Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants
Federal policy is based on the premise that hazardous nuclear waste can be disposed of safely, but proposed storage and disposal facilities have frequently been challenged on safety, health, and environmental grounds. The United States currently has no permanent disposal facility for spent nuclear fuel or other highly radioactive waste. New York State would be on its own.
High Level Radioactive Waste Could Outlast Human Civilization:
"Radioactive waste has the capacity to outlast human civilization as we know it," stated Texas Governor Greg Abbott in a recent letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A key component of a reactor's waste stream is Uranium-235 which has a half-life of 700 million years (only half of the radiation decays).
New York taxpayers are already paying $35 million every year to store 5,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste. Should they pay more?
Once a reactor shuts down, there is no revenue to pay for the storage costs. Inevitably those storage costs will be borne by future ratepayers and taxpayers for scores of generations. The current costs are $35 million a year to store 5,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste at New York State's seven reactors. The costs for storing this waste for 500 years are estimated at $17.5 billion.
Stored nuclear fuel provides a potential target for terrorists. In his January 2002 State of the Union speech, President Bush said that U.S. forces “found diagrams of American nuclear power plants” in al-Qaeda materials in Afghanistan. An al-Qaeda training manual lists nuclear plants as among the best targets for spreading fear in the United States. Nuclear waste is largely stored in "temporary" above-ground casks at nuclear facilities, making them easier targets.
Transporting nuclear
waste
Once the spent fuel is removed from the reactor the fission process has stopped, but the spent fuel assemblies still generate significant amounts of radiation and heat. Because of the residual hazard, spent fuel must be shipped in containers or casks that shield and contain the radioactivity and dissipate the heat. Weather, vehicle accidents and mechanical failures can make transportation extremely hazardous.