Will my teenagers be dead before nuclear waste is removed from the bluffs at San Onofre?
That rattles the mind as one contemplates the latest attempt by U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano, to shake some action out of his brethren in Congress. In what might be read as an acknowledgement of facts on the ground — i.e., the snail’s pace at which the U.S. Department of Energy progresses on this extremely divisive national issue — Levin has introduced, again, the “100 Year Canister Life Act.”
It would do exactly as it says: require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license only storage systems that can safely contain nuclear waste for an entire century.
That would more than double the required lifespan for temporary storage systems like the ones at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station,(and more than 70 nuclear plants like it across the nation). Right now, these waste storage systems must last 40 years.
“As I’ve said ad nauseam, the waste at San Onofre is the symptom of a greater problem,” Levin said on a webinar Feb. 2 hosted by the Samuel Lawrence Foundation. “The problem is that we lack a cohesive, comprehensive strategy to deal with spent nuclear fuel across the entire United States.”
More than 3.5 million pounds of nuclear waste are stored at San Onofre, near active faults, some 10 million people and the Camp Pendleton Marine base.
Nationwide, the problem is magnified by nearly a hundred-fold: Commercial reactors have generated some 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel to date, and those still operating could generate another 50,000 metric tons by 2060. That’s nearly 309 million pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste “temporarily” strewn across some 75 sites nationwide, according to the DOE.
And about one-quarter of those sites no longer have operating reactors, resulting in “stranded waste,” like we have at San Onofre.
‘Raise standards’
The bill’s co-sponsor is U.S. Rep. Salud O. Carbajal,…
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