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Wednesday, September 24th, 2014

Months After Plutonium Leak, U.S. Nuclear Waste Facility Still Shut

Author:     WILLIAM BOARDMAN
Source:     Reader Supported News
Publication Date:     23 September 14
 Link: Months After Plutonium Leak, U.S. Nuclear Waste Facility Still Shut
Stephan:   Nuclear power was a Faustian bargain. And like all such, there is a fearsome price. Everybody gets agitated about Fukushima -- as they should -- but we don't need to go overseas to see the curse of nuclear power. This report of a 10,000 year facility that lasted less than 50 years is a cautionary tale to be taken very seriously. What do we do with the waste? And it isn't just the formal waste, like spent fuel rods. The plants themselves are going to be an ongoing problem as they age into decrepitude. Where I live on the mainland there is the Hanford facility. These things are all over the United States. And they are going to cost tens of billions of dollars essentially until someone figures out a disposal or neutralizing system.
A photograph looking over the top of nuclear waste emplaced at WIPP in drums, waste boxes and overpacks in Panel 7 where the release of radioactive material took place. (photo: WIPP)

A photograph looking over the top of nuclear waste emplaced at WIPP in drums, waste boxes and overpacks in Panel 7 where the release of radioactive material took place. (photo: WIPP)

U.S. Energy Dept. denies fake claim, ignores serious reports

More than seven months after the release of Plutonium and other radioactive materials into the environment from the failed Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) on Valentine’s Day 2014, the only U.S. nuclear weapons waste repository remains closed and unsafe, with little certainty as to when, or even if, it will be able to re-open. Nuclear experts continue to argue about just what actually happened last winter, and why, and how much radioactivity was released from the contaminated underground storage area near Carlsbad, New Mexico. To date, WIPP investigators have identified just one radioactive waste drum that ruptured underground.

According to a recent Reuters report, a ‘second container of […]

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