Supreme Court steps into a fight over plans to store nuclear waste in rural Texas and New Mexico

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 10:38 AM EDT, October 4, 2024


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to step into a fight over plans to store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico. The justices said they will review a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority under federal law in granting a license to a private company to store spent nuclear fuel at a dump in West Texas for 40 years.

The outcome of the case will affect plans for a similar facility in New Mexico. Political leaders in both states oppose the facilities. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas has said his state “will not become America’s nuclear waste dumping ground.” The push for temporary storage sites is part of the complicated politics of the nation’s so far futile quest for a permanent underground storage facility.

Roughly 100,000 tons (90,000 metric tons) of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, is piling up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide and growing by more than 2,000 tons a year. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground.

A plan to build a national storage facility northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain has been mothballed because of staunch opposition from most Nevada residents and officials.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-nuclear-waste-texas-new-mexico-b7b3148e620584d1b9dca18481cbad0d

[cbabe]

1. Send it to Microsoft.

https://www.cnn.com › 2024 › 09 › 20 › energy › three-mile-island-microsoft-ai › index.html

Three Mile Island is reopening and selling its power to Microsoft

Sep 20, 2024Three Mile Island, the site of worst nuclear disaster in the United States, is reopening and will exclusively sell the

[hvn_nbr_2]

2. The Supreme Cult will say that the constitution requires nuclear waste to be dumped...

in blue cities.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Have they considered fondue?

https://www.good.is/articles/photo-kraft-s-massive-underground-cheese-cave-in-springfield-missouri

Deep under Springfield, Missouri, lies a cheese cave of industrial proportions, a 2-million-square-foot refrigerated warehouse called Springfield Underground. Since 2008, Kraft Foods has rented 400,000 square feet of the repurposed limestone mine as a massive distribution center, from which to ship 680-pound, Velveeta-bright barrels of Oscar Meyer meats, Philadelphia cream cheese, Velveeta pasteurized processed cheeses, Jell-O, and Lunchables.

Unlike traditional cheese caves, which can impart the particular flavors of time and place—the unique combinations of bacteria, yeast, and mold that cheese makers call terroir—Wired magazine explains that in the case of Kraft's cave:

It’s not about aging, it’s about cheap storage: Moving refrigeration underground saves massive amounts of energy, since the temperature 100 feet down is a constant 58 degrees Fahrenheit. An above-ground pump sends 13,000 gallons of chilled brine through the system every day, keeping the warehouse at a cool 36 degrees.

Photograph by Christoph Morlinghaus (who also explores parking lots and greenhouses), via Wired.

[LearnedHand]

6. The proposed storage facilities are exactly that

Geologically stable underground storage, including WIPP in New Mexico and the Yucca Mtn facility in Nevada.

[Oopsie Daisy]

4. The Sierra Blanca thing was quite the embarrassment, wasn't it?

[LearnedHand]

5. You can't just throw it away, and above-ground storage endangers people and the environment

It’s the ugliest part of nuclear energy to be sure, and a horrible leftover of weapons development, but we must have long-term, safe storage. No other option. We can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube.

[slightlv]

7. I make a prediction.. oh, oh!...

that sooner rather than later, they're going to find a way to store it off planet someplace. Why just destroy the earth when you can kill the entire solar system! /snark

[former9thward]

8. The entire solar system is far more radioactive than any nuclear waste.

Sending it off planet would be a practical solution but economically unfeasible at this point.

[Bayard]

9. Yes

Because we need more crap orbiting the Earth, along with busted satellites.

[NowsTheTime]

10. Ahh Yes!...the Nuclear Regulatory Court......(it's hard for me to give them an inch)

[Clouds Passing]

11. With all the fracking in SE NM?

Are they freaking insane?

[LudwigPastorius]

12. NIMBY, baby!