NRC's 'Wishful Thinking' That Geologic Disposal Site Will Be Available When Needed

[kristopher]

NRC's 'Wishful Thinking' That Geologic Disposal Site Will Be Available When Needed for Highly Radioactive Used Nuclear Reactor Fuel Challenged in Federal Court

By
Natural Resources Defense Council,
Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League,
Riverkeeper,
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
Published: Thursday, Feb. 24, 2011 - 1:48 pm

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Less than a week after three states went to court to dispute the safety issues of storing nuclear waste on site at reactor sites, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) faces two major new legal challenges to the agency's 2010 findings that used nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) can be disposed of safely on a long-term basis.

In one filing by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the other joint filing the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), Riverkeeper, and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), the new petitioners are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overturn two NRC rules that conclude that storage and disposal of spent (or used) nuclear reactor fuel and HLW generated by spent fuel reprocessing pose no significant safety or environmental concerns. The NRDC petition is online at http://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/files/nuc_11022401a.pdf. The petition by the other groups is online at http://www.bredl.org/pdf3/BREDL-Riverkeeper-SACE_Petition_for_Review_of_Waste_Confidence_Rules_2-18-11.pdf.

...

The groups are arguing that the NRC's "confidence" that a geologic repository "will be available …when necessary" is so vague as to be meaningless, and without foundation in the facts and history of the U.S. geologic repository program.

Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, whose report on the NRC's draft rules serve as part of the technical foundation for the court appeal, said: "NRC's 'confidence' that spent fuel can be disposed of safely is nothing more than wishful thinking. The U.S. government has tried to site a repository for spent fuel and high-level waste for decades – and has failed. None of its past predictions regarding the future availability of a repository have been fulfilled. In 1984 the NRC estimated that a repository would be opened in 2007-2009 and in 1989 it estimated the opening of a repository by 2025. The NRC's new statement, that a repository will be available at some unfixed time when it is 'necessary,' is just a fig leaf over the fact that no one knows whether, where, and when a repository will be available or what the environmental and health impacts might be."

The organizations will...

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/24/3428586/nrcs-wishful-thinking-that-geologic.html

Yesterday we heard from anonymous local nuclear apologists that the Union of Concerned Scientists is secretly supporting the fossil fuel industry because they understand and publicly reject nuclear power as a solution to our energy problems. I suppose we will now hear from these same nuclear industry apologists that these groups too are both stupid and secretly on the payroll of the coal industry.

Natural Resources Defense Council,
http://www.nrdc.org/

Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League,
http://www.bredl.org/

Riverkeeper,
http://www.riverkeeper.org/

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and
http://www.cleanenergy.org/

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
http://www.ieer.org/

I guess I shouldn't be so incredulous. After all the nuclear industry pays a lone past member of Greenpeace to tell everyone how green nuclear power is, so it must be true.

[txlibdem]

1. That's ok. Just store it in Texas!

"Texas may get nuclear waste from 36 states"
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/05/texas-may-get-nuclear-waste-from-36-states/1

"Texas & Nuclear Waste: Federal Judge Opens Path For Expansion
Nuclear waste in Texas: It's not just for Vermont anymore
​Environmental groups are crying foul over a federal judge's decision to lift a ban on allowing a state commission to greatly expand Texas's ability to accept nuclear waste from other states."
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/01/texas_nuclear_waste_dump.php

[NNadir]

2. How come the assholes at NRDC haven't found a dangerous fossil fuel disposal site?

Oh, I see, because they, like the rest of the uneducated anti-nuke echo chamber couldn't care less about energy wastes that actually kill people, millions per year.

There is no need for disposal of used nuclear fuel, and for all the whining and crying, there is NOT ONE member of the anti-nuke echo chamber who can show one loss of life in this country from the storage of used nuclear fuel.

Used nuclear fuel is an enormous resource for future generations, but one would need to understnad science to get it.