Nuclear waste throwdown in Germany
The general sentiment in Deutschland these days is anti-nuclear power, and there are literally thousands of folks there willing to act up over the prospect of supposedly permanent underground disposal of deadly waste from nuke plants. They're throwing Molotov cocktails, chaining themselves to the train tracks -- and even trying to rip up the tracks -- in an effort to halt a rail shipment of 11 containers of the nasty stuff from a recycling center in France to a German burial ground.
Eventually the train will get through, and the waste will be placed out of sight, but hardly out of mind. It will be extremely dangerous for thousands of years.
| Posted at 3:11 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (2)
Thank heaven for the Bakken oil field.
Posted by thor | November 27, 2011 9:21 AM
I know nuclear waste isn't pretty but sometimes think maybe it is better to have it in a solid form rather than like coal which disappears into the atmosphere and can't be contained adequately and kills us slowly.
The fuel from 50 years of nuclear reactor operation could fit in a single football field, amounting to 77,000 tons. We discard 179,000 tons of batteries per year in the USA and they contain toxic heavy metals. To improve the efficiency of renewable energies it is proposed that huge batteries be used to store the energy, just how much waste is this going to produce compared to nuclear power?
When solar panels are decommissioned after the average 25 year lifecycle they also must be disposed of in toxic dumps as they contain highly toxic metals, gases and solvents that are carcinogenic. Some of these toxic substances in solar panels will never decay, having a never ending life span. Not to mention solar power will probably require batteries also.
Another perspective is that the amount of waste produced by nuclear power is 2 pounds for each person (fits into a coke can) compared to 68 tonnes of coal put into the atmosphere per person.
Posted by Lincoln | December 17, 2011 1:25 AM