USA’s Blue Ribbon Commission has no idea what to do with 70,000 tons of nuclear waste

The Internet Post

he Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future reported that “no currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactor and fuel cycle technology developments — including advances in reprocessing and recycling technologies — have the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenges the nation confronts over at least the next several decades, if not longer.”

A report by a government research lab found that the U.S. will have to bury nearly 70,000 tons of nuclear waste after the Obama administration cut funding for the Yucca Mountain repository in 2011, reports the Moscow-based news service RT.

A 2012 report by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which does research for the Department of Energy, said that “about 68,450 [metric tons] or about 98 percent of the total current inventory by mass, can proceed to permanent disposal without the need to ensure retrievability for reuse or research purposes. The report also found that the rest of the nuclear waste can be used for research on fuel reprocessing and storage.

The Oak Ridge report also notes that the stock of spent nuclear fuel being held at 79 temporary locations in 34 US states “is massive, diverse, dispersed, and increasing.”

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Filed under: enviroment, science Tagged: nuclear energy, Nuclear reprocessing, NUCLEAR WASTE, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Obama administration, Radioactive waste, Spent nuclear fuel, United States, United States Department of Energy, Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository For more News Visit: http://tipggita32.wordpress.com