The New York Times Presents Smarter by Sunday: 52 Weekends of Essential Knowledge for the Curious Mind by The New York Times

Author:The New York Times [Times, The New York]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, Trivia
ISBN: 9780312571344
Google: 6YLW1Mh-4c4C
Amazon: 0312571348
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2010-10-25T22:00:00+00:00

♦Disposal Aside from safety issues, the main argument used by antinuclear activists is the issue of disposal. Nuclear reactors generate two kinds of radioactive materials: first, anything used by reactor personnel to handle, transport, or cool reactor fuel, including clothing and tools; and second, the spent fuel itself. Compared with the spent reactor fuel, the items in the first group emit very little radioactivity, and the isotopes they contain have a relatively short half-life. For spent fuel, however, disposal requires elaborate steps. The radioactive half-life of spent uranium is more than 100,000 years; there is nowhere on the surface of the planet to store it where it will become safe. To date, the United States has no permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel, and used cores are held in various temporary locations, usually onsite at nuclear plants when possible. In the 1980s, plans began for the construction of a permanent underground disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, though the plan has met vociferous opposition and the facility has yet to be built.

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