[Bryanw92]

But we’ve always processed and kept or expended cores in Idaho. The Expended Core Facility is all that is left of the Naval Reactors Facility where we trained nuclear plant operators for decades.

[George from New England]

Sounds like another boon-doggle. What port on what ocean borders the state of Idaho ?

[alternatives?]

Why not put it in Nevada with all the other nuclear waste?

[Kickass Conservative]

Just dump them in the Arctic Ocean like The Soviet Union used to do.

[Taxman]

Why not reopen Yucca Mountain in Nevada?

IIRC, the facility was almost finished when Dingy Harry got it shut down. He’ll be gone in January, and President Trump should look into finishing the project and using it!

[beelzepug]

Sure, just dump all the nuclear garbage out west! That’s all we’re here for. Pillage all our natural resources, send in government thugs to steal our land when they want it, murder the ranchers and farmers who’ve worked hard to make a living on it, and dispose of your poisonous shit in our backyards. Bastards!

[Myrddin]

The INL facility that does this work is 90 miles from my house. The technique that has been attempted is grinding the waste and encasing it in glass. That isn't the end of the process. The glass is shipped to New Mexico to be stored at the WIPP facility. That's where the scheme fails. WIPP is falling apart and expelling radioactive material into the atmosphere. The containers buried in the salt are blowing apart because a nitrate bearing "natural" material was mixed with the radioactive waste. Nearby the WIPP salt cavern is a high pressure source of WATER that will dissolve the salt and wash the radioactive meterial into the subsurface water.

The "glass" idea turns out to be a bad approach. At the atomic level, the hot radioactive particles act like a sandblaster. The glass is pulverized to a talcum powder granularity that is easy to wash out in the water compromised salt caverns.

The WIPP compromise has resulted in a cessation of transport of waste material to WIPP. It is now being stacked up above ground in Idaho where the glass is breaking down. We don't need more trasnported into Idaho because none of it is going back out after transport.