Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of units
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The problem
- 1 The awakening
- 2 Brainstorming
- 3 The ocean as a dumping ground
- 4 Radioactivity and atomic energy
- 5 The Cold War legacy
- 6 The peaceful atom and its wastes
- 7 Recycling
- 8 Dry cask storage
- 9 Interim storage
- 10 A can of worms
- 11 WIPP
- Part II The mountain
- Part III No solution in sight
- Appendix Discussion questions
- References
- Index
9 - Interim storage
from Part I - The problem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of units
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The problem
- 1 The awakening
- 2 Brainstorming
- 3 The ocean as a dumping ground
- 4 Radioactivity and atomic energy
- 5 The Cold War legacy
- 6 The peaceful atom and its wastes
- 7 Recycling
- 8 Dry cask storage
- 9 Interim storage
- 10 A can of worms
- 11 WIPP
- Part II The mountain
- Part III No solution in sight
- Appendix Discussion questions
- References
- Index
Summary
One day he is at war and the next day at peace. He has many colors.
CochiseHaving failed to meet a January 1998 deadline for beginning to accept spent nuclear fuel, the Department of Energy (DOE) is now besieged by lawsuits for breach of contract. By 2010, the government had paid about $760 million in settlements, and DOE estimates $13 billion in potential liability costs if the government does not start accepting nuclear waste by 2020.
With a geologic repository nowhere in sight, and the government in a legal and financial bind, the idea of a centralized interim site is often talked up. This site would serve as a way station between the nuclear power plants and final transfer to a geologic repository. On paper, this looks like a win–win. The federal government could take charge of the waste and stop hemorrhaging from lawsuits. The utilities would get the waste off their lots. People who live near nuclear power plants would get the waste out of their neighborhood. Proponents of nuclear energy could claim progress with at least some aspect of nuclear waste disposal. But is interim surface storage anymore possible, or palatable, than geologic underground disposal? And how interim is interim?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Too Hot to TouchThe Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste, pp. 122 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012