Nuclear Waste

A number of this year’s presidential hopefuls have made public their opposition to the nuclear waste dumpsite at Yucca Mountain, deep in the deserts of Nevada.

The dump is located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Although the original plan was to open the facility in 1998, the dump has been dogged by lawsuits protesting its construction, scientific controversies on the safety of the site, and budget shortages. Its earliest opening is now set for 2020, with a revised cost estimate topping $77 billion.

The politicians’ opposition is understandably short-term. Nevada is an important state in the upcoming presidential race, because it is one of the early states to vote in the primaries for the party nominations. A big win in Nevada can fuel the campaign of an ambitious candidate, and few issues are more unpopular among Nevada voters than the nuclear waste dumpsite.

While nearly all of the candidates say they would scrap the plan to store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, all of them insist that the construction of more nuclear power plants should continue, to help provide the energy requirements of the nation. No one is saying where they will dump all the nuclear waste that will be produced.

Nobody talks anymore of dumping radioactive nuclear waste in the deep sea. That has been tried, and has been found to be even more dangerous. Drums rust in the seawater and deteriorate, exposing the radioactive waste and contaminating everything, including eventually the fish we eat. Scientists believe the nuclear waste is more safely disposed by burying it underground, in places that have little risk of being disturbed by earthquake activity or volcanic eruptions.

Nuclear waste needs to be safeguarded for a long time. The radioactivity in spent fuel remains lethal for tens of thousands of years. This is very long-term indeed, and it cannot be left to short-term-minded politicians to solve this problem.

For as long as the nation wants to use nuclear power plants to produce electricity, it must find a way to dispose of nuclear waste safely. If they don’t want it dumped in Yucca Mountain, they should propose an alternative. The US cannot dump it in another country or in the open seas.

Even as the government grapples with that problem, there is another long-term problem. How will this generation warn the generations 10,000 years from now that there is toxic nuclear waste stored in a particular site?

Languages mutate very fast. Your English-speaking child would not be able to understand The Canterbury Tales, if written in Geoffrey Chaucer’s original English, and that is a span of barely 700 years. Very few people will understand the languages of today a thousand years – what more 10,000 years – from now.

Scientists will have to find a way to leave a message that can be understood. These are long-term problems and solutions should not be rushed. Nor should it be left to short-term political minds.