Radioactive Waste 19 - Court ruling against the NRC

          In my previous post, I discussed recent rule changes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with respect to extending the time allowed from 30 years to 60 years for utilities to temporarily store spent nuclear fuel in pools or dry cask storage while a permanent geological repository is sited and developed. The new rules went into effect in January of 2011. In February of 2011 Connecticut, New York and Vermont sued the NRC to repeal the new rule for storage.

Radioactive Waste 18 - Rule changes at the NRC

          On January 24, 2011 a new rule was put in place by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with respect to the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The new rule covered the storage of spent nuclear fuel in pools near the reactor, onsite in temporary storage casks or offsite in independent storage facilities. The NRC made changes in 1990 to the Waste Confidence rulemaking procedures to allow for the extension of temporary storage.

Radioactive Waste 16 - Blue Ribbon Presidential Commission

           Before the Obama administration moved to cancel the Yucca Mountain Repository Project for permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste in March of 2010, the President created the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future to study the problem of permanent spent nuclear fuel disposal on January 29, 2010. The Commission was co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft.

Radioactive Waste 15 - U.S. Nuclear Fund

          In 1982, The U.S. Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.  Included in the Policy Act was the provision that the U.S. utilities would pay a tax on the radioactive waste being generated by the U.S. utility companies operating nuclear reactors. The money in the fund was to be used by the U.S. government to create a safe permanent disposal facility by 1998. The Yucca Mountain Repository was the intended solution to permanent disposal.

Radioactive Waste 13 - Vitrification

         We have been covering a lot of issues involving disposal of nuclear waste. There is a process called “vitrification” that helps prepare nuclear waste for disposal. The specific meaning of the term is the process of turning something into a glass. For substances that have a glass phase, vitrification would consist of causing the substance to undergo phase transition to its glass state. Chemical processes can also result the creation of a glass.

Radioactive Waste 12 - Deep Borehole Disposal 2

          Writing this blog has been a very educational experience. I have been aware of the problem of disposal of nuclear waste for a long time but lately I have been delving into the details. I knew that the Yucca Mountain Repository Project had had all its funding pulled recently, leaving the United States without any long term plan for permanent disposal. In addition, I found that the U.S.

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