The question of how to store highly radioactive nuclear fuel rods -- a
major unresolved issue clouding the future of nuclear power -- is now
more complex than it was before.
A federal appeals court ruling makes clear that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must finally get serious about studying the safety of spent nuclear fuel stored on site at plants across the country. That decision has made it tougher for Entergy, which operates the Indian Point Energy Center on the Hudson River in Westchester County, to get operating license renewals for two reactors. Unit 2's license expires in September 2013 and Unit 3's in December 2015. Even before the ruling, there was a long list of issues facing the renewal effort.
The ruling, in a lawsuit that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed weeks after he took office in 2011, is a welcome turn of events for the 17 million of us who live within 50 miles of Indian Point.
What it means is the NRC will no longer be able to live in fantasyland, hoping vaguely that the stars will align and Congress will clear the way for a national geologic repository for this waste. Actually, Congress did designate a site, Nevada's Yucca Mountain, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), opposed it. In 2010, President Barack Obama kept a campaign promise and withdrew the adminstration's support. Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee, has straddled the issue. So at best, Yucca is moribund.
Meanwhile, despite the politics, the NRC has relied on the hope that there will be a national repository someday, and it has avoided a close look at the impacts of keeping more than 60,000 tons of waste on site at nuclear plants.
Read more: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorial-the-nuclear-waste-hot-potato-1.3799024
A federal appeals court ruling makes clear that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must finally get serious about studying the safety of spent nuclear fuel stored on site at plants across the country. That decision has made it tougher for Entergy, which operates the Indian Point Energy Center on the Hudson River in Westchester County, to get operating license renewals for two reactors. Unit 2's license expires in September 2013 and Unit 3's in December 2015. Even before the ruling, there was a long list of issues facing the renewal effort.
The ruling, in a lawsuit that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed weeks after he took office in 2011, is a welcome turn of events for the 17 million of us who live within 50 miles of Indian Point.
What it means is the NRC will no longer be able to live in fantasyland, hoping vaguely that the stars will align and Congress will clear the way for a national geologic repository for this waste. Actually, Congress did designate a site, Nevada's Yucca Mountain, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), opposed it. In 2010, President Barack Obama kept a campaign promise and withdrew the adminstration's support. Mitt Romney, the GOP nominee, has straddled the issue. So at best, Yucca is moribund.
Meanwhile, despite the politics, the NRC has relied on the hope that there will be a national repository someday, and it has avoided a close look at the impacts of keeping more than 60,000 tons of waste on site at nuclear plants.
Read more: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorial-the-nuclear-waste-hot-potato-1.3799024
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