There is a new nuclear waste repository somewhere around Albuquerque, New Mexico, but it's identified as being the only one and that's not true. (US News: APNewsBreak: Energy boss: Nuke site reopens but work remains)
This Jan. 4, 2017, image provided by the U.S. Energy Department and its contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership shows workers moving waste underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The repository, the federal government's only underground spot for disposing of low-level nuclear waste, had been shuttered for nearly three years since a 2014 radiation release.
(Sam Christensen/Nuclear Waste Partnership via U.S. Energy Department) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The general concept seems good for this repository since the construction is inside underground salt formations which they anticipate will one day collapse and entomb the radioactive waste. However, it's not true that this is the only one so that's why we're annoyed.
The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada started long before anything in New Mexico but was later canceled due to Washington budgeting (or the lack of it). (Scientific American: Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Trash Heap Deadly for 250,000 Years or a Renewable Energy Source?)
WIKI: Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository
Be sure to note from the WIKI who canceled the Yucca Mountain repository funding and, glory, that was Barack Obama. How clever to turn around immediately from that to building another one.
Something you may find interesting is the signage being used to warn people away from these sites since it's been designed to be understandable regardless of the cultural level of those who try to read them.
Another thing you may find interesting from the Scientific American article is the potential for recycling the spent reactor fuel rods. That doesn't look too promising since that process cranks out nuclear waste as well but read the article for your own estimation of the situation.
There's some thinking if we just stop using nuclear power then the problem goes away but that's not true since the existing nuclear waste needs to be safely stored. You can't simply chuck it into the ocean or you really will have a Godzilla climbing out of it so we have the waste repositories.
This Jan. 4, 2017, image provided by the U.S. Energy Department and its contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership shows workers moving waste underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The repository, the federal government's only underground spot for disposing of low-level nuclear waste, had been shuttered for nearly three years since a 2014 radiation release.
(Sam Christensen/Nuclear Waste Partnership via U.S. Energy Department) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The general concept seems good for this repository since the construction is inside underground salt formations which they anticipate will one day collapse and entomb the radioactive waste. However, it's not true that this is the only one so that's why we're annoyed.
The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada started long before anything in New Mexico but was later canceled due to Washington budgeting (or the lack of it). (Scientific American: Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Trash Heap Deadly for 250,000 Years or a Renewable Energy Source?)
WIKI: Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository
Be sure to note from the WIKI who canceled the Yucca Mountain repository funding and, glory, that was Barack Obama. How clever to turn around immediately from that to building another one.
Something you may find interesting is the signage being used to warn people away from these sites since it's been designed to be understandable regardless of the cultural level of those who try to read them.
Another thing you may find interesting from the Scientific American article is the potential for recycling the spent reactor fuel rods. That doesn't look too promising since that process cranks out nuclear waste as well but read the article for your own estimation of the situation.
There's some thinking if we just stop using nuclear power then the problem goes away but that's not true since the existing nuclear waste needs to be safely stored. You can't simply chuck it into the ocean or you really will have a Godzilla climbing out of it so we have the waste repositories.
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