Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released a new ad over the weekend in Nevada, targeting Republican rival John McCain's support for dumping nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
"Imagine trucks hauling the nation's nuclear waste on our highways to Yucca Mountain," the ad says. "John McCain supports opening Yucca. He's not worried about nuclear waste in our state -- only in Arizona."
The ad then replays video of a May 2007 interview with McCain in which he appears to say that he would not want nuclear waste trucked through his home state of Arizona. Grist has covered this particular video before, and if you watch the rest of his response, which the Obama ad cuts off, it's clear that McCain seems to have either misheard or misunderstand the question (as he has with other questions on environmental issues). He goes on to say that he thinks the technology can be made safe, and that having waste in insecure locations around the country is dangerous.
"What people forget is the option of leaving this waste in areas outside, maybe unprotected, certainly not well protected, all over America, rather than having it in a safe and secure repository for it," McCain continued. "I preferred not having the status quo. And, I think it is a national security issue."
That's not to say McCain's support of nuclear is unproblematic. Despite the candidate's love affair with nuclear power, he hasn't addressed concerns about safety or the problem of where all this waste from those new reactors should go. And while McCain is an avid supporter of dumping at Yucca Mountain, most Nevadans oppose plans to deposit the waste in their state.
The Obama campaign clearly sees this issue as a winner in Nevada. Watch the ad:
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Comments
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 4:02 am
11 Aug 2008
Converting 5.4 ounces of uranium into fission products will release enough heat to generate a full 80 year lifetime supply of electricity for an average American and displace the burning of 1,140,000 pounds of coal, preventing the release of 2,440,000 pounds of CO2. Less than one ounce of the fission products will still be radioactive at end of life dispersed in 10 - 15 pounds of spent fuel.
Moving 15 pounds of spent fuel to Nevada per lifetime will not require a continuous stream of trucks and trains.
A more rational solution is to bury the spent fuel in deep seabed mud, ideally suited for the retention of fission products. In the unlikely event that there is some leakage in the future it would not be a significant risk because;
1 There are over 3,000 pounds of sea water per square inch of earth's surface and water is an excellent shielding material.
2. We do not breathe or drink sea water.
3 We do not live in sea water.
4 Seawater already contains vast quantities of radioactive material, yet it accounts for only a tiny fraction of our radiation dose. The fission products would increase the activity of seawater and our exposure by a tiny amount.
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Po-Re/Radionuclides-in-t ...
http://www.umich.edu/~radinfo/introduction/natural.htm
The oceans contain 4.6 billion tons of uranium, sufficient to support 10 billion people for over 30,000 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium
In reality the oceans are continuously resupplied with uranium by the erosion of land, so the uranium supply is effectively unlimited.
We know that the deep ocean contains slow moving currents that isolate vast quantities of sea water from the biosphere for over a thousand years. Any fission products that leak into the seawater will decay to non radioactive atoms long before they reenter the biosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_conveyor_belt
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PurpleOzone Posted 4:45 am
11 Aug 2008
mine the pitchblende ore
grind up the ore to extract the uranium
separate out the radioactive isotope of uranium 235 (only .72% of natural uranium)
build the power plant (current money cost something like $11 billion)
dispose of the nuclear waste (newest estimate is $90 billion, but since disposal has yet started nobody knows for sure.
Give me an end-to-end calculation! Your selected numbers above are propaganda.
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GRLCowan Posted 6:51 am
11 Aug 2008
Step 3 is incompetently written. All isotopes of uranium are radioactive, and not all power reactors required any separation of one from another. The kind I propose below for B2O3 splitting, for instance, do not.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
How solar power stations can work all winter
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Wolverine Posted 7:49 am
11 Aug 2008
Kate, could you please mention the immense harms from mining uranium in posts on this issue? Just saying that a nuke supporter failed to address safety or waste problems ignores the biggest harm caused by this stuff, which is uranium mining.
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BILL HANNAHAN Posted 3:33 pm
11 Aug 2008
mine the pitchblende ore
grind up the ore to extract the uranium
separate out the radioactive isotope of uranium 235 (only .72% of natural uranium) "
Reactor fuel assemblys cost about ½ cent per kwh, of which a small fraction is energy content.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat8p2.html ...
The vast majority of the energy content is from the enrichment process. In an all nuclear powered world the energy would be provided by fission, so the coal content would be approximately zero.
" build the power plant (current money cost something like $11 billion) "
Wow, even Joe Romm has not found an $11B cost estimate, show me yours. A 1.5 GW plant would produce 7.1 E11 kWh over its 60 year lifetime, so construction cost using your huge number is 1.5 cents / kWh, of which the coal content is a negligible fraction.
" dispose of the nuclear waste (newest estimate is $90 billion, but since disposal has yet started nobody knows for sure. "
Deep seabed disposal would be very inexpensive and require little energy to dispose of a lifetime 15 pounds of waste that produced 1.1 million kWh. The coal content would be approximately zero pounds per kWh.
"Your selected numbers above are propaganda. "
Define propaganda. Is the truth propaganda if it is not consistent with your view of reality?
List the facts that you think are important that I left out.
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blacksheep Posted 12:50 am
14 Aug 2008
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php
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anyone Posted 6:52 am
16 Oct 2008
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1554 ...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8916 ...
After 60 years of massive public funding, it's time for nuclear to learn to walk on its own feet.
Btw, wind power is growing by 7,500 MW in 2008 alone (an increase of 45% compared to 2007)
http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/Wind_Installations_ ...
If wind only grows 12% annually for the next decade that'll lead to over 200 GW by 2020.
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