Nuclear Power

Perhaps the single most troubling issue for the nuclear power industry is waste management. Nuclear wastes can be classified into two general categories, low-level wastes and high-level wastes. The former consist of materials that release a relatively modest level of radiation and/or that will soon decay to a level where they no longer present a threat to humans and the environment. Storing these materials in underground or underwater reservoirs for a few years or in some other system is usually a satisfactory way of handling these materials.

High-level wastes are a different matter. After a period of time, the fuel rods in a reactor are no longer able to sustain a chain reaction and must be removed. These rods are still highly radioactive, however, and present a serious threat to human life and the environment that can be expected to last for tens of thousands of years. These rods and any materials derived from them (as, for example, during chemical dismantling of the rods to extract their plutonium for the production of nuclear weapons or for use as a nuclear fuel), are considered high-level wastes.

For more than two decades, the United States government has been attempting to develop a plan for the storage of high-level nuclear wastes. At one time, the plan was to bury the wastes in a salt mine near Lyons, Kansas. Objections from residents of the area and other concerned citizens made that plan infeasible. More recently, the government decided to construct a huge crypt in the middle of Yucca Mountain in Nevada for the burial of high-level wastes. The government insists that Yucca Mountain is safe and will eventually become the long-term storage site for the nation's high-level radioactive wastes. Until the site is put into full operation, however (if it is), the wastes slated for burial in it are held in "temporary" storage on the grounds nuclear power plants throughout the United States.