Posted on 04/12/2008 9:40:57 PM PDT by CedarDave
Southeastern New Mexico, already home to the nation's first deep underground nuclear waste disposal site, might also be a good site for radioactive nuclear reactor waste, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., suggested at a congressional hearing this week.
Domenici's comments come amid increasing concern by the U.S. nuclear industry about the government's failure to find a way to dispose of the highly radioactive waste left behind by nuclear power plants.
Yucca Mountain, the Nevada site proposed as the permanent tomb for the waste, is years behind schedule and will not be ready to accept waste until 2017 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a mine dug into deep salt beds in the desert near Carlsbad, has been open for nine years, accepting radioactive waste from nuclear weapons manufacturing.
At an April 9 appropriations hearing, Domenici asked Ward Sproat, head of the Yucca Mountain project, whether something like WIPP might work as an alternative to Yucca Mountain.
"You could, if you wanted to, without any question, you could put it in the salt of Carlsbad, most of it?" Domenici asked. "If the law was changed to allow that, yes," Sproat responded.
Domenici quickly added that he was not talking specifically about sending reactor waste to WIPP, but rather ... using deep salt beds as an alternative to Yucca Mountain ....
Under current law, nuclear power plant waste cannot be legally disposed of at WIPP, which is designed primarily for waste with lower levels of radiation.
In the hearing and in an interview Friday, Domenici said reprocessing used reactor fuel is a key step needed to sidestep the problems Yucca Mountain faces.
~~snip~~
"Reprocessing is a $200 billion-plus boondoggle that doesn't work," said Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety project at the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
Though they failed to stop WIPP (legally or physically) they will no doubt be in the forefront to block any effort to bring used nuclear power plant fuel to New Mexico, either for reprocessing or as part of a permanent disposal effort.
New Mexico list PING!
Might as well. With all the liberals moving here daily this place is becoming a toxic dump anyway.
My dad worked on the Project Gnome back in 1961. I still have his comical certificate in my files.
I still remember when the bomb went off there.
***With all the liberals moving here daily this place is becoming a toxic dump anyway.***
Well, there goes my retirement plans for Carlsbad.
The way the election stuff is going . . . I’m thinking I ought to dig out the efforts to get local FREEPERS here in NM to volutarily exchange emails and phone numbers by FREEPMAIL.
If anyone is interested, please contact me by FREEPMAIL and give:
1. location—as in county or nearest largest town, village;
2. Whether you are willing to share your email and/or phone number and list whichever or both.
3. Whether you’d be interested in say a monthly or quarterly pot luck or some such.
3. Anything else you’d like such a local group to know
I’m in the 4 Corners area.
How about plain old mexico...
Good lord man!! Raise the bar!
LOL Me don’t thinks he’s ever been there. Former town name Rattlesnake Flats. :>}
I used to live there in 1954-56 when our dad dragged us kicking and screaming to the Ozarks. I lived there again in 1973-1977 till I got a great job in Arkansas.
My worthless brother-in-law (If you know him he probably owes you money)lives in Farmington. I love the 4-Corners but would prefer to live at least 500 miles from his worthless hide.
***How about plain old mexico...***
I’d love to if they spoke english and I could take my guns.
Otherwise I guess I will have to stay where I am. I will need the guns to shoot the ticks when they start hunting us this spring.
***LOL Me don’t thinks he’s ever been there. Former town name Rattlesnake Flats. :>}***
I used to live on north Lake St. close to the high school before they built the new one up Church st.
We watched KAVE in Carlsbad and listened to KAVE radio. It signed off at 11:00 each night. The other radio station was for “old” people. At night we listened to “Yours truely KOMA!” out of OKC.
We watched “Dadyo” Don Husted try to sell cars during commercial breaks during the movies.
Only one TV station. KAVE. The other TV station from Roswell lost it’s tower at Caprock during an ice storm.
There was no communication with major networks. Everything on TV in Carlsbad had to be shipped in in cans. Everything for Carlsbad was last week’s national broadcast.
The high school team was the Cavemen. Eisenhower jr. High school was the Cavekids.
In the summer they would plow up the football field and have a Rodeo there.
One time during school a student found a stick of dynamite and set it off at night near the high school. I knew the boy.
In 1961 two girls were murdered there. When we left the next year we read that a man had been arrested in Texas for the crime.
Yep. I guess I wasn’t there.
If Hillary! is elected it goes in New Mexico for sure.
Right behind the mailbox that says “Richardson”.
It is stupid to store nuclear waste. It is the ultimate recyclable.
Bechtel came up with a way to contain hazardous nuclear waste inside steel and concrete casks. These casks can be lowered into a deep ocean trench (subduction trench) within our territorial waters (yes! They exist off of Alaska) and recycled under our continent’s plate. The pressure would eventually smash it to molecule thinness and it wouldn’t make it topside for over a million years.
That is the only solution.
I nominate the Jersey Meadowlands, because no one would notice a little extra nuclear sludge in there
Recycle the dang waste! The French are doing it, its pathetic that we aren’t. We are just burying fuel that is still 95% usable.
Heh...I meant for the reactor waste...*grin*
Here in South East Florida it has become little N.Y. what with all the pushy folks from there moving here.
Seems similar to what you New Mexico folks are going through with all the crazies fleeing Calif looking for anywhere to go to.
NOt sure which group is worse to have invade, New Yorkers or Californians. Both groups for the most part are a pain in the rear.
Put a cask beneath a statute on the court house lawn in each county with a statue and you got it solved. When we have the rockets suitable for the mission send it into deep space or the sun or simular star.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.