The University of Utah just announced a new program in nuclear energy. This new program was driven by a 1.5 million dollar donation for the creation of a chair in nuclear energy given by EnergySolutions.
EnergySolutions continues its attempts to break into the ranks of Utah’s leading institutions even though they make their money by bringing to Utah most of this nation’s nuclear waste. They sell, and then prostitute, our land, our air, our water. Now, EnergySolutions wants to import nuclear waste from foreign nations as well.
What the University of Utah should take the lead in is to move toward solar, wind and other sources of carbon-free and non-nuclear energy. The University spokesman in announcing this debacle said: “Nuclear is the cleanest way to generate electrical power.” Nonsense. We still have no way safely to dispose of nuclear waste, some of it radioactive for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. To saddle future generations through the end of time with this dangerous radioactive waste goes beyond any known industrial or university or governmental institutions designed to monitor and police such eternal poisons. Just what corporation can you recall that has existed for a few hunded thousand years? How about ten million years half-life? Utah continues to be led, if that’s the word, by people paid off by EnergySolutions. No other state in the nation would be stupid, or venal enough, to accept the nuclear waste of every other state in our country and, perhaps other nations’ nuclear waste as well. The political, and now the educational leadership on this issue represent a reverse Darwinism: the survival of the least fit.
Two deals have allowed EnergySolutions to buy their way into polite society: the purchase of the Salt Palace, and now a nuclear energy program at the University of Utah. The latter is a disaster of huge proportions. Shame on the leadership of the University of Utah. Potential donors might wish to make note of this sellout to the highest bidder. The Unliversity of Utah, by this horrendous lack of moral judgment, lowers itself to all others who do it for money. The University color, red, must refer to the red light district it now inhabits. What’s next at the University? A program in criminology, funded by the Mafia? I believe EnergySolutions still remains the skunk at the garden party.
Ed Firmage
#1 by Who is watching the watchers on July 25, 2008 - 5:51 pm
Hi Ed, just in case you were not aware, the problem you face is going to become more profound, the moment to stop ES was a few years back, don’t think it is in the cards anymore. There is going to be quite a volume of nuclear waste in the near future.
Darwin while respected was on to something, but the more accurate description is “survival of the fit ins”. As Utah is a no load state, it must find something to survive as it were. Too bad the U of U didn’t foster some kind of economy that could have made Utah pay its own way.
U of U. Isn’t that the liberal university in Utah?
#2 by Leo Brown on July 26, 2008 - 7:29 am
All engineering involves trade offs. MOX fuel burning and vitrification look to me like reasonable solutions to nuclear waste. That said, there is no reason why each state can’t then store its own nuclear waste. Bringing it all to Utah should be prohibited by law. The costs of nuclear power should be paid by those benefiting from that power. That is the best way the balance the trade offs. Putting the waste in someone else’s back yard makes it a nearly free good, and free goods tend to be abused.
#3 by Cliff Lyon on July 26, 2008 - 8:42 am
What would be so wrong with Envirocare/Energy Solutions funding alternative energy research?
It would lend itself to a better corporate image and acknowledge the fact that nuclear power is not forever.
#4 by Leo Brown on July 26, 2008 - 10:51 am
The U should definitely keep the money and spend it on whatever they want, maybe on solar power. As Alan Alda said on West Wing playing the fictional Arnie Vinick (R-CA), if you can’t take their money and drink their liquor and then vote against them, you shouldn’t be in this game.
#5 by Richard Warnick on July 26, 2008 - 3:43 pm
As I recall from the brouhaha over the Canyonlands Nuke Waste Dump in the 1980s, the spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level nuclear waste would remain dangerous to handle for tens of thousands of years (it would be radioactive for hundreds of millions of years, but less hazardous).
One of the consultants they hired was given the job of designing a marking system and signage to warn the people of the far future. They gave it their best shot, making some stick-figure hieroglyphics. But the Canyonlands area is full of petroglyph panels that we can’t read even though they were written just 1200 years ago.
#6 by Who is watching the watchers on July 26, 2008 - 6:52 pm
Leo, the states are currently storing their own waste, in the pools on site, of the reactors themselves for the most part. Makes more sense to have one central place for storage, this is what most countries with nuclear storage issues do. That the US has not ironed this out properly, just shows what a foot dragging lot of legislators we have.
The rub is when you have a solution, and place to store it, then you move forward. It would seem that the choice has been made that “this is the place”.
A far better choice than Hanford, which lies on sedimentary substrate 2o miles from the Columbia River. It was the first choice until Washpirg, and some education campaigns made it politically impossible. I worked for them during that time(1985) and went door to door educating and collecting donations.
Nevada has also made it politically difficult, if not impossible, it was the other top candidate.
What do these 2 states have in common? Answer: They pay their own way, and are not beholden to Federal monies, i.e. they get negative returns on the tax dollars they send to Washington D.C. while Utah gets a positive return, hence the “no load” moniker.
States such as these, and there are 2o of 50 in the US, typically become the target of programs that wealthier states and peoples don’t want.
Washington has the history of the Federal facility in WA. as does Nevada, at the nuclear test sites, so they have good reasons to not want any more. I suppose that Utahpirg (Public interest research group) has either not done its job, or has discovered that the people of Utah are not so much concerned with having the waste in their state. I am not sure, you tell me how your state ended up the candidate.
It likely has to do with general attitudes in the State, and the inability of activists to find a way to convince the public, one way or another.
Add it all up, and you get the waste dump. I suggest that the U of U start investing and researching storage and reprocessing technology, as well as solar. If it is coming, and you cannot stop it, it would seem most logical to set up the way it is done, and evolve technologies for it.
#7 by Leo Brown on July 29, 2008 - 12:18 am
If a state can’t find a place for their own nuclear waste, then they shouldn’t be generating nuclear power. Most European countries are about the size of an American state. I don’t think France is storing its waste and Germany, and I don’t think Germany would let them. Each state should use its own backyard.
If the waste is vitrified, it doesn’t need to be in a pool.
#8 by Who is watching the watchers on July 29, 2008 - 7:19 am
Just shows how the problem has been been ignored, up to now. Is that also to say Leo, that for example, if a state can’t pay it’s own way, then it should be allowed to drift into debt and poverty? I might agree with that, though the consequences would be tight for Utah.
The nations you mentioned store the waste in country as they have few choices. Just like us. Size is irrelevant, what happened in France and Germany is what should happen here. The province with the most geologic efficacy is where the waste gets stored in those countries. No ifs, ands, or buts. The place where those factors join becomes the central storage facility.
Looks like that is Utahs’ story. As all power travels the grid, it is beyond question that electricity produced by nuclear power generated somewhere has been utilized in Utah.
I guess if what you believe is true Leo, you would have to make plans to control the effluent from coal plants in Utah from pluming their toxic clouds to the east, onto Colorado and points downwind. Should we force you sequester that smoke and carbon, which by the way contains radioactive elements? There is no “clean up” for that.
Utah can’t pay its own way now, I don’t imagine you have any money for coal waste sequestration systems, though it may have it in the future when the nuclear waste gets stored there from all over the US, maybe even from other countries.
It’s a happening industry, embrace it.
#9 by Who is watching the watchers on July 29, 2008 - 7:25 am
Also consider Leo, the compromised nature of most western states. Many eastern states have very little Federal land, and thereby Federal presence. To a large degree for the better part of the geographic area known as Utah, its residents, and the “state” have no control or say over what happens in the regions of Utah, known as “federal”.
The Federal jurisdiction supersedes the state, and then of course the residents of the geographic area known as Utah.
Pretty sure that “hot” rods will be sitting in a pool for a number of years before they are vitrified Leo. The better part is reprocessing, vitrification is what is done after that is no longer feasible.
#10 by Leo Brown on July 29, 2008 - 9:40 pm
If there is to be one central repository for all the nuclear waste in the country and maybe from other countries as well, the designated site is already in Nevada. Better Nevada than Utah I suppose.
California has plenty of sites with “geologic efficacy,” but the real issue is political clout. The number of Congressmen a state has is more relevant than the number of federal acres.
Downwind pollution from coal is a serious issue. The states have had to reach compacts over river water. The air is the next logical step.
#11 by Who is watching the watchers on July 30, 2008 - 12:37 pm
That isn’t what Nevada says, and have forced the issue politically as they have the dough. Not geologically stable enough, too close to fault lines. the storage would be in volcanic tuff, which is permeable, what you want is clay bottoms or salt, stable and impermeable.
The Germans store what they can’t reprocess in salt mines in country. Utah is a prime spot, say the Sevier desert. They may well yet close Yucca Mountain, it is a federal facility, and they don’t want to run it..
Of course it is political Leo, and that is where politics come in. If Utah had a financial pot to piss in, it wouldn’t be the choice. As it is, read this The Yucca site is Federal, and the feds have gone on to license private storage companies, a long time ago. I’m surprised energy solutions is so late to the party frankly.
What is most important is dry, non permeable, there are such places in Nevada but they were on the ball long ago, and threw the hot potato to Utah, which is seemingly wearing gloves, or is just asleep. Utah fits the bill perfectly for so many reasons, but no doubt politics is the primary driver.
You do have to have basically uninhabitable federal lands, gifted, or under license, far away from an objecting population. No one in Utah objected enough, nor do they have any leverage. You have to pay the man, to make him go away.
Hanford made no sense geologically, Yucca is too close to Vegas. Anyplace in Utah that fits the geologic bill…is just right. Besides it is patriotic to take the waste, and if you are a greeny, the problem is ongoing, and someone must do their part and sacrifice to make the world safe from radioactive waste. The country has picked Utah for this honor, embrace it.
#12 by Who is watching the watchers on July 30, 2008 - 12:57 pm
If you don’t embrace Leo, then you won’t have any control over it. Better hurry and make up your minds Utahns, as the Goshutes are currently in the process signing the papers to store the nuclear waste privately on their reservation. This is under license and granted by the US Federal government, approved by the NRC. In Utah.
Could be worse, could be a casino. Social nuclear waste that has its troubles walking your streets.