THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512080002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By JAMES R. THOMAS
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Congress is slowly beginning to deal with a problem that successive administrations have sidestepped for more than 20 years - the safe and long-term disposal of highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear-power plants around the country.
Congress may not be acting soon enough to satisfy most state governments and state utility commissions that want the spent fuel to be placed in a central storage facility by 1998. They have a right to expect action since the Department of Energy made a commitment to take this material more than 12 years ago.
Meanwhile, the spent fuel keeps accumulating, and by 2010, more than 70 nuclear-generating stations will have no more storage space for this material. All along, this problem has been a political rather than a technical one; key members of the House Commerce Committee have publicly acknowledged that the government needs to stop procrastinating on this issue.
Twenty-seven states, including Virginia, have sued the DOE for failing to keep its commitment, and recently the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners urged Congress to ``take immediate action.'' They point out that ``centralized, off-site spent fuel isolation is far preferable to on-site storage at reactor sites throughout the country.''
Spent nuclear fuel, a form of high-level nuclear waste, remains radioactive for many thousands of years and thus must be kept isolated from human activity essentially forever. For that reason, it should be placed underground like naturally occurring radioactive materials. Low-level waste, such as contaminated clothing and waste products from nuclear medicine, can be safely disposed of at a regional facility in the Southwest since it ceases to be dangerous after a few decades.
Unfortunately, many who oppose the use of nuclear energy have seized on the spent-fuel issue to justify their opposition. Yet nuclear energy provides about 23 percent of current electrical generating capacity in the United States - 48 percent in Virginia - and does so safely and benignly without filling the air with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as do coal, oil and natural gas. This electricity production is essential to our economy, and as electrification increases, we will need more.
Opponents of nuclear energy try to incite fear of shipping accidents as spent fuel is transported from nuclear plants to the spent-fuel storage facility. The fact is, since the late 1950s, more than 5,000 shipments of nuclear waste have been made in the United States without a single accident resulting in release of radioactive materials. We have the technology and the trained personnel to transport these materials safely.
In a significant step, the House Commerce Committee overwhelmingly approved a bill to require DOE to accept the spent fuel and place it in an interim facility at the former Nevada Test Site. Studies would continue at the nearby Yucca Mountain site, which has been proposed for a permanent repository to hold the spent fuel.
Let us applaud this action and urge our congressmen to pass this needed legislation. Whether one supports or opposes the further development of nuclear energy, we all stand to benefit by the solution of this pressing problem. MEMO: Dr. Thomas is a professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute's School of Engineering. by CNB