Ever since mankind started the adventure of using nuclear fuel, there has been a need to find a way to store the resulting nuclear waste where it won’t cause problems for either people or the environment from deadly radiation. The question is, where can this dangerous substance be stored safely?
In 1987, the US Congress chose Yucca Mountain, which is about 90 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada, as an area to construct a huge tunnel-like repository to store this nuclear waste, but the project was never completed due to it being stopped by the Obama administration.
Currently, with few other options open to them, many nuclear reaction sites maintain their nuclear waste material on site. Thus, they argue heavily that there needs to be a better solution to the problem of nuclear material storage, or a nuclear waste project. However, with President Obama nearing the end of his second term and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, announcing his retirement recently, the idea of restarting the Yucca Mountain project has been revived. Both men have been staunch opponents of the project. With the Republicans now in control, officials say the chances are much better that the nuclear waste project could be taken to fruition.
While the current administration has opposed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, proponents say that it meets the requirements of federal regulations, according to a recent Nuclear Regulatory Commission Safety Evaluation Report on the area. In order to help make a decision on the future of the Yucca Mountain project, five members of the US Congress will travel there to tour the partially completed facility, which was mothballed when the nuclear waste project was stalled due to disagreements in the current administration.
The group of Congress members includes U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, Republican chairman of the House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee, who supports the idea of placing the nation’s nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain site. He will be joined by Rep. Cresent Hardy (R), who has stated that he is willing to listen to the proposal if it included things like money and support for local schools, roads and water sharing from the neighboring state of Colorado. Shimkus is calling for the US Congress to satisfy a promise made in 1982 that said they would use the funds from commercial utilities to pay for a permanent way of storing the nuclear waste.
Already, about $15 billion has been used to drill the five-mile long tunnel at the Yucca Mountain site, and it is estimated it could hold about 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, and cost about $100 billion by the time it was completed. The waste materials would be stored in the tunnel inside of special casks. The others who will travel to the site for the tour include Mark Amodei of Nevada (R), Bob Latta of Ohio (R), Dan Newhouse of Washington (R) and Jerry McNerney (D).
In the spirit of efforts to keep our mountains beautiful, take a peek at Austria’s esteemed mountains:
https://youtu.be/NdAR74IHVT8
