Sierra Club

On November 16, I drove to Washington D.C. for an important event, important for me and for South Carolina.  I was asked to present comments on behalf of 167 nationwide groups and activists on the unresolved issue of what to do with the nation’s stockpile of nuclear waste scattered around the country at 100 nuclear reactors.  The body hearing my comments was the Blue Ribbon Commission on nuclear waste, organized by President Obama and overseen by Energy Secretary Steven Chu. (You can listen to my presentation by clicking on this link)

It seems that some sixty years after the inception of the nuclear industry, we still don't have a clue about what to do with all this toxic, long-lived radioactive waste we have produced.  The can has been kicked down a long, twisted and never-ending road to nowhere.

Even more important to me than representing these amazing groups around the country, who represent some of the most brilliant activists on this issue, was my representation of many South Carolina groups, who are now stepping forward to oppose any more nuclear waste coming into our state.  As I prepared for my presentation, a number of groups who are members of the Common Agenda agreed that, while we have differing opinions on the role of nuclear power in our energy future, we share a common position on nuclear waste: South Carolina will no longer be a dumping ground for the toxic legacy our country has created.

It must be explained that we, South Carolina, are on the short list of several options being considered for the country’s nuclear waste.  One is called "interim centralized storage," which means finding a central location that is willing to be dumped on, and park all 67,000 tons of spent, irradiated nuclear fuel in that locale with the hope that some better solution will present itself in the future.  We oppose this plan for obvious reasons.  With an economy in the toilet and government cutbacks, it could be generations before any additional steps are taken, and, in the meantime, we become once again the country’s defacto dumping grounds.  Keeping the waste in multiple, decentralized locations keeps multiple congressional districts involved in the process as well as the entities that created it and the communities that benefited from its generation.  It decreases the possibility of the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality that comes from dumping it in one spot and walking away.

The second option being considered is the reprocessing of this spent fuel, a.k.a. "recycling," although this idea of recycling spent nuclear fuel is most certainly a misnomer.  Reprocessing involves chopping up the spent fuel rods, dissolving them in acid, and extracting the usable plutonium and uranium for future use in a Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel.  The problem develops from the volumes of more high-level long-lived wastes that must be isolated for centuries and beyond.  The thirty-seven million gallons of high-level waste currently sitting in leaking tanks at Savannah River are the result of cold war reprocessing, have cost the taxpayers billions so far and still are not cleaned up or disposed of.  Reprocessing is a dirty, dangerous, expensive and unnecessary option that has failed in all but one country (France) and has resulted in creating a stockpile of weapons usable plutonium (215 metric tons to be exact) around this very volatile world.

Reprocessing does not solve the waste problem, does not negate the need for a permanent geologic repository and, when the high level is combined with greater than Class C waste, would actually require more space at a repository than if we just disposed of the fuel rods there.  The highly touted French program is nothing more than a shell game: the French dispose of high volumes of liquid, radioactive waste into the English Channel, ship some to Siberia and have yet to locate their own geologic repository.

South Carolina legislators have been sold a bill of goods by an industry that touts reprocessing as the answer to our waste problem and energy needs through the "recycling" of plutonium.  The truth is current reactors were not designed to burn MOX fuel, and the MOX test assembly inserted into the Catawba reactor outside Charlotte was abruptly removed after fuel cladding issues.  No other American reactors have had any tests regarding MOX fuel, and, in fact, no utilities have volunteered to burn the MOX fuel currently under development at SRS.  With the Duke contract withdrawal, it’s now believed the fuel will be forced onto the publically owned TVA reactors.

The better option is to continue doing what we are doing now: that is, storing the fuel on site at the reactors with improved storage methods in a state of Hardened On Site Storage or HOSS,  and await the siting of new repositories.  HOSS can be made safe and secure and is preferable to dumping the fuel in a central location where one state will bear the nation’s burden.  States that have benefitted from nuclear power should be willing to share in the cost of that energy by keeping the waste in their states until the permanent site is located.

South Carolina already has one of the largest, if not THE largest radioactive burdens in the country.  If we do not stand up and speak out, we will become the next dumping site for spent fuel, which is thousands of time more dangerous, deadly and radioactive than the stuff dumped at Barnwell.

The Blue Ribbon Commission will be in the Aiken/Augusta area on January 5-6, 2011 to hear comments.  We urge you to make the drive and speak out against our state being used as a future dump or the site for more of the same process that already created the radioactive nightmare that we are trying to clean up at SRS.

For more information, call me at the office or send me an This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .