Yucca Mountain of Jersey Shore

 The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently voted to double the length of time radioactive waste can be stored at nuclear power plants. Earlier this month, the Lacey Planning Board, in a 5-2 vote, approved allowing the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant to add another 28 dry casks used to store spent nuclear fuel to the 18 casks already on the plant property.

The two developments aren't unrelated. Oyster Creek needs more space to store its toxic waste for the same reason the federal government needs to extend the time spent fuel can remain in casks from 30 years to 60 years after a plant permanently ceases operation: Because the facility that was to have stored the nuclear waste from the nation's 104 commercial plants at Yucca Mountain in Nevada may never be built. In essence, Oyster Creek will become the Yucca Mountain of the Jersey Shore.

The NRC didn't decide to double the number of years radioactive waste could be stored onsite at nuclear power plants because of any safety improvements in the casks or any technological breakthroughs that reduced the toxicity or half-lives of the spent fuel rods. It was simply the latest acknowledgement that Yucca Mountain, authorized by Congress in 1982 to be the sole depository for the nation's nuclear waste, apparently has no future. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama pulled the funding for Yucca Mountain, which already has cost more than $13 billion.The good news at Oyster Creek is that it is far safer to store the plant's spent fuel in dry casks than in its dangerously overcrowded spent fuel pool, where the number of fuel rods packed into the pool long ago exceeded the design capacity. That creates a far greater risk of a massive fire and meltdown. But it's doubtful enough of the estimated 2,300, 12-foot steel rods will be moved into casks quickly enough to substantially reduce the risk.

Spent fuel stored at nuclear power plants will remain dangerous to humans for at least 10,000 years and harmful to the environment for 1 million years more. At the planning board hearing on the dry casks, an Exelon representative said the casks are good for 50 years.Elaborating on the NRC decision to extend the time frame for on-site storage of nuclear waste, agency spokesman Neil Sheehan said, "There are currently no other clear options for the storage of U.S. spent nuclear fuel. As such, on-site storage remains the only alternative as of now." Sheehan added that the decision also directed NRC staff to undertake a rule-making process on the continued storage of spent fuel at nuclear plants for up to 300 years.
Maybe by then a better solution will have been found for dealing with radioactive waste. Better yet, maybe we will have finally resorted to more sensible technologies for generating power — ones that don't threaten the planet's health for 1 million years or more.
http://www.app.com/article/20101001/OPINION01/10020304/Yucca-Mountain-of-Jersey-Shore