Nuclear waste repository:

Currently, there is no solution to properly dispose the nuclear wastes that come from nuclear power plants. In a NY Times article, I found that the proposed dump site for nuclear waste (Yucca Mountain) is being reconsidered. As the article points out, largely due to the unscientific method of it being chosen as the place to house the nuclear waste from the power plants. As of 2007, there are 104 nuclear power plants in the United States. Momentarily, the nuclear wastes that are created are basically just sitting near the power plants in “steel-lined pools or steel-concrete casks” for decades. Collecting waste in a repository includes the fear of leakage of radioactive chemicals into the water systems, and even the amount of time it will take for the radioactive material to naturally decay to its non-detrimental form. But the issue arises when we take a look at the half-lives for some of these radioactive isotopes. Take Plutonium- 239 for example: its half life is 24,000 years. But the material is only considered safe after plutonium-239 goes through 10 of its half-lives, which turns out to be 240,000 years later. So while we use these nuclear reactors and pile up on these nuclear wastes, inevitably there will be enough to cause an issue. At the end of the day, do we feel that the energy nuclear reactors provide us with outweighs the negativities it introduces to our environment?

The following website gives us a few reasons to consider before we start using this burying method as a solution: http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2002/08/23_krieger_yucca-top10.htm

A solution to the damage we have thus far created is vitrification of these nuclear waste materials. This will disable the radioactive materials from escaping since they will be trapped into a liquid-turned-solid glass material.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/nuc_reactors/reactsum.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/science/earth/06yucca.html?ref=science