23 Mar 2006

NUCLEAR WASTE

By Connor Dittmar.

Nuclear power has served our world in many ways.  It replaces fossil fuels which produce harmful gases.  Nuclear power does not make those gases.  Therefore, it is classified as a clean, safe way to make electricity.  However, people forget about the waste that nuclear plants produce.

            Nuclear waste is used matter from nuclear power plants that is radio-active. Fuel rods and dissected nuclear weapons are some of the many kinds of waste. The radiation can have a lifespan of 100,000 years! It is harmful to all living things, so it needs to be disposed of safely.

            There are many ways to dispose of nuclear waste, but few are adequately safe.  It can be stored in concrete barrels and inside steel containers, stored in caves, put in water pools or buried in the Yucca Mountain mine.  All may seem ok, but there are some problems. 

Yucca Mountain is an extinct volcano, and is susceptible to seismic activity. Scientists are trying to predict if it will erupt in the next 100,000 years.  Also, the water level in the mine is almost at the level of the waste.  If the water happens to reach the waste, the water will become poisoned, killing all plants, animals and people.  When contained in concrete, few people can live in the area, because it kills all nearby living things.  Although some material can be reprocessed, its high cost prevents all of it from being reprocessed.

Reprocessing used fuel rods helps in two different ways. One, it reduces the amount of waste that needs to be stored and, two, less uranium needs to be mined.  Reprocessing can be very useful to our world. 

Many ideas have been created to dispose of waste safely, but most likely, not many will be put to use. Some of these are as follows; people want to melt used fuel rods and send them

oozing down a deep hole to the bedrock, or they have another idea to bury it in the sand on the bottom of the ocean.  The problem with that is that if an earthquake occurred or a volcano erupted, it would severely harm the marine life.  Some of my ideas are to put it into some sort of cheap rocket and send it into space, but most likely that would be too expensive.  It could also be used in small amounts in other devices.

Nuclear power is a good source of energy which can provide an alternative to fossil fuels, but people need to learn to dispose of the waste safely.