Quote:
Originally Posted by Nicobie
Nuclear power generation is the cleanest that there is.
|
In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states that there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge quantities of contaminated soil and water".
Despite these copious quantities of waste, the DOE has a goal of cleaning all presently contaminated sites successfully by 2025.The Fernald, Ohio site for example had "31 million pounds of uranium product", "2.5 billion pounds of waste", "2.75 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris", and a "223 acre portion of the underlying Great Miami Aquifer had uranium levels above drinking standards".
The United States currently has at least 108 sites it currently designates as areas that are contaminated and unusable, sometimes many thousands of acres. The DOE wishes to try and clean or mitigate many or all by 2025, however the task can be difficult & it acknowledges that some will never be completely remediated, and just in one of these 108 larger designations, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, there were for example at least "167 known contaminant release sites" in one of the three subdivisions of the 37,000 acre (150 kmē) site.
Some of the U.S. sites were smaller in nature, however, and cleanup issues were simpler to address, and the DOE has successfully completed cleanup, or at least closure, of several sites.
The issue of disposal methods for nuclear waste was one of the most pressing current problems the valuable international nuclear industry faced when trying to establish a long term energy production plan, yet there was hope it could be safely solved. In the U.S., the DOE acknowledged much progress in addressing the waste problems of this vital and critical industry, and successful remediation of some contaminated sites, yet also major uncertainties & sometimes complications and setbacks in handling the issue properly, cost effectively, and in the projected time frame. In other countries with lower ability or will to maintain environmental integrity the issue would be more problematic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_waste
Spent nuclear fuel is currently planned for disposal in deep geological formations, such as Yucca Mountain, where it has to be shielded and packaged to prevent its migration to mankind's immediate environment for thousands if not millions of years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel
come again?