Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Containment Standard a Hot Topic
DOI: 10.1063/1.4796342
Despite the astronomically long half-lives of fission products that will be contained in waste scheduled to be stored at Yucca Mountain, the politicking and debate over whether 10 000 years is a sufficiently long safety standard is absurd. It is entirely reasonable to imagine that innovative ways of treating, more securely storing, or productively utilizing nuclear waste will be developed on much shorter time scales. America needs to address energy policy, and greater use of fission will have to be an important component of that policy over at least the short and medium terms. Our elected leaders could more productively spend their time and our money on developing sensible policies toward greater national energy independence.
More about the Authors
Cameron Reed. (reed@alma.edu) Alma College, Alma, Michigan, US .
