US Spent Nuclear Fuel Largest Concentration Of Radioactivity On Planet

With the existing corporate climate in our government, there is small chance that the NRC will do anything. The non existent tea party will whine loudly about how much money it will cost. In the end all of the politicians will worry about losing campaign funds and fall in line or voice vote any remedies down. When something finally happens whether terrorist, neglect, or natural disaster we can all shake our heads and lament. Look at what has happened in Japan. Of all nations they should respect the power of the atom. Are we capable of learning anything before it kills us? It appears that we are on the verge of answering that question.

just like oil ( i love cars : ( ), nuclear power is an inefficient way to make life sustainable in terms of safety , there ares less of a threat with solar , and theres lots of job creation there, rather than leave the next generation to solve our problems lets move forward , ditch the old technology already

radiation, plastic or roaches.... Which will outlive us all..?

I love the fact that at one time half the nuclear fuel used in American reactors came from decommissioned Russian nukes.
Now THAT's recycling. :)

71k metric tons of what powers the movement of continents. there is a new reactor design that runs off this waste and bill gates is promoting it. the design is spooky in that it is a huge buried cylinder of fisionable material that will burn like a candle, hopefully.

He said 500 600 700 per pool in the U.S. not total. The 71,000 figure is for all the US not each pool.

About a third of the way through the video Alvarez states that the U.S. has "500, 600, maybe 700 metric tons of spent fuel stored."

Where did the "71,000 metric ton" figure cited come from???

The generally accepted amount of spent nuclear fuel annually by the US would fill a football field one foot high (Google it).

Compare that with the amount of carbon dioxide we humans spew into the atmosphere every year from fossil fuels which is roughly the size of a mountain one mile high and twelve miles in circumference (read James Lovelock).

Add to that the fact that fly ash from coal burning power plants contains more radioactive material than contained in waste from nuclear plants (see latest Scientific American).

If you really take time to do the math and think about it, nuclear energy is the only thing that can slow down the biggest threat of global warming until renewable energy sources can produce our growing energy usage (right now solar and wind produce around 2% of our power).

I am a deep ecologist and have been all of my life. But I clearly see the realistic scenarios facing us and sadly nuclear energy is is the only thing that might save us from a climate meltdown until we are able to develop and retrofit our power supply to solar, wind and wave hopefully within a decade.

Great post , let Obama know what you think ! This is INSANE .

I just copied and sent the article and URL to Pres. Obama, pointing out that all this spent fuel is unsecured and is a terrorist's bonanza. "Sup with this?", I included. "And you're on record as wanting to produce more?"!

Only we, can stop nuclear! We must demand it to stop.