dagblog - Comments for "Sierra Blanca -- Bernie is a NIMBY but Not a Revolutionary"

Michael, you may have heard

Peter — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 23:46:04 +0000

Michael, you may have heard that the WIPP site is shut down due to plutonium contamination from LANL's exploding barrels and that eastern NM and west TX received a nice dose from the fallout. It was suppose to be secure for 10,000 yrs but only lasted ten. The rest of the exploding LANL barrels are being stored in the open in Texas and no one seems to know what to do with them.

The LLW mentioned in this post is probably from medical and industrial sources but it could also be from power plant contaminated clothing and trash. Not much radiation but a growing volume of waste that will be dumped where ever sleazy politicians can hide it.

Vermont Yankee will continue

NCD — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 16:24:10 +0000

In reply to It all somehow depends on

Vermont Yankee will continue to store high level waste, depleted radioactive fuel rods, on the Vermont site.

As is done as a stopgap with most or all other nuclear reactor installations in the US.

And as at Fukushima in Japan where the used rods presented a great hazard when the coolant pumps failed due to power outages.

I believe we have no current repository for this high level waste at this time.

The hint of racism for the west Texas site seems off target, as the waste to go there is low level, the waste being left in Vermont is the most hazardous high level expended fuel rods.

It all somehow depends on

Michael Maiello — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 15:08:44 +0000

In reply to Vermont's only nuclear power

It all somehow depends on where you live. I was raised in New Mexico where the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was built over the objections, I might add, of the progressive Congressman Bill Richardson, who then seemed quite happy with it once Bill Clinton had named him Secretary of Energy.

There are a ton of good points to be made on all sides about where these sites can be, where they have to be, who takes what risks and how they are compensated, Part of the point here is, as with his concessions to his local gun culture,

Bernie is a human politician, not a saint. That won't be a revelation to some but given that the big knock on Hillary is that she's a dirty compromiser, it's fair to point out that Bernie makes deals, too.

Vermont's only nuclear power

NCD — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 06:07:13 +0000

In reply to Sierra Blanca -- Bernie is a NIMBY but Not a Revolutionary

Vermont's only nuclear power plant 'Vermont Yankee' has closed, off grid, reactor shut down, and is being dismantled. It was built in 1973. On a river. It leaked heavy water, radioactive tritium on occasion

Reactors are far more potentially dangerous than low level waste disposal. They can melt down and blow-up.

It's also fairly obvious arid west Texas is better for storage of low level waste than a high precipitation, storm prone, river rich region of New England.

Good to know he's pragmatic

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 05:07:28 +0000

In reply to Sierra Blanca -- Bernie is a NIMBY but Not a Revolutionary

Good to know he's pragmatic in how to get things done. Maybe can get Keystone passed finally.