This problem will never be resolved until the generators of toxic waste are held accountable for their actions. The toxic nature of coal ash has been known for decades. American electric utilities are also stockpiling deadly tons of radioactive waste with no known solution to the problem. In the 1970s they succeeded in getting the federal government to accept responsibility for long-term storage/disposal of all radioactive waste and there is no current solution to that problem either. The long-term costs associated with nuclear waste management is estimated to be in the hundreds of billions to 4 trillion dollars. No one really knows for sure because the half life ( how long it takes for just half the deadliest waste to decay to safe levels) is as much as 24,100 years. The remaining waste will then decay by half in another 24,100 years and so on - ad nauseum. At the Savannah River Site in South Carolina near Charleston, spent nuclear fuel waste is stored in pools in racks so corroded they cant be moved at risk of causing a critical mass that would melt the pool structures. The pools and buildings are not siesmically qualified to withstand earthquakes and are already leaking. The pumps keeping the waste and groundwater from mixing must remain operational for at least 58,000 years. The Great Pyramids in Egypt are far,far, FAR younger than that. Charleston SC was destroyed by an earthquake in 1886. Ribbons of that fault line travel north, directly under the 2 Brunswick Nuclear reactors owned by Duke Power in Southport NC, near Wilmington. Those plants are identical in design to the Fukishima reactors that have melted down following Japanese earthquakes. Radiation from those reactors is leaking into the Pacific Ocean at this very moment and has already begun effecting the west coast of the United States in disturbingly detectable amounts. This is insanity folks. It is not necessary and it is not sustainable. More solar energy falls on just southern-facing rooftops in America each day than we generate using all current fuel sources and we still waste half of what we generate. Real conservation would allow us to phase out coal and nuclear power as new energy technologies emerge - if we would just do it. Germany and Holland are doing it. In America, energy company lobbyists are doing everything they can to destroy emerging technologies and alternative energy research and development. Money talks in America. Its byproducts are killing us. I hope I disturb your sleep a bit tonight. That is my goal!
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 03:07:14 +0000