03-22-2007, 06:37 AM
Here is a good introduction to some of the problems caused by the uranium industry. I recommend reading the whole article by clicking the link.
Quote:
The Other Nuclear Option
By Nicole Makris, AlterNet. Posted February 2, 2006.
If nuclear energy is as safe and clean as Bush says it is, why does the United States have so much trouble safely disposing of its nuclear waste?
The legislation requires that the nuclear waste produced at commercial power plants around the country remain where it was created until the federal government makes good on its now 24-year-old plan to move all of the nation's nuclear waste to an underground storage facility, where it can live out its deadly radioactive half-lives without threatening nearby populations.
Nuclear power has again become a seductive alternative to oil and coal as a fuel source as America struggles to find enough energy to meet consumer demand. The nation's reliance on nuclear power as a source of energy has steadily increased since the 50s, when then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower assured Americans that nuclear technology could be used for good. In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, Bush announced his intention to rely on "clean, safe nuclear energy" to fight our national oil addiction. But one aspect of its energy production remains the same: Nuclear waste never goes away, and the U.S. government still doesn't have a viable plan to get rid of it.
...
Charged with creating a plan for the disposal of "spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear reactors and high-level radioactive waste from national defense activities" by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, legislators came up with what seemed like a great idea: Put the waste somewhere sparsely populated with few environmental regulations, amidst good, patriotic U.S. citizens that rarely ask questions and are happy to help out Uncle Sam. One of those flat, square-like states where there aren't any cute owls or polar bears to mourn or big trees to sit in.
Enter the lower Great Basin, also known as Utah's West Desert, or Eastern Nevada: a region of the country so unremarkable no one even knows what to call it. Land of the nuclear test site, numerous bombing grounds and military bases, and some of the country's most heinous polluters, like MagCorp, which holds the title of "nation's worst toxic air polluter." It is also the site of the government's proposed permanent nuclear waste storage facility: Yucca Mountain, where scientists' insistence that seismic activity and groundwater levels make it unsafe for waste storage has delayed the site's opening indefinitely.
Inconsequential to most Americans, the "west desert" area is also the site of numerous Native American reservations, with thousands of miles of land given to the Western Shoshone and Goshute tribes in treaties. For this reason, Litser's Shundahai Network is fighting the development of both Skull Valley and Yucca Mountain.
By Nicole Makris, AlterNet. Posted February 2, 2006.
If nuclear energy is as safe and clean as Bush says it is, why does the United States have so much trouble safely disposing of its nuclear waste?
The legislation requires that the nuclear waste produced at commercial power plants around the country remain where it was created until the federal government makes good on its now 24-year-old plan to move all of the nation's nuclear waste to an underground storage facility, where it can live out its deadly radioactive half-lives without threatening nearby populations.
Nuclear power has again become a seductive alternative to oil and coal as a fuel source as America struggles to find enough energy to meet consumer demand. The nation's reliance on nuclear power as a source of energy has steadily increased since the 50s, when then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower assured Americans that nuclear technology could be used for good. In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, Bush announced his intention to rely on "clean, safe nuclear energy" to fight our national oil addiction. But one aspect of its energy production remains the same: Nuclear waste never goes away, and the U.S. government still doesn't have a viable plan to get rid of it.
...
Charged with creating a plan for the disposal of "spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear reactors and high-level radioactive waste from national defense activities" by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, legislators came up with what seemed like a great idea: Put the waste somewhere sparsely populated with few environmental regulations, amidst good, patriotic U.S. citizens that rarely ask questions and are happy to help out Uncle Sam. One of those flat, square-like states where there aren't any cute owls or polar bears to mourn or big trees to sit in.
Enter the lower Great Basin, also known as Utah's West Desert, or Eastern Nevada: a region of the country so unremarkable no one even knows what to call it. Land of the nuclear test site, numerous bombing grounds and military bases, and some of the country's most heinous polluters, like MagCorp, which holds the title of "nation's worst toxic air polluter." It is also the site of the government's proposed permanent nuclear waste storage facility: Yucca Mountain, where scientists' insistence that seismic activity and groundwater levels make it unsafe for waste storage has delayed the site's opening indefinitely.
Inconsequential to most Americans, the "west desert" area is also the site of numerous Native American reservations, with thousands of miles of land given to the Western Shoshone and Goshute tribes in treaties. For this reason, Litser's Shundahai Network is fighting the development of both Skull Valley and Yucca Mountain.