nullify any chance of leakage.

Nuclear Transmutation has been referred to as alchemy in some quarters. It is a process of conversion facilitated by bombarding an element with nuclear particles. The easiest way is through neutron irradiation whereby the chemical nature of the atom has been changed.

The idea of transmutation was not even considered a viable path for waste management in the early 1990's. In the 1980's and mid -1990's, transmutation was heavily investigated. Everything from cost, complexity, proliferation, gateway potential, and unfeasibility made sure it would'nt go any further than discussion. Even so, discussion began amongst the United States, Japan, & France. A great deal of money, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars would be necessary to design and construct the fast neutron machines needed to provide a kind of relief to the necessary but only available solution, geologic repositories.The thought was to convert long-lived radionuclides into radionuclides with relatively short half-lives. In turn this would provide an environmental positivity, as well as help to finance fast neutron reactor technologies.

The 21st century has hopes of building reactors that are standardized in design, safer to operate, and simpler to build. Even though a few projects have been put on hold, the GE-Japanese Advanced BWR and the ABB System 80+ for instance, have received design awards. In Europe, studies are moving forward to lengthen the lifetime of pressurized-water reactors to 40 years. The Swedish Swiss conglomerate, ABB has been at work on the BWR 90. Another project is the result of 7 European utilities, the EP 1000. The U.S., in it's present situation has opted out of any new projects and closed down a couple of others.

When it comes to plans to go forward with nuclear waste management and the question of funding versus so-called Pork, there can be no hesitation. A particular business personality on a cable news channel recently argued that this was such a matter. Nuclear waste management requires everyone to clean up after themselves, and maybe then the health industry won't be so heavily put upon.

The sources for this article include the following:
1) The Chambers Nuclear and Radiation /Editor , Professor P.M.B. Walker,CBE, FRSE
2) Nuclear Waste: The 10,000 Year Challenge by Edward F. Dolan And Margaret Scariano
3) IEEE Spectrum / November 1997/Vol.34 No. 11/Pg.33/a) Nuclear Waste Disposal in New Mexico and Nevada by Johnathan Beard and b) Advanced Reactor Development Rebounding by William Sweet
4) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists/May-June 2006/Vol.62 No.3/ Stuck On A Solution by Allison MacFarlane/Pg.46/
5) Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists/ March-April 2001/ Vol.57 No.2/Pg.34/ Magical Thinking by Arjun Makhijani, Hisham Zerriffi & Annie Makhijani
6) Ecologist/ July-August 2006/ Issue 5 Vol.36/ Pg.41/The Nuclear Dossier by Jon Hughes