Nuclear energy produces radioactive waste!
A major environmental concern related to nuclear power is the creation of radioactive wastes such as uranium mill tailings, spent (used) reactor fuel, and other radioactive wastes. These materials can remain radioactive and dangerous to human health for thousands of years. See Fukushima and Chernobyl! When it comes to nuclear, uranium extraction, transport and processing produces emissions. The long and complex construction process of nuclear power plants also releases CO2, as does the demolition of decommissioned sites.
Nuclear power plants present unique hazards in terms of the potential consequences resulting from a severe accident. Nuclear reactors and their associated high level spent fuel stores are vulnerable to natural disasters, as Fukushima Daiichi showed, but they are also vulnerable in times of military conflict. The waste generated by nuclear reactors remains radioactive for tens to hundreds of thousands of years (1). Currently, there are no long-term storage solutions for radioactive waste, and most is stored in temporary, above-ground facilities.
Simply put nuclear power is not the answer to climate change its a fools stalling tactic that slowly poisons the earth. an expansion of nuclear power faces some serious hurdles, and the perennial concerns about safety and long-lived radioactive waste may not be the biggest: Critics also say nuclear reactors are simply too expensive and take too long to build to be of much help with the climate crisis. With about 440 nuclear reactors around the world, it would cost around $44 billion per year to launch all of the world's spent fuel into space. These cost estimates do not account for launching the existing spent fuel that's already in temporary storage.
Direct disposal is, as the name suggests, a management strategy where used nuclear fuel is designated as waste and disposed of in an underground repository, without any recycling. The used fuel is placed in canisters which, in turn, are placed in tunnels and subsequently sealed with rocks and clay. Over time this radioactive material leaks into the ecosystem and kills it. 'Renewable' energy refers to energy from sources that are constantly replenished - like the water for hydroelectric dams that is topped up by the rain, or the sunlight that reappears every day for solar panels. Because nuclear power uses up radioactive fuel, it is not considered truly renewable.
Ed Lyman, senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists confirms... "Nuclear waste is a mixture of many different radioactive isotopes, all with specific properties. No one-size-fits-all solution exists to convert those into less hazardous materials," The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement which operates at the local, national, and international level. Various types of groups have identified themselves with the movement: direct action groups, such as the Clamshell Alliance and Shad Alliance. environmental groups, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. They view nuclear power as a ticking timebomb.
On 9th of May 2017, the roof collapsed in a tunnel that houses highly radioactive waste at the US Department of Energy’s sprawling Hanford site in Washington state. The tunnel is one of a pair that together shield 36 radioactive railway carriages, once used to carry nuclear fuel for reprocessing to plutonium. Radiation monitors showed no signs of airborne contamination after the collapse, so workers at the site were released and the hole was filled with fresh soil.
The incident is yet another alarming reminder of the risks posed by pollution at nuclear-weapons facilities in the United States and around the world. It could have been much worse. And without serious and sustained efforts to clean up these ageing facilities, one day soon it will be.
In August 2015 two years prior to the incident, an independent panel of academics placed the Hanford tunnels on a list of high-priority dangers at the site, which spreads for more than 1,500 square kilometers along the Columbia River. The interim report, by the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), said that the oldest tunnel — built in 1956 and covered with soil nearly 2.5 meters deep — could collapse and release radiation during an earthquake. The energy department is still investigating last week’s breach, but the 6-metre section that gave way may have succumbed to little more than old age. The report was ignored like the hundreds of other reports generated to warn us that we have no safe way of containing nuclear wastes. The same type of wastes that currently have caused mutations and disease in fish and eradicated a third of the fishing in the Pacific from Fukushima!
The energy department has spent more than US$164 billion cleaning up its nuclear-waste sites since 1989. But it will be many decades before the work is complete. Each year, the agency spends more money just to maintain old infrastructure and ensure workers are safe. They spend taxpayers money for the cleanup but allow private nuclear power companies much like big oil and gas to go relatively unscathed by their actions.
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