With peak oil and climate change knocking at the door, attention ever so slowly is turning toward the direction of alternative energy. While funding for clean energies -- solar, wind, geothermal, etc. -- lags far behind, a good many people want to hang their hats on NUCLEAR energy. They tout it as our lifeline to the future.
But there's a problem -- one advocates try to sweep under the rug. While the emissions into the air are minimal, nuclear energy produces highly toxic waste and we have no clue as to how to store it safely! A recent article highlights this dangerous aspect.
When we bury the stuff in the ground, it has a tendency to leak or leech into nearby groundwater. An earthquake near an underground disposal location could cause a devastating calamity. In essence, the concept of burying the stuff is just a sophisticated method of "out of sight, out of mind."
This is the precise reason WHY nuclear energy should not be an option today OR tomorrow. In fact, this is the reason why ALL nuclear power facilities should be immediately closed. We are producing a byproduct that -- by itself -- could end life on earth as we know it.
If we continue down this path, it will only prove once and for all that we humans are inherently insane!
But there's a problem -- one advocates try to sweep under the rug. While the emissions into the air are minimal, nuclear energy produces highly toxic waste and we have no clue as to how to store it safely! A recent article highlights this dangerous aspect.
Tens of thousands of tons of potentially lethal radioactive waste have been piling up across the nation for more than a generation, but the federal government has yet to decide how to get rid of it permanently.Even within the article itself, there is a misnomer. While it utilizes the phrase "safe, permanent disposal plan," we have yet to figure out what SAFE really is. Each time we come up with a supposedly safe disposal methodology, it turns out to be anything but safe.
After axing a multibillion-dollar plan to bury the waste beneath Yucca Mountain, Nev., President Barack Obama has asked an expert panel to recommend alternatives.
But the panel's report isn't due until January 2012. And the group's recommendations aren't binding on the White House or Congress.
In short, the country's political leaders are no closer to a safe, permanent disposal plan for nuclear waste than they were a generation ago, when nuclear power became widespread and the Cold War was in full swing.
The nation's accumulated 70,000 tons of extremely radioactive, "high level" waste — uranium and plutonium — has sat in "temporary" storage in 35 states since at least the 1950s...The waste will continue to pile up as the nation's 104 nuclear power plants win license renewals from federal regulators. It's expected to reach 153,000 tons by 2055, according to a November report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative agency...
When we bury the stuff in the ground, it has a tendency to leak or leech into nearby groundwater. An earthquake near an underground disposal location could cause a devastating calamity. In essence, the concept of burying the stuff is just a sophisticated method of "out of sight, out of mind."
This is the precise reason WHY nuclear energy should not be an option today OR tomorrow. In fact, this is the reason why ALL nuclear power facilities should be immediately closed. We are producing a byproduct that -- by itself -- could end life on earth as we know it.
If we continue down this path, it will only prove once and for all that we humans are inherently insane!
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