1
SSD Affirmative
2
IAC
3
Observation I – Inherency
Both on-site storage and long-term land based storage fail in the status quo.
Ledwidge in 2012 – Lisa ()”If not Yucca Mountain, then what?”, Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research,http://ieer.org/resource/factsheets/yucca-mountain/ - MWH
It should be noted that on-site storage is not a sound strategy for the long term. It risks a host of
problems, including the possibility of reprocessing, social instability, leaks and accidents, or destruction
of waste storage containers by natural disasters or terrorism. There is also a high potential for neglect in
economically difficult times. The problem of neglect may become more serious after the utility has shut
down the reactor since the plant would not be generating any more income. Operating power plants
would continue to create and store on-site spent nuclear fuel even if Yucca Mountain were opening.
These problems must be addressed regardless of where the waste is ultimately put. Moving spent fuel
to an interim spot (for instance a monitored retrievable storage facility proposed for the Skull Valley
Goshute land in Utah) before any long-term management solution is decided upon carries a host of new
risks arising from: transportation of the wastes; the possible need to transport wastes again;
temptations to reprocess the spent fuel, causing more pollution and proliferation risks; safety problems
associated with loading, unloading and reloading canisters; and hasty decisions regarding canisters that
should be far more carefully made. These risks are both unnecessary and are qualitatively more serious
than storage of spent fuel at reactor sites, which have, after all, been licensed for operation of reactors
that generally carry far greater safety risks than spent fuel storage.
Despite these failures, the Status quo is not currently considering sub-seabed disposal
of nuclear waste
Bala 14
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
Amal Bala, Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically,
Could It Also Succeed Legally?, 41 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 455 (2014),
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/ealr/vol41/iss2/6 455 LMC
Abstract: Nuclear
power is a relatively familiar method of generating electricity¶ in the United States, but the process remains
controversial because of high-level¶ radioactive waste. Conventional nuclear reactors use uranium fuel to sustain nuclear¶
fission, but eventually such fuel becomes spent and requires storage and¶ disposal because of its dangerous
radioactive properties. The United States produces¶ a large amount of nuclear waste every year but has
struggled to develop a¶ long-term disposal strategy. America favors land-based disposal methods and is¶
not giving serious consideration to alternative methods, including sub-seabed¶ burial. This Note discusses
preliminary research on sub-seabed burial of nuclear¶ waste and examines a sample of domestic and international laws that could apply¶ if the
United States were to use the disposal method. This Note concludes that if¶
further research were to show that sub-seabed
disposal would work properly, the¶ United States could probably engage in deep burial through drilling
without violating¶ the applicable international and domestic laws discussed in this Note
4
Plan Text
The United States federal government should substantially increase sub-seabed disposal of nuclear
waste in the Earth’s oceans.
5
Advantage I – Land Based Storage
Without proper disposal radioactive material will destroy the environment and be
fatal to human and animal health.
Chandler in August 2012
Nathan (B.A. from the University of Northern Iowa), How does nuclear waste disposal work?, HowStuffWorks.com,
<http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-waste-disposal.htm> EH
Nuclear waste epitomizes the double-edged sword of modern technology. It's a toxic and radioactive byproduct of nuclear
medicine, nuclear weapons manufacturing and nuclear power plants. In short, it's the type of waste that reflects one of humankind's greatest
leaps in technology, but it also demonstrates
our inability to deal with our own advances.¶ Radioactive waste can
take the form of different states of matter, including gas, solids and liquids. Depending on the waste's source, the
radioactivity can last from a few hours to hundreds of thousands of years. If disposed of improperly, radioactive waste can
devastate the environment, ruining air, water and soil quality. What's more, these materials can have
long-term negative effects on human health, and can be fatal.¶ The greatest bulk of nuclear waste is related to the
generation of nuclear power. There are two primary byproducts, including spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors and high-level waste (HLW)
from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.¶ The reactors in nuclear power plants use fuel in the form of ceramic uranium dioxide pellets that
are sealed within metal rods. After the usable uranium is gone from the rods, the rods must be disposed of. But first, the
rods are often
processed with chemicals to draw out any unused uranium; this results in HLW, which is liquid waste.
Then the rods are usually stored in pools of water near the reactor until a permanent location is prepared.¶ As of this writing, there are
more than 29,000 tons of spent fuel rods worldwide. In the United States, many of those rods still sit
idle near power plants, because there are few permanent disposal sites.¶ Low-level waste (often from hospitals or
labs) can often be compacted or incinerated in a container that is subsequently buried a landfill. Intermediate-level waste (reactor components,
chemicals and similar wastes), which have higher levels of radioactivity, may be solidified in concrete or bitumen and then buried deep
underground.¶ HLW
comprises only a tiny percentage of all nuclear waste but accounts for 95 percent of the
radioactivity given off by nuclear waste. For storage, it may be transformed into a glass, which is then
sealed inside stainless-steel containers that are entombed far below the Earth's surface at governmentapproved sites. Sometimes HLW is stored in underground tanks or silos, too.¶ Finding suitable locations for radioactive
waste is no easy task. In short, no one wants nuclear waste near their communities, even if it's buried many
miles away in a vault in the desert. The proposed Yucca Mountain storage facility, located in Nevada about 100 miles (160.9
kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas, is a good example of the problems associated with nuclear waste disposal.¶ In
2002, U.S. President George W. Bush approved development of the facility, but since then, the project has been challenged by many groups. In
2010, President Obama
indicated he would try to put a stop to the project, citing concerns with the longterm stability of the site. Opponents say earthquakes and groundwater flow could penetrate the vault
and let radioactive waste escape.¶ Thus, the United States continues to struggle with nuclear waste
disposal. Experts say that permanent disposal locations must be created soon, though, or we risk being overburdened with
radioactive waste that no one wants.
6
Contamination of ground water and atmospheric radioactivity release due to seismic
activity are both possible at the only longterm location that has been studied.
CNN.Com ‘11
http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/06/news/economy/nuclear_waste/
The case against Yucca:¶ Most environmental groups
have been opposed to Yucca for years.¶ They say the
mountain has much more water in it than was initially believed, which could wear down the canisters
that hold the waste, become contaminated, and leach into the surrounding environment.¶ Plus, they say
the area is more seismically active than previously thought and that volcanoes could pose more of a
danger than the government is letting on. "Yucca is fraught with problems and I don't think there's any way it's
coming back," said Geoffrey Fettus, a lawyer at the Natural Resource Defense Council.¶ In addition to geology, critics
point to other problems.¶ Nuclear waste: America's 'biggest security threat'¶ Yucca was originally Shoshone land, taken by the federal
government in 1951 for weapons testing, said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear.¶ And Nevada was
chosen
not because it was a good site, but because it had the fewest representatives in Washington of any state
under consideration, critics say.¶ "The most common name for that legislation was the 'Screw Nevada Bill,' " said Kamps. "It never should
have been targeted to begin with."¶ Kamps said better sites for a repository include deep granite formations in places like New Hampshire,
Wisconsin or Minnesota.¶ A new list of cites could still include Yucca, especially if its supporters succeed in getting the NRC to rule that the
administration can't unilaterally take it off the table.¶ But while all the bickering goes on, all that radioactive waste will stay right where it is -sitting at power plants all across the country.
Squo storage methods cause stockpiles to explode – outweighs global warming
Fleming 7 – MA @ Oxford, MBA @ Cranfield, worked in industry, financial services and environmental
consultancy, designed Tradable Energy Quotas (David Fleming, 2007, “The Lean Guide to Nuclear Energy
– A Life Cycle In Trouble,” http://energyskeptic.com/2014/david-fleming-2007-the-lean-guide-tonuclear-energy-a-life-cycle-in-trouble/) Nuclear power is a source of high-level waste which has to be sequestered. Every stage in the process
produces lethal waste, including the mining and leaching processes, the milling, the enrichment and the decommissioning. It is very
expensive. It is a terrorist target and its enrichment processes are stepping stones to the production of
nuclear weapons. Nuclear power only provides 2.5% of the energy we consume. Deep reductions in travel and transport can be expected to come about
rapidly and brutally as the oil market breaks down [from declining oil production]. Nuclear energy relies on the existence of a fully powered-up grid system into
which it can feed its output of electricity – but the grid itself is mainly powered by the electricity from gas-fueled power stations, so that if gas supplies were to be
interrupted, the grid would (at least partially) close down, along with the nuclear reactors that feed into it; Nuclear energy inevitably brings a sense of reassurance
that, in the end, the technical fix will save us. Which it can’t. And here is a hypothesis to which we need an answer at some speed: if
the worldwide
backlog of nuclear wastes were simply left to leak, catch fire and spread into the environment, the
resulting levels of radiation and toxicity would in principle require the evacuation of the planet. True, or not? The
nuclear industry should therefore focus on finding solutions to the whole of its waste problem before it
becomes too late to do so. And hold it right there, because this is perhaps the moment to think about what “too late” might mean. Despite the emphasis placed on
oil depletion in this booklet, it is climate change that may well set the final date for completion of the massive and non-negotiable task of dealing with nuclear
waste. Many reactors
are in low-lying areas in the path of rising seas; and many of the storage ponds, crowded with highclose by. Estimated dates for steep rises in sea levels are constantly being brought forward. With an angry climate, and
whole populations on the move, it will be hard to find the energy, the funds, the skills and the orderly
planning needed for a massive program of waste disposal – or even moving waste out of the way of rising tides. When
outages in gas supplies lead to break down in electricity supplies, the electrical-powered cooling systems
level waste, are
7
that stop high-level waste from catching fire will stop working. It will also be hard to stop ragged
armies, scrambling for somewhere to live, looting spent fuel rods from unguarded dumps, attaching them to conventional
explosives, and being prepared to use them. All this will have to be dealt-with, and at speed. There may be no time to wait for reactor
cores and high-level wastes to cool down. But, then, it may be a frank impossibility to bury them until they have cooled down… The task of making
those wastes safe should be an unconditional priority, equal to that of confronting climate change itself.
The default-strategy of seeding the world with radioactive time-bombs which will pollute the oceans and
detonate at random intervals for thousands of years into the future, whether there are any human beings around to care about it or
not, should be recognized as off any scale calibrated in terms other than dementia. Nuclear power is an energy source that causes trouble far
beyond the scale of the energy it produces. It is a distraction from the need to face up to the coming energy gap.
8
Status Quo toxic waste storage policies are a product of environmental racism
Mills 1 (Charles W. Mills, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois, Chicago, 2001, “Faces of
Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice (2nd ed.,), p. 84-89,
Race is “the single most important factor (i.e., more important than income, home ownership rate, and property values) in
the location of abandoned toxic waste sites.”36¶
for protection.”37¶
“that the average fine imposed on polluters in white areas was 506 percent higher than the average fine imposed in minority communities” and
that “cleanup
took longer in minority communities, even though the efforts were often less intensive than
those performed in white neighborhoods.”38¶
and owls than people of color.39¶ Institutional resistance to providing information [on environmental issues] is
likely to be greater for groups such as racial minorities.Ӧ
Public officials and private industry
have, in many cases, responded to the NIMBY [Not in My Black Yard] phenomenon using the ‘PIBBY’ principle,
‘Place in Blacks’ Back Yards.’ “41¶ In effect, then, these spaces can be written off because these people can be
written off. The devalued space interacts with its devalued inhabitants. They are “outside” the
boundaries of empathy, not like us, not an equally valued body in the intercorporeal community that is the
collective white body. As Bill Lawson points out in chapter 3, “Living for the City: Urban United States and Environmental Justice” (p.
41): “[R]acial and spatial difference marks important differences that must be given weight in our moral deliberation.. . . Environmentalists have
a natural conception of pollution as a negative norm. If
a place is thought to be already polluted by racial identifiers,
we need to contain the pollution by keeping it in that area.” Since these are already waste spaces, it is
only appropriate that the waste products of industrialization should be directed toward them. Like seeks
like—throwaways on a throwaway population, dumping on the white body’s dumpsite.
This racism is a form deliberate colonialization that pervades international politics,
making violence inevitable
Bullard 8 (Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D, Environmental Justice Resource Center,_Clark Atlanta University,
7/2/08, “POVERTY, POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING HEALTHY
AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES” http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/PovpolEj.html
The United States is the dominant economic and military force in the world today. The American economic engine
has
generated massive wealth, high standard of living, and consumerism. This growth machine has also generated waste, pollution, and
ecological destruction. The U.S. has some of the best environmental laws in the world. However, in the real world, all
communities are not created equal. Environmental regulations have not achieved uniform benefits
across all segments of society. [2] Some communities are routinely poisoned while the government looks the other way. People
of color around the world must contend with dirty air and drinking water, and the location of noxious
facilities such as municipal landfills, incinerators, hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal
facilities owned by private industry, government, and even the military.[3] These environmental problems are
exacerbated by racism. Environmental racism refers to environmental policy, practice, or directive that
differentially affects or disadvantages (whether intended or unintended) individuals, groups, or
communities based on race or color. Environmental racism is reinforced by government, legal,
economic, political, and military institutions. Environmental racism combines with public policies and
industry practices to provide benefits for the countries in the North while shifting costs to countries in
the South. [4] Environmental racism is a form of institutionalized discrimination. Institutional discrimination is defined as "actions or
practices carried out by members of dominant (racial or ethnic) groups that have differential and negative impact on members of subordinate
(racial and ethnic) groups." [5] The United States is grounded in white racism. The nation was founded on the principles of "free land" (stolen
9
from Native Americans and Mexicans), "free labor" (African slaves brought to this land in chains), and "free men" (only white men with
property had the right to vote). From the outset, racism shaped the economic, political and ecological landscape of this new nation.
Environmental racism buttressed the exploitation of land, people, and the natural environment. It operates as an intra-nation power
arrangement--especially where ethnic or racial groups form a political and or numerical minority. For example, blacks in the U.S. form both a
political and numerical racial minority. On the other hand, blacks in South Africa, under apartheid, constituted a political minority and
numerical majority. American and South African apartheid had devastating environmental impacts on blacks. [6]
Environmental racism
also operates in the international arena between nations and between transnational corporations.
Increased globalization of the world's economy has placed special strains on the eco-systems in many
poor communities and poor nations inhabited largely by people of color and indigenous peoples. This is
especially true for the global resource extraction industry such as oil, timber, and minerals. [7] Globalization makes it easier for transnational
corporations and capital to flee to areas with the least environmental regulations, best tax incentives, cheapest labor, and highest profit. The
struggle of African Americans in Norco, Louisiana and the Africans in the Niger Delta are similar in that both groups are negatively impacted by
Shell Oil refineries and unresponsive governments. This scenario is repeated for Latinos in Wilmington (California) and indigenous people in
Ecuador who must contend with pollution from Texaco oil refineries. The companies may be different, but the community complaints and
concerns are very similar. Local residents have seen their air, water, and land contaminated. Many
nearby residents are "trapped"
in their community because of inadequate roads, poorly planned emergency escape routes, and faulty
warning systems. They live in constant fear of plant explosions and accidents. The Bhopal tragedy is fresh in the
minds of millions of people who live next to chemical plants. The 1984 poison-gas leak at the Bhopal, India Union Carbide plant killed thousands
of people--making it the world's deadliest industrial accident. It is not a coincidence that the only place in the U.S. where methyl isocyanate
(MIC) was manufactured was at a Union Carbide plant in in predominately African American Institute, West Virginia. [8] In 1985, a gas leak from
the Institute Union Carbide plant sent 135 residents to the hospital. Institutional racism has allowed people of color communities to exist as
colonies, areas that form dependent (and unequal) relationships to the dominant white society or "Mother Country" with regard to their social,
economic, legal, and environmental administration. Writing more than three decades ago, Carmichael and Hamilton, in their work Black Power,
offered the "internal" colonial model to explain racial inequality, political exploitation, and social isolation of African Americans. Carmichael and
Hamilton write: The
economic relationship of America's black communities . . . reflects their colonial status.
The political power exercised over those communities go hand in glove with the economic deprivation
experienced by the black citizens. Historically, colonies have existed for the sole purpose of enriching, in one form or another, the
"colonizer"; the consequence is to maintain the economic dependency of the "colonized." [9] Institutional racism reinforces internal
colonialism. Government institutions buttress this system of domination. Institutional
racism defends, protects, and
enhances the social advantages and privileges of rich nations. Whether by design or benign neglect, communities of
color (ranging from the urban ghettos and barrios to rural "poverty pockets" to economically impoverished Native American reservations and
developing nations) face some of the worst environmental problems.
The most polluted communities are also the
communities with crumbling infrastructure, economic disinvestment, deteriorating housing, inadequate
schools, chronic unemployment, high poverty, and overloaded health care systems.
Racism is the root cause of violence
Foucault 76 (Michel, Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-1976, p. 254257 Trans. David Macey,
What in fact is racism? It is primarily
a way of introducing a break into the domain of life that is under
power's control: the break between what must live and what must die. The appearance within the biological
continuum of the human race of races, the distinction among races, the hierarchy of races, the fact that certain races are described as good and
that others, in contrast, are described as inferior: all this is a way of fragmenting the field of the biological that power controls. It is a way of
separating out the groups that exist within a population. It is, in short, a way of establishing a biological type caesura within a population that
appears to be a biological domain. This will allow power to treat that population as a mixture of races, or to be more accurate, to treat the
species, to subdivide the species it controls, into the subspecies known, precisely, as races. That is the first function of racism: to fragment, to
create caesuras within the biological continuum addressed by biopower. Racism also has a second function. Its role is, if you like, to allow the
establishment of a positive relation of this type: "The more you kill, the more deaths you will cause" or "The very fact that you let more die will
allow you to live more." I would say that this relation ("If you want to live, you must take lives, you must be able to kill") was not invented by
either racism or the modern State. It is the relationship of war: "In order to live, you must destroy your enemies." But racism does make the
10
relationship of war-"If you want to live, the other must die" - function in a way that is completely new and that is quite compatible with the
exercise of biopower. On the one hand,
racism makes it possible to establish a relationship between my life and
the death of the other that is not a military or warlike relationship of confrontation, but a biologicaltype relationship: "The more inferior species die out, the more abnormal individuals are eliminated,
the fewer degenerates there will be in the species as a whole, and the more Ias species rather than individual-can live, the stronger I will be, the
more vigorous I will be. I will be able to proliferate." The fact that the other dies does not mean simply that I live in the sense that his death
guarantees my safety; the death of the other, the death of the bad race, of the inferior race (or the degenerate, or the abnormal) is something
that will make life in general healthier: healthier and purer. This is not, then, a military, warlike, or political relationship, but a biological
relationship. And the reason this mechanism can come into play is that the enemies who have to be done away with are not adversaries in the
political sense of the term; they are threats, either external or internal, to the population and for the population. In the biopower system, in
other words, killing or the imperative to kill is acceptable only if it results not in a victory over political adversaries, but in the elimination of the
biological threat to and the improvement of the species or race. There is a direct connection between the two. In a normalizing society,
race
or racism is the precondition that makes killing acceptable. When you have a normalizing society, you have a power
which is, at least superficially, in the first instance, or in the first line a biopower, and racism is the indispensable precondition that allows
someone to be killed, that allows others to be killed. Once the State functions in the biopower mode, racism alone can justify the murderous
function of the State. So you can understand the importance-I almost said the vital importance-of racism to the exercise of such a power: it is
the precondition for exercising the right to kill. If the power of normalization wished to exercise the old sovereign right to kill, it must become
racist. And if, conversely, a power of sovereignty, or in other words, a power that has the right of life and death, wishes to work with the
instruments, mechanisms, and technology of normalization, it too must become racist. When I say "killing," I obviously do not mean simply
murder as such, but also every form of indirect murder: the fact of exposing someone to death, increasing the risk of death for some people, or,
quite simply, political death, expulsion, rejection, and so on. I think that we are now in a position to understand a number of things. We can
understand, first of all, the link that was quickly-I almost said immediately-established between nineteenth-century biological theory and the
discourse of power. Basically, evolutionism, understood in the broad sense-or in other words, not so much Darwin's theory itself as a set, a
bundle, of notions (such as: the hierarchy of species that grow from a common evolutionary tree, the struggle for existence among species, the
selection that eliminates the less fit) naturally became within a few years during the nineteenth century not simply a way of transcribing a
political discourse into biological terms, and not simply a way of dressing up a political discourse in scientific clothing, but a real way of thinking
about the relations between colonization, the necessity for wars, criminality, the phenomena of madness and mental illness, the history of
societies with their different classes, and so on. Whenever, in other words, there was a confrontation, a killing or the risk of death, the
nineteenth century was quite literally obliged to think about them in the form of evolutionism. And we can also understand why racism should
have developed in modern societies that function in the biopower mode; we can understand why racism broke out at a number of .privileged
moments, and why they were precisely the moments when the right to take life was imperative.
Racism first develops with
colonization, or in other words, with colonizing genocide. If you are functioning in the biopower
mode, how can you justify the need to kill people, to kill populations, and to kill civilizations? By using
the themes of evolutionism, by appealing to a racism. War. How can one not only wage war on one's
adversaries but also expose one's own citizens to war, and let them be killed by the million (and this is
precisely what has been going on since the nineteenth century, or since the second half of the
nineteenth century), except by activating the theme of racism.
Land based storage causes Cancer
Kristin Shrader-Frechette in 2005 O’Neill Family Professor, Department of Philosophy
and Department of Biological Sciences at Notre Dame, “Mortgaging the Future: Dumping
Ethics with Nuclear Waste”, http://www.nd.edu/~kshrader/pubs/epa-yucca-oct-2005-art-scieng-eth.pdf CB
On August 22, 2005 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) issued its long awaited regulations for
radiation releases from the proposed U.S. nuclear-waste repository in Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. 1 E.P.A. recommended a dramatic reversal of international and U.S. health standards.
Current regulations guarantee individual and equal protection against all radiation
exposures above the legal limit. The proposed regulations remove these guarantees for
11
Yucca Mountain. Instead E.P.A. recommends changes both in the exposure-limits and in how they are measured and
enforced. Because radioactive leaks will increase over time, E.P.A. proposes one radiation
exposure-limit for the near future (the next 10,000 years) and another limit – 2300 percent
higher – for the distant future (the period beyond 10,000 years). For the near future, this
annual standard is 15 millrems. For the distant future, it is 350 millirems. To assess compliance
with these limits, E.P.A. proposes using the arithmetic mean of the dose distribution during the
near future, and using the median dose during the distant future. By setting different
exposure limits for different time periods, E.P.A.’s first proposal fails to give all citizens
equal protection. The agency defends this double radiation standard by saying that even the
more lenient exposure-limit allows a dose only slightly higher than what is already received
from natural-background radiation. 2 How dangerous a dose is that? According to the United
Nations Scientific Committee on Effects of Ionizing Radiation (U.N.S.C.E.A.R.), the International Atomic Energy Agency
(I.A.E.A.), and other scientific groups, natural-background radiation causes about 3 percent of fatal
cancers – roughly 18,000 annual U.S. deaths. 3 As the U.S. National Academy of Sciences reaffirmed in
June, no dose of ionizing radiation is completely safe, no matter how small or how natural . 4
What would happen if all polluters followed E.P.A.’s reasoning about natural- background
radiation? They could save money by avoiding pollution control. They could increase profits at the
expense of the public but claim that victims’ health risks were acceptable merely because
they were no worse than what some natural event had caused. Neither fairness, polluter
responsibility, compensating victims, nor obtaining their consent would be relevant. E.P.A.’s
double radiation standards for different generations also suggest that we merit more protection than our descendants. Yet
we, not they, profit from nuclear power plants that produce the radioactive waste. What about E.P.A.’s second proposal, to
use mean dose to assess near-future compliance with regulations, and to use median dose to assess distant-future
compliance? Neither
mean nor median exposure-limits protect against fatal doses at the tail of
the distribution. Neither protects the medically vulnerable 25 percent of the population –
including children, pregnant women, and those with allergies. To see what could happen when one
uses mean-exposure standards for assessing regulatory compliance, suppose that in the near future 715 residents of a
small town received radiation doses from Yucca Mountain. If a baby received a fatal dose of 10,000 millirems but all other
residents each received 1 millirem, the mean dose would be under 15 millirems. Although such dose distributions might be
unlikely, nevertheless this situation would be allowed by the mean-exposure standard. That is one reason all nations require
keeping individual radiation exposures “as low as reasonably achievable” (ALARA). All nations rely on individual dose limits
and keeping individual doses ALARA, not just keeping mean exposures ALARA. 5 Imagine the consequences if all
regulatory compliance were based only on mean or average protection. Even serious harms caused by negligence or
unfairness could be sanctioned if the rate of harm were below the mean. For instance, if a city’s murder rate were below the
U.S. mean – 7 deaths per 100,000 – police might say protection was adequate and stop pursing suspects. Even mean
radiation exposure from Yucca Mountain would be high in the distant future. Because E.P.A. recognizes this, it recommends
assessing distant-future regulatory compliance by using median, not mean, exposure-limits. By definition, median limits
would allow nearly half of exposures to exceed any standard. Consider what could happen if E.P.A.’s 350-millirems median
standard were applied to the earlier town of 715 people. If doses were ranked lowest to highest, the middle or median dose
would be received by person 358. Provided her dose were below 350 millirems, this median standard could legally allow 357
people to receive fatal doses. Whether or not such an exposure distribution actually would occur, the case illustrates that
any median standard provides only minimal protection because nearly half of the exposures could exceed it. Apart from
these two policy reversals, E.P.A.’s proposals rely on poor science, as the 2001 peer review by the International Atomic
Energy Agency warned. The I.A.E.A. said the government’s own Yucca Mountain studies show its
projected radiation doses have uncertainties between 8 and 12 orders of magnitude . 7 This
means projected Yucca radiation exposures to the public could be a trillion times too low or too
high. Yet if doses were only 29 times higher than the distant-future limit, they could
immediately kill human embryos. Doses only 750 times higher could immediately kill half the
adults exposed. 8 Whether or not people agree with E.P.A.’s changing radiation-exposure limits and regulatorycompliance standards, people likely agree that pollution regulations should protect everyone individually
and equally. These new regulations do not appear to do so. They mortgage the lives of people in the
distant future.
12
Geologic storage is immoral—too much risk shifted to future generations to be ethical.
Taebi 12
Intergenerational Risks of Nuclear Energy, Benham Taebi 2012
http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-1433-5_12 LMC
Nuclear energy is one of the clearest examples of a technology that brings about risks beyond generational borders.
These risks emanate particularly from nuclear waste that needs to be isolated from the biosphere for very long
periods of time. Principles of intergenerational equity currently underlie waste management policies, arguing that we
should not impose undue burdens on future generations. This chapter scrutinizes the way in which such intergenerational
equity principles deal with the issue of long-term risks.
The present consensus within the nuclear community is that nuclear waste should be buried in geological
repositories rather than kept in surface storage places. This is particularly based on the notion that repositories are
believed to be safer in the long run. Such long-term safety seems to be disputable as it relies on great longterm uncertainties which, in turn, necessitate sanctioning a distinction between different future people.
Putting distant future generations at a disadvantage does, however, lack solid moral justification, which should
urge us to reconsider our temporal moral obligations in the light of recent technological developments. The technological possibility of
substantially reducing the waste lifetime through Partitioning and Transmutation (P&T) is believed to challenge geological disposal, thus placing
long-term surface storage in a new perspective. P&T is, however, a laboratory-scale technology which means that substantial investment will be
required before industrial deployment can take place. Moreover, the deployment of this technology creates additional safety risks and
economic burdens for the present generation. Nevertheless, the potential possibility to diminish “undue burdens” for future generations is too
relevant to be neglected in discussions on nuclear waste management policies. The question that will furthermore be explored is to what extent
should we rely on future technological possibilities in today’s policy-making?
13
Advantage II – Terrorism
Two internal links First, is attack of on-site storage facilities
Edwards in 2005
Rob, New Scientist: Science and Society, “Nuclear Waste Sites Could Provide Terror Target”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7241-us-nuclear-waste-could-provide-terrortarget.html#.U8W6t_ldXAl
A large cloud of lethal radioactive fallout could be released by a terrorist attack on the nuclear waste
stored at up to 103 reactors in the US, according to an expert report for the US National Academy of
Sciences (NAS).The cooling ponds in which spent radioactive fuel is kept could be severely
damaged by crashing aircraft, high-powered weapons or explosives, the report says. With the water
draining away, the fuel cladding, made of a zirconium alloy, would overheat and burst into flames.
This "could release large quantities of radioactive material into the environment", the report
concludes. It was compiled by a committee of 15 leading scientists from universities, research
institutes and consultancies in response to a request from the US Congress. "Our findings were
unanimous," says committee chair, Louis Lanzerotti, from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
"The committee identified several terrorist attack scenarios that could have potentially severe
consequences." The NAS was asked to investigate the issue after a report by nuclear critics in 2003
suggested that an attack on a cooling pond could release more radioactivity than the Chernobyl
reactor accident in Ukraine in 1986. Such a release would cause thousands of deaths from cancer,
the critics claimed.Although their worrying claims were rejected by the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) and the nuclear industry at the time, they have now been backed by the NAS
report. "The committee judges that some of their release estimates should not be dismissed," it says.
Land-based power plants are terrorist magnets—causes nuclear meltdowns
Lowe 5 – Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology, and Society @ Griffith University, President of the
Australian Conservation Foundation (Prof. Ian Lowe, September 2005, “Nuclear Power: No Solution to
Climate Change,”
http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/Nuclear_Power_No_Solution_to_Climate_Ch
ange.pdf)
Civil nuclear plants are potentially “attractive” targets for terrorist attacks involving the use of grenades ,
missiles , commando-style attacks , car or truck bombs , or planes . This is because of the importance of
the electricity
supply system, the large radioactive inventories in many facilities, and the potential or actual
use of civil nuclear facilities for weapons production. Irradiated nuclear materials are orders of magnitude more
radioactive than ‘front-end’ materials such as natural, enriched or depleted uranium. Therefore, the facilities of most
concern are reactors, spent fuel stores, and reprocessing plants, as well as the transportation of spent fuel or
high-level waste from reprocessing plants. (Hirsch et al., 2005, pp.98-114).
vulnerable
because of their high
Spent fuel stores are
seen by some to be
particularly
radioactive inventories and generally lower level of protection compared to
reactors. (Alvarez, 2002.) Attacks on nuclear facilities by nation states have been mentioned already – the attacks on nuclear facilities in Iraq by
Iran, Israel and the US, and Iraq’s attacks on facilities in Iran and Israel. A
number of attacks on nuclear plants by subnational groups have also occurred, as well as a number of threatened attacks (Hirsch et al., 2005, pp.87-88).
14
Examples include: • The hijacking of a plane in 1972 and the ensuing threat to crash it into the Oak Ridge nuclear research reactor. • Basque
separatists bombing a nuclear power plant under construction in Spain in 1982. • ANC guerrilla fighters bombing the Koeberg nuclear plant
under construction in South Africa in 1982. • Sabotage of three of the four off-site power lines leading to the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in
Arizona in 1986. • A man ramming a station wagon under a partly opened door in the turbine building at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in
Pennsylvania in 1993.
Meltdowns cause extinction
Lendman 11 (Stephen, Research Associate – Centre for Research on Globalization, “Nuclear Meltdown
in Japan”, 3-13, http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/13/nuclear-meltdown-injapan)
Reuters said the 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage, up to then the most costly ever natural disaster. This time, from quake and
tsunami damage alone, that figure will be dwarfed. Moreover, under
a worst case core meltdown, all bets are off as the
entire region and beyond will be threatened with permanent contamination, making the most affected areas
unsafe to live in. On March 12, Stratfor Global Intelligence issued a "Red Alert: Nuclear Meltdown at Quake-Damaged Japanese Plant," saying:
Fukushima Daiichi "nuclear power plant in Okuma, Japan, appears to have caused a reactor meltdown." Stratfor downplayed its seriousness,
adding that such an event "does not necessarily mean a nuclear disaster," that already may have happened - the ultimate nightmare short of
nuclear winter. According to Stratfor, "(A)s long as the reactor core, which is specifically designed to contain high levels of heat, pressure and
radiation, remains intact, the melted fuel can be dealt with. If the (core's) breached but the containment facility built around (it) remains intact,
the melted fuel can be....entombed within specialized concrete" as at Chernobyl in 1986. In fact, that disaster killed nearly one million people
worldwide from nuclear radiation exposure. In their book titled, "Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the
Environment," Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko and Alexey Nesterenko said: "For the past 23 years, it has been clear that there is a danger
greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions
from this one reactor exceeded a hundred-fold
the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." "No citizen of any country can be
assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half
the globe . Chernobyl fallout covers the entire Northern Hemisphere." Stratfor explained that if Fukushima's floor cracked, "it is highly likely
that the melting fuel will burn through (its) containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before," at least not reported.
If now occurring, "containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible," making the quake,
aftershocks, and tsunamis seem mild by comparison. Potentially, millions of lives will be jeopardized. Japanese officials said Fukushima's reactor
container wasn't breached. Stratfor and others said it was, making the potential calamity far worse than reported. Japan's Nuclear and
Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said the explosion at Fukushima's Saiichi No. 1 facility could only have been caused by a core meltdown. In fact,
3 or more reactors are affected or at risk. Events are fluid and developing, but remain very serious. The possibility of an extreme catastrophe
can't be discounted. Moreover, independent nuclear safety analyst John Large told Al Jazeera that by venting radioactive steam from the inner
reactor to the outer dome, a reaction may have occurred, causing the explosion. "When I look at the size of the explosion," he said, "it is my
opinion that there could be a very large leak (because) fuel continues to generate heat." Already, Fukushima way exceeds Three Mile Island
that experienced a partial core meltdown in Unit 2. Finally it was brought under control, but coverup and denial concealed full details until
much later. According to anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, Japan's quake fallout may cause nuclear disaster, saying: "This is a very
serious situation. If
the cooling system fails (apparently it has at two or more plants), the super-heated radioactive fuel rods
will melt, and (if so) you could conceivably have an explosion," that, in fact, occurred. As a result, massive radiation releases may
follow, impacting the entire region. "It could be, literally, an apocalyptic event.
15
Second is Reprocessing, Failure to develop a longterm storage site will lead to
Reprocessing
Union of concerned scientists 11
Union of concerned scientists (organization of scientists for science and democracy)
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handling-nuclearwaste/reprocessing-and-nuclear.html
Over three decades ago, the United States decided on nuclear non-proliferation grounds not to
reprocess the spent fuel generated by civilian nuclear power plants, but instead to directly dispose of it in a geologic repository.
However, the United States does not yet have a geologic repository and policymakers periodically propose
that the United States begin to reprocess its spent fuel. Reprocessing existing U.S. spent fuel would
produce hundreds of tons of separated plutonium that would be vulnerable to diversion or theft by
terrorists.
Reprocessing Increases risk of terrorism Plutonium could be stolen.
Union of concerned scientists 11
Union of concerned scientists (organization of scientists for science and democracy)
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handlingnuclear-waste/reprocessing-and-nuclear.html
From the perspective of terrorists seeking a nuclear weapon, reprocessing
changes plutonium from a form in which it is
highly radioactive and nearly impossible to steal to one in which it is not radioactive and could be stolen
surreptitiously by an insider, or taken by force during its routine transportation.
This situation is made worse by the fact that the theft of enough plutonium to build several nuclear
weapons could remain undetected for many years at a reprocessing facility. In particular, at commercial scale
"bulk-handling" reprocessing facilities and fuel fabrication plants, which annually handle from several tons to
many tens of tons of separated plutonium in solution or powder form, it is essentially impossible to account for the
plutonium throughput to within tens or even hundreds of kilograms in a timely manner, making it feasible that
the theft of this quantity of plutonium could go undetected for many years. Since a relatively simple
implosion nuclear weapon can be made with roughly six kilograms of plutonium, the uncertainty in the
annual amount of plutonium processed is quite significant, and could lead to undetected acquisition of
weapon-usable materials by states or terrorists.
Terrorism leads to great power warfare—only scenario for escalation
Ayson 10 (Robert, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies –
Victoria University of Wellington, “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic Effects”, Studies
in Conflict and Terrorism, 33(7), July, InformaWorld)
A terrorist nuclear attack, and even the use of nuclear weapons in response by the country attacked in the first place, would not necessarily represent the worst of
the nuclear worlds imaginable. Indeed, there are reasons to wonder whether nuclear terrorism should ever be regarded as belonging in the category of truly
existential threats. A contrast can be drawn here with the global catastrophe that would come from a massive nuclear exchange between two or more of the
16
sovereign states that possess these weapons in significant numbers. Even the worst terrorism that the twenty-first century might bring would fade into
as long as
the major nuclear weapons states have hundreds and even thousands of nuclear weapons at their
disposal, there is always the possibility of a truly awful nuclear exchange taking place precipitated
entirely by state possessors themselves. But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack
and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange—are not necessarily separable. It is just possible that
some sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of
events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that
possess them. In this context, today’s and tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted
during the early Cold War years to new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as
raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered
insignificance alongside considerations of what a general nuclear war would have wrought in the Cold War period. And it must be admitted that
in the late 1950s and early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination to
depict an especially plausible situation where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a
terrorist nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because
They would seem far too responsible
to be involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities,
they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups.
however remote, do suggest themselves. For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of
nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct attribution of that
nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al. that while the debris resulting from a
nuclear explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of
information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the materials used and, most important … some indication of where the nuclear
material came from.”41 Alternatively, if
the act of nuclear terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American
officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at all) suspicion
would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom
and France, and probably Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very
short list consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program continues, and possibly Pakistan. But at
what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game of nuclear Cluedo? In
particular, if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in
Washington’s relations with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been traded
between these major powers, would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst?
Of course, the chances of this occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia
and/or China, or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The reverse
might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited conflict with the United States,
could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a possible perpetrator or encourager of the attack?
Washington’s early response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil might also raise the possibility
of an unwanted (and nuclear aided) confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the noise
and confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might
be expected to place the country’s armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert.
In such a tense environment, when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just
possible that Moscow and/or China might mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force
(and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation, the temptations to preempt such actions
might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet with a
devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier)
Washington might decide to order a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming attack
against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to support that group. Depending on the identity and especially the location of
these targets, Russia and/or China might interpret such action as being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an infringement on
their spheres of influence and even on their sovereignty. One far-fetched but perhaps not impossible scenario might stem from a judgment in
Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with
what Allison claims is the “Chechen insurgents’ … long-standing interest in all things nuclear.”42 American pressure on that part of the world
would almost certainly raise alarms in Moscow that might require a degree of advanced consultation from Washington that the latter found
17
itself unable or unwilling to provide. There is also the question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of nuclear terrorism on
another member of that special club. It could reasonably be expected that following a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States, both Russia
and China would extend immediate sympathy and support to Washington and would work alongside the United States in the Security Council.
But there is just a chance, albeit a slim one, where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some cases than in others. For
what would happen if the United States wished to discuss its right to retaliate against groups
based in their territory? If, for some reason, Washington found the responses of Russia and China deeply
underwhelming, (neither “for us or against us”) might it also suspect that they secretly were in cahoots
with the group, increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the chances of a major exchange. If the
terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and China, or existed in areas of the world
over which Russia and China held sway, and if Washington felt that Moscow or Beijing were placing a
curiously modest level of pressure on them, what conclusions might it then draw about their culpability?
If Washington decided to use, or decided to threaten the use of, nuclear weapons, the responses of
Russia and China would be crucial to the chances of avoiding a more serious nuclear exchange. They
might surmise, for example, that while the act of nuclear terrorism was especially heinous and demanded a
example,
strong response, the response simply had to remain below the nuclear threshold. It would be one thing for a non-state actor to have broken the nuclear use taboo,
but an entirely different thing for a state actor, and indeed the leading state in the international system, to do so. If Russia and China felt sufficiently strongly about
that prospect, there is then the question of what options would lie open to them to dissuade the United States from such action: and as has been seen over the last
several decades, the central dissuader of the use of nuclear weapons by states has been the threat of nuclear retaliation. If some readers find this simply too
Russia, which possesses an arsenal of
thousands of nuclear warheads and that has been one of the two most important trustees of the non-use taboo, is subjected to an
fanciful, and perhaps even offensive to contemplate, it may be informative to reverse the tables.
attack of nuclear terrorism. In response, Moscow places its nuclear forces very visibly on a higher state of alert and declares that it is
considering the use of nuclear retaliation against the group and any of its state supporters. How would Washington view such a possibility?
Would it really be keen to support Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, including outside Russia’s traditional sphere of influence? And if not, which
seems quite plausible, what options would Washington have to communicate that displeasure? If China had been the victim of the nuclear
terrorism and seemed likely to retaliate in kind, would the United States and Russia be happy to sit back and let this occur? In the charged
atmosphere immediately after a nuclear terrorist attack, how would the attacked country respond to pressure from other major nuclear
powers not to respond in kind? The phrase “how dare they tell us what to do” immediately springs to mind. Some might even go so far as to
interpret this concern as a tacit form of sympathy or support for the terrorists. This might not help the chances of nuclear restraint.
18
Advantage III – Nuclear Power Renaissance
Without a waste solution the nuclear power industry is doomed – several reason.
First is licensing, Until permanent plans to replace Yucca Mountain are created, the
NRC has frozen licensing nuclear power plants.
Casey 2013
Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary Volume 33 | Issue 2 Article 6 10-152013 Waist-Deep in Nuclear Waste: How the NRC Can Rebuild Confidence in a Stalled Waste
Management Program Emily Casey
http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1560&context=naalj
The United States is in a particularly uncertain situation as to ¶ how to dispose of spent nuclear fuel,
which is highly radioactive ¶ waste that is now being held at various facilities across the country. ¶ For
over two decades, U.S. nuclear waste policy rested on the ¶ development of a long-term geologic burial
site in Yucca Mountain, ¶ Nevada. However, the Yucca Mountain waste management program ¶ was
suspended indefinitely in 2010. The United States is now “back ¶ to the drawing board” in the sense
that it lacks a long-term solution ¶ for the safe disposal of nuclear waste. ¶ The agency responsible for
licensing nuclear facilities, the ¶ Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), is now in a difficult ¶ position.
Recently, in New York v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,¶ 1¶ the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated
two NRC rulings that ¶ enabled the agency to issue operating licenses to nuclear facilities. ¶ The court
held that the NRC’s rulings improperly conclude that ¶ permanent storage of nuclear waste will become
available “when ¶ necessary,” which is an insufficient evaluation under the National ¶ Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA).2 In response, the NRC ¶ announced a freeze on all licensing and renewals of licenses
until it ¶ addresses the court’s ruling.
Second is Public confidence – Fukushima devastated it – that’s key to sustainable nuclear power
Moniz 11 – Energy Secretary of the US, American nuclear physicist (Ernest Moniz, Nov/Dec 2011, Council
on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs Magazine, “Why We Still Need Nuclear Power,”
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136544/ernest-moniz/why-we-still-need-nuclear-power)
If nuclear energy is to enjoy a sustained renaissance, the challenge of managing nuclear waste
years
for thousands of
must be met . Nuclear energy is generated by splitting uranium, leaving behind dangerous radioactive products, such as cesium and strontium, that must be isolated for
centuries. The process also produces transuranic elements, such as plutonium, which are heavier than uranium, do not occur in nature, and must be isolated for millennia. There is an
alternative to disposing of transuranic elements: they can be separated from the reactor fuel every few years and then recycled into new nuclear reactor fuel as an additional energy source.
The downside, however, is that this process is complex and expensive, and it poses a proliferation risk since plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons. The debate over the merits of recycling
most nuclear waste needs to be isolated deep underground. The scientific
community has supported this method for decades, but finding sites for the needed facilities has proved difficult. In the United States, Congress
adopted a prescriptive approach, legislating both a single site, at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, and a specific schedule for burying spent fuel underground. The
transuranic elements has yet to be resolved. What is not disputed is that
massive project was to be paid for by a nuclear waste fund into which nuclear power utilities contribute about $750 million each year.
But the strategy backfired , and
program is in a shambles. Nevada pushed back, and the schedule slipped by two decades, which meant that the government had to pay courtordered damages to the utility companies. In 2009, the Obama administration announced that it was canceling the Yucca Mountain
the
project altogether, leaving no alternative in place for the disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. The Nuclear Waste Fund has reached $25 billion but has no disposal program
19
to support.
Fukushima awakened the American public and members of Congress to the problem of the accumulation of radioactive
spent fuel in cooling pools at reactor sites. The original plan had been to allow the spent fuel to cool for about five years, after which it would be either disposed of underground or partly
recycled. Now,
the spent nuclear fuel has nowhere to go . Many utilities have moved some of the spent fuel out of the pools and into dry storage facilities
built on site, which the NRC has judged safe for a century or so. The dry storage facilities at Fukushima were not compromised by the earthquake and tsunami, a sharp contrast to the problems
that arose with the spent-fuel pools when cooling could not be maintained. To deal with the immediate problem of waste building up in reactor pools, Congress should allow the Nuclear
Waste Fund to be used for moving the spent fuel accumulating in pools into dry-cask storage units nearby. But such an incremental step should not substitute for a comprehensive approach to
waste management.
The public needs to be convinced that nuclear power is safe. Instead of being stored near reactors, spent fuel should
eventually be kept in dry casks at a small number of consolidated sites set up by the government where the fuel could stay for a century. This approach has several advantages. The additional
time would provide the Department of Energy, or some other organization, with more flexibility in designing a geological
repository. The government would no longer have to pay utilities for not meeting the mandated schedule, and communities near reactors
would be reassured that spent fuel has a place to go. At each site, the aging fuel would be monitored, so that any problems that arose could be addressed. The
cooling
storage facilities would keep Washington's options open as the debate over whether spent fuel is waste or a resource works itself out. These sites should be paid for by the Nuclear Waste
Fund, a change that would require congressional approval. At the same time,
Washington must find an alternative to Yucca Mountain for
storing nuclear waste in the long run.
C. State bans – a credible waste disposal strategy is key to overcome moratoria on continued
development
Belter et al 13 – researchers for Navigant Consulting, based on work supported by the DOE and the
National Energy Technology Laboratory (Gary Belter, James Carter, Donald Harker, Emily D. Koepsell,
Colette Lamontagne, Erik Larson, Tim McClive, Laurie Oppel, Gordon Pickering, Don Price, Mike
Rutkowski, David Walls, June 2013, “Assessment of the Nuclear Power Industry – Final Report,”
http://www.naruc.org/Grants/Documents/Assessment-of-the-Nuclear-Power-IndustryFinal%20Report.pdf)
Ten states have enacted legislation that ties future nuclear development to permanent disposal of spent
nuclear fuel. One state, Minnesota, has banned the construction of all new nuclear power plants. States that have
tied nuclear development to long-term spent fuel disposition can be divided into three broad categories. Two states, Oregon and West
Virginia, require a spent fuel repository to be in operation prior to considering local nuclear plants. Three states,
Kentucky, Maine, and Massachusetts, require that a repository exists or will exist by the time it is needed. Lastly, five
states, California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey and Wisconsin, require that the technology for spent fuel has been
demonstrated and approved by the Federal Government. Kansas will prohibit cost recovery for excess nuclear capacity
unless high level radioactive waste technology exists; however dry cask storage appears to meet the requirement. Hawaii, Rhode Island, and
Vermont require approval of the state legislature prior to construction of a new nuclear power plant. Montana requires voter approval prior to
the construction of a nuclear power plant. State incentives for new nuclear power plant construction include tax incentives in Alabama and
Kansas and treatment of nuclear power as renewable energy for RPS targets in Ohio and Indiana. The
most salient characteristics of
a state’s energy profile that affect the building of next generation nuclear power plants are regulatory policies
which allow the utility to mitigate the risks associated with the asset.
Independently, emissions cause ocean acidification – extinction
Romm 12 – physicist and climate expert, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress
(Joseph J., “Science: Ocean Acidifying so fast that it threatens humanity’s ability to feed itself”, 3/2/12;
http://earthlawcenter.org/news/headline/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanitysability-to-feed-itself/)
20
The world’s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did
during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global
temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean
acidification over this vast time period. “What we’re doing today really stands out,” said lead author Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at
Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out—new
species evolved to replace those that died off. But if
industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may
lose organisms we care about—coral reefs, oysters, salmon.” James Zachos, a paleoceanographer at University of
California, Santa Cruz, with a core of sediment from some 56 million years ago, when the oceans underwent acidification that could be an
analog to ocean changes today. That’s the news release from a major 21-author Science paper, “The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification”
(subs. req’d). We knew from a 2010 Nature Geoscience study that the oceans
are now acidifying 10 times faster today than
55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. But this study looked back over 300 million
and found that “the unprecedented rapidity of CO2 release currently taking place” has put marine life at risk
in a frighteningly unique way: … the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable
of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at
least the last ~300 My of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory
of marine ecosystem change. That is to say, it’s not just that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century”
as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration. That is a recipe
for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that ocean dead zones “devoid of fish and
seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years.“ And remember, we just learned from a 2012 new
Nature Climate Change study that carbon dioxide is “driving fish crazy” and threatening their survival. Here’s more on the new study: The
oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air; the gas reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time
is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. But if CO2 goes into the oceans too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that
corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shell-building. That is what is happening now. In a review of hundreds of
paleoceanographic studies, a team of researchers from five countries found evidence for only one period in the last 300 million years when the
oceans changed even remotely as fast as today: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, some 56 million years ago. In the early
1990s, scientists extracting sediments from the seafloor off Antarctica found a layer of mud from this period wedged between thick deposits of
white plankton fossils. In a span of about 5,000 years, they estimated, a mysterious surge of carbon doubled atmospheric concentrations,
pushed average global temperatures up by about 6 degrees C, and dramatically changed the ecological landscape. The result: carbonate
plankton shells littering the seafloor dissolved, leaving the brown layer of mud. As many as half of all species of benthic foraminifers, a group of
single-celled organisms that live at the ocean bottom, went extinct, suggesting that organisms higher in the food chain may have also
disappeared, said study co-author Ellen Thomas, a paleoceanographer at Yale University who was on that pivotal Antarctic cruise. “It’s really
unusual that you lose more than 5 to 10 percent of species over less than 20,000 years,” she said. “It’s usually on the order of a few percent
over a million years.” During this time, scientists estimate, ocean pH—a measure of acidity–may have fallen as much as 0.45 units. (As pH falls,
acidity rises.) In the last hundred years, atmospheric CO2 has risen about 30 percent, to 393 parts per million, and ocean pH has fallen by 0.1
unit, to 8.1–an acidification rate at least 10 times faster than 56 million years ago, says Hönisch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change predicts that pH may fall another 0.3 units by the end of the century,to 7.8, raising the possibility that we may soon see ocean changes
similar to those observed during the PETM. More catastrophic events
have shaken earth before, but perhaps not as
quickly. The study finds two other times of potential ocean acidification: the extinctions triggered by
massive volcanism at the end of the Permian and Triassic eras, about 252 million and 201 million years
ago respectively. But the authors caution that the timing and chemical changes of these events is less certain. Because most ocean
sediments older than 180 million years have been recycled back into the deep earth, scientists have fewer records to work with. During the end
of the Permian, about 252 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Russia led to a rise in atmospheric carbon, and the
extinction of 96 percent of marine life. Scientists have found evidence for ocean dead zones and the survival of organisms able to withstand
carbonate-poor seawater and high blood-carbon levels, but so far they have been unable to reconstruct changes in ocean pH or carbonate. At
the end of the Triassic, about 201 million years ago, a second burst of mass volcanism doubled atmospheric carbon. Coral reefs collapsed and
many sea creatures vanished. Noting that tropical species fared the worst, some scientists question if global warming rather than ocean
acidification was the main killer at this time. The effects of ocean acidification today are overshadowed for now by other problems, ranging
from sewage pollution and hotter summer temperatures that threaten corals with disease and bleaching. However, scientists trying to isolate
the effects of acidic water in the lab have shown that lower pH levels can harm a range of marine life, from reef and shell-building organisms to
the tiny snails favored by salmon. In a recent study, scientists from Stony Brook University found that the larvae of bay scallops and hard clams
grow best at pre-industrial pH levels, while their shells corrode at the levels projected for 2100. Off the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the death of
oyster larvae has recently been linked to the upwelling of acidic water there. In parts of the ocean acidified by underwater volcanoes venting
carbon dioxide, scientists have seen alarming signs of what the oceans could be like by 2100. In a 2011 study of coral reefs off Papua New
Guinea, scientists writing in the journal Nature Climate Change found that when pH dropped to 7.8, reef diversity declined by as much as 40
21
percent. Other studies have found that clownfish larvae raised in the lab lose their ability to sniff out predators and find their way home when
pH drops below 7.8. “It’s not a problem that can be quickly reversed,” said Christopher Langdon, a biological oceanographer at the University of
Miami who co-authored the study on Papua New Guinea reefs. “Once
a species goes extinct it’s gone forever. We’re
playing a very dangerous game.”
Catastrophic warming risks extinction
Mazo 10 – PhD in Paleoclimatology from UCLA
(Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor, Survival and Research Fellow for Environmental Security and Science
Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, 3-2010, “Climate Conflict: How global
warming threatens security and what to do about it,” pg. 122)
The best estimates for global warming to the end of the century range from 2.5-4.~C above pre-industrial levels, depending on the scenario. Even in the best-case scenario, the low end of the
likely range is 1.goC, and in the worst 'business as usual' projections, which actual emissions have been matching, the range of likely warming runs from 3.1--7.1°C. Even keeping emissions at
constant 2000 levels (which have already been exceeded), global temperature would still be expected to reach 1.2°C (O'9""1.5°C)above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century."
Without early and severe reductions in emissions, the effects of climate change in the second half of the
twenty-first century are likely to be catastrophic for the stability and security of countries in the developing world - not to mention the associated
human tragedy. Climate change could even undermine the strength and stability of emerging and advanced
economies, beyond the knock-on effects on security of widespread state failure and collapse in
developing countries.' And although they have been condemned as melodramatic and alarmist, many informed observers believe that unmitigated climate
change beyond the end of the century could pose an existential threat to civilisation." What is certain is that there is
no precedent in human experience for such rapid change or such climatic conditions, and even in the
best case adaptation to these extremes would mean profound social, cultural and political changes.
Formulating a credible nuclear waste solution revitalizes domestic nuclear industry leadership – this
solves every impact and is modeled globally
CSIS 13 – Center for Strategic and International Studies (June 2013, “Restoring U.S. Leadership in
Nuclear Energy,”
http://csis.org/files/publication/130614_RestoringUSLeadershipNuclearEnergy_WEB.pdf)
Waste management has stood for decades as a barrier to the growth of nuclear energy in the United
States. Several states have laws that ban construction of new nuclear plants until the waste issue is resolved.
More broadly, the lack of a waste-disposal solution has damaged the credibility of, and undermined public confidence in,
nuclear power as an energy source. The recent report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future found
that “this nation’s failure to come to grips with the nuclear waste issue has already proved damaging and costly
and it will be more damaging and more costly the longer it continues: damaging to prospects for maintaining a potentially
important energy supply option for the future, damaging to state–federal relations and public confidence in the
federal government’s competence, and damaging to America’s standing in the world—not only as a
source of nuclear technology and policy expertise but as a leader on global issues of nuclear safety,
non-proliferation, and security.” If the United States can decide on a course of action to deal with its own
spent fuel and other high level nuclear waste, this could open the door to options such as fuel “take-away”
arrangements between the United States and countries with small nuclear programs. Such agreements, which
would allow a country to dispose of spent fuel in another country with established disposal capability rather than on its own soil, could
have large safety and security benefits, especially if implemented in concert with nonproliferation goals. The
United States has had a small but successful security initiative to repatriate spent foreign research reactor fuel for storage and disposal. If a
similar program to accept spent fuel from foreign commercial reactors could be established, this
would greatly expand the
options available to the United States in advancing its nonproliferation interests, particularly as new, small, and
inexperienced nuclear entrants consider their fuel cycle options. Of course, such a program would likely be politically
22
acceptable only in the context of discernible progress toward implementing a permanent disposal
solution for U.S. spent fuel. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has set the global standard for
excellence in nuclear energy regulation and has long served to bolster public confidence in nuclear operations.
Yet there is a growing concern that the regulatory burden facing U.S. plant operators will be expanded without commensurate safety benefit,
particularly in light of the understandable and appropriate desire to respond quickly to lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear accident in
Japan. It is essential that the NRC and the U.S. nuclear industry work constructively to enhance the safety and security of the U.S. nuclear fleet
without placing undue burdens on reactor operators. The
U.S. commercial industry has been unrelenting in its quest for
excellence. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) has been a strong force for self-regulation and the result
has been performance that sets the global standard. Added regulatory requirements when they produce real benefits are
good for the industry; additional regulatory costs without appropriate benefits will weigh down otherwise well-performing nuclear facilities and
their staff, and would contribute to financial pressures that could lead to even more rapid shutdowns of presently operating nuclear power
plants.
nuclear power is key to trade off with fossil fuels – Solves Warming
Lorenzini, 11/27/13—a retired PacifiCorp executive and former general manager of contract operations
at DOE’s nuclear defense facilities (Paul, "A Second Look at Nuclear Power", Issues in Science and
Technology, issues.org/21-3/lorenzini/)
By overlooking nuclear power in the quest for clean energy, we are condemning ourselves to a future of increased
fossil fuel use. For more than three decades, energy policies in the United States and much of the Western world have
been held in the ideological grip of a flawed concept: the notion that we can achieve sustainable energy by
relying solely on conservation and renewable resources, such as wind, the sun, the tides, and organic materials like wood and crop
waste. Born in the wake of the 1973 oil embargo and arising out of renewed commitments to environmental quality, this idea has an almost religious appeal. An
unintended result is that the world has become ever more reliant on fossil fuels and therefore less able to
respond to global warming. Although the vision of a renewable energy future has obvious appeal, it
simply hasn’t worked. Yes, energy efficiency has improved. We can now produce incremental gains in gross national product with much less energy
than in the past, and electricity growth rates have been cut by more than two-thirds. But renewable energy
sources have not come close to displacing fossil fuels as our primary source of energy. The failure is significant, eroding a fundamental
premise on which modern energy planning is based. The long-term goal has been consistent: a supply adequate to meet
global human needs while moving away from fossil fuels, ensuring environmental sustainability (especially
reducing greenhouse gas emissions), and achieving energy security. Instead, we are moving unwittingly toward a
fossil fuel future, exactly what we’ve been trying to avoid. Renewable energy has been sold on the premise that it has
significant energy potential that could be tapped inexpensively. Yet after 30 years of effort, even with significant
social, political, and financial incentives, the energy contribution from renewable sources has not budged. In 2002, renewable
sources supplied about 6 percent of U.S. total energy consumption, unchanged from the 6 percent they provided in 1970. And the bulk of that 6 percent is supplied
by sources that are far from new: hydropower and wood waste. From 1988 to 1998, U.S. wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower grew at 27 percent per year, and
the contribution to U.S. energy supply from nonhydro, nonbiomass renewable sources grew nearly 100-fold from 1980 to 1995. Even so, wind, solar, and
geothermal energy accounted for only about 0.5 percent of the energy consumed in 2002. The contribution
from fossil fuels did drop from 93
percent in 1970 to 85 percent in 2002, but it did so only because nuclear power made a substantial new contribution,
supplying 8 percent of the 2002 energy consumption. Globally, the situation is similar. In 2000, nearly 90 percent of global energy came from fossil
fuels. Current forecasts project little improvement. In its Annual Energy Outlook 2004, the U.S. Department of Energy ( DOE)
expects coal, oil, and natural gas to provide 89 percent of all new U.S. energy through the year 2025. In fact, fossil
fuels are expected to increase, from 85 percent in 2002 to 87 percent in 2025. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s)
World Energy Outlook for 2002 paints a similar picture: Coal, oil, and natural gas are expected to provide more than 90 percent of all new energy from 2000 through
2030. Reframing these important questions could be greatly assisted by the environmental community itself. A growing
number of enlightened
environmental leaders are beginning to appreciate the role that nuclear power might play in achieving environmental
sustainability. Seeing beyond the rigid ideologies that have constrained us for decades, they could be of inestimable
23
importance in helping to reshape the public dialogue. An example is James Lovelock, the biophysicist and public health physician who
proposed in his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating organism. In a recent appeal to his fellow Greens, he wrote: “We cannot continue
drawing energy from fossil fuels, and there is no chance that renewables, wind, tide, and water power can provide
enough energy and in time.” Voicing his concerns about greenhouse gases, he concluded, “we have no time to experiment
with visionary energy sources: civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear—the one safe,
available energy source—now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted on our outraged planet.” Patrick Moore, a
founder of Greenpeace, subsequently followed suit, stating that “nuclear power is the only nongreenhouse-gas-emitting power
source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and satisfy global demand.”
24
Advantage IV - Nuclear Colonialism
Native Americans are being oppressed-despite opposition, they are target for
dumping
Kamps in 2000
(Kevin, Nuclear Waste Specialist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service) Comments on the
Department of Energy’s "Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County,
Nevada". Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
https://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/ymdeiscomments.htm
Whose land is being targeted for high-level nuclear waste dumps? At this time, Western Shoshone Indian land
in Nevada, and Skull Valley Goshutes Indian land in Utah. Attempts to dump high-level wastes at the Mescalero
Apache reservation in New Mexico were defeated just a few years ago. There seems to be a clear
pattern of targeting Native American lands for high-level nuclear waste dumping. Violations of
environmental justice against Native Americans don’t stop with potential health damage. There’s also
cultural damage. Yucca Mountain is sacred land to the Western Shoshone and a number of other tribes.
Development of the repository would amount to an extreme case of desecration against their sacred land. In fact, a gathering has been called
for early April, 2000 at Yucca Mountain, a spiritual gathering where traditional Natives Americans such as Western Shoshone spiritual elder
Corbin Harney will gather to discuss the DOE’s plans to dump nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain. These traditional Native Americans have
requested that DOE extend its comment deadline so that their message from that gathering can be included in the preparation of the Final
Environmental Impact Statement. I hope that you will honor their humble request. In response to President Clinton’s Environmental Justice
Order in 1994, DOE committed to an Environmental Justice Strategy in 1995. Five short years later, in this crucial test of its commitment to
Environmental Justice, DOE
is failing to protect our nation’s most vulnerable communities, in violation of its
own stated policies.
We exploit the poor to protect the rich- We give native lands their only way out in
exchange for living in toxic environments.
Scientific American in 2010( Scientific American, May 31 2010, Reservations about
Toxic Waste: Native American Tribes Encouraged to Turn Down Lucrative Hazardous
Disposal Deals, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talk-reservationsabout-toxic-waste/ KG)
And in some cases tribes are actually hosting hazardous waste on their sovereign reservations—which
are not subject to the same environmental and health standards as U.S. land—in order to generate
revenues. Native American advocates argue that siting such waste on or near reservations is an
“environmental justice” problem, given that twice as many Native families live below the poverty line
than other sectors of U.S. society and often have few if any options for generating income. “In the quest
to dispose of nuclear waste, the government and private companies have disregarded and broken
treaties, blurred the definition of Native American sovereignty, and directly engaged in a form of
economic racism akin to bribery,” says Bayley Lopez of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He cites
example after example of the government and private companies taking advantage of the
25
“overwhelming poverty on native reservations by offering them millions of dollars to host nuclear waste
storage sites”. The issue came to a head—and Native advocates hope a turning point—in 2007 when
public pressure forced the Skull Valley band of Utah’s Goshute tribe to forego plans to offer their land,
which is already tucked between a military test site, a chemical weapons depot and a toxic magnesium
production facility, for storing spent nuclear fuel above ground. The facility would have been a key link
in the chain of getting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, the U.S. government’s proposed permanent
storage facility. In February 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced intentions to scale
back efforts to make Yucca Mountain the nation’s sole repository of radioactive nuclear waste and to
look into alternative long-term strategies for dealing with its spent nuclear fuel. The National Congress
of American Indians, in representing the various tribes around the region, no doubt breathed a sigh of
relief. The issue essentially goes much deeper: As long as we continue to make use of nuclear energy—
and many in Congress are looking to expand its role to get away from fossil fuels—the waste and spent
nuclear fuel will keep coming and need to be stored somewhere. Groups like Honor the Earth, founded
by author and activist Winona LaDuke to promote cooperation between Native Americans and
environmentalists, are trying to persuade tribes that availing their land to nuclear power and other toxic
industries isn’t worth the potential long-term damage to the health of their citizens. Honor the Earth
helped convince the Goshutes to turn down a lucrative deal to store waste on their land, and is working
with dozens of other tribes to try to do the same.
Land-based and Yucca mountain nuclear disposal causes environmental racism – that should be
rejected
Kamps 2k – Nuclear Waste Specialist @ Nuclear Information Resource Service (Kevin Kamps,
10/24/2000, “Nuclear Waste + Native Lands = Environmental Racism,” http://www.nirs.org/alerts/1024-2000/1)
Since the advent of the nuclear era, Native peoples have suffered disproportionately more than other
populations from this atomic power and atomic energy technologies. Native peoples and territories have been contaminated
with radiation from uranium mining and milling (such as the Serpent River First Nation on the North Shore of Lake Huron), atomic testing and in
isolated communities like Point Hope, Alaska, have served as guinea pigs for the federal government in its
radiation experiments. Now Native lands serve as potential sites for radioactive waste dumps. Yucca
Mountain: No Place for Nuclear Waste Yucca Mountain, in the heart of the Western Shoshone Nation, is a place of deep
spiritual significance to Shoshone and Pauite peoples. Despite this, the federal government plans to send there 98
percent of the radioactivity generated during the entire Nuclear Age, including the high-level nuclear waste generated at the
U of M's research reactor. The Department of Energy (DOE) has already spent 5 billion dollars towards the project and wants to spend 50 billion more to complete it
before the end of the decade. The government has no right to use Yucca Mountain this way. Newe Sogobia — the land guaranteed the Western Shoshone Nation by
treaty — includes Yucca Mountain. Even the mere study of the site is a violation of the treaty. The
Shoshone people have made their
wishes clear: they want the DOE off their land and their mountain restored to them. Because of U.S. nuclear testing in
Nevada, the Western Shoshone Nation is already the most bombed nation on earth. They suffer from
widespread cancer, leukemia, and other diseases as a result of fallout from more than 1,000 atomic
explosions on their territory. More than 100 grassroots environmental groups, Native and non- Native, organized to gain broad participation in the Yucca
Mountain Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process. But the vast majority of people who might be affected by this
decision still are not aware of the danger. The Yucca Mountain EIS largely sidesteps the issue of transport. 90,000 shipments of
26
high-level waste designated for Yucca Mountain will be passing by the front yards of more than 50
million Americans along highways and train routes in 43 States. Obviously, the transport of this waste poses a huge public
health risk. Even DOE studies anticipate several hundred accidents over the next thirty years, some of
them severe. A single accident releasing radiation into the environment could cost tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars to clean
up, and could kill and injure hundreds of people (according to Dr. Marvin Resnikoff of Radioactive Waste Management Associates, a
graduate of the University of Michigan nuclear science department). In addition to illegal treaty violations and the possibility of a "mobile Chernobyl" while the
waste is on the road, Yucca
Mountain is simply not a safe repository for nuclear waste. According to the DOE study, at least one
storage canister of the more than 10,000 canisters envisioned at Yucca will fail within the next thousand years. After 10,000
years, all the canisters may degrade, according to a report on the DOE proposal in The New York Times. More than 621 earthquakes have
been recorded in the area (at magnitudes of 2.5 on the Richter scale or higher) in the last twenty years alone. An
earthquake at Yucca Mountain could cause groundwater to surge up into the storage area forcing dangerous
amounts of plutonium into the atmosphere and contaminating the water supply. (Given this, it is not surprising that the
nuclear industry has fought against any groundwater radiation standards for the facility — these standards could derail the entire project.) As the federal EIS
process grinds on, the industry is doing all they can to expedite and insure Yucca's opening. Each year for the past six years, legislation has quietly appeared in
Congress in a backroom effort by the industry to change current law and seal a Yucca deal. This year's proposed
changes to the Nuclear Waste
Policy Act pretty much "threw radiation standards out," according to Michael Marriotte of the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) in
Washington, D.C., going so far as to strip the EPA of authority for setting standards. All this, says NIRS, is to "make the Yucca
shoe fit" and insure the production of more nuclear waste. On April 25, 2000, President Clinton did the right thing and vetoed the Nuclear Waste Policy
Amendments Act as he promised. A Senate vote to override the veto on May 2nd failed by a narrow margin. So, for one more year, the Western Shoshone, Yucca
Mountain, and fifty million Americans are safe from the nuclear industry. But what about next year? Join the call for "No
Nuclear Waste on Native
Lands". See below for how to take action. Nuclear Politics and Environmental Injustice Every single proposal to store high level
nuclear waste in North America targets Native territories. Not only do these proposals represent immense
environmental injustices toward Native peoples, but the dumps, if authorized, will enable a dying nuclear industry to get some last
breaths. Nuclear waste is the Achilles heel of the industry. Reactors are filling up with spent radioactive
fuel and there is no safe place to put this deadly waste. Utilities will have to close down their plants if they cannot get a waste site
authorized. The industry sees this as a political problem, not an environmental one. Targeting isolated and economically
disenfranchised Indians is their one solution. Help us close this loophole. Join the movement to stop nuclear waste on Native lands and
create the impetus for our society to move towards wind, solar and other renewable resources.
Nuclear waste dumping is genocide and ethnocide to the Indigenous People – History
proves
IEN in 2002 – Indigenous Environmental Network,”Indigenous Anti-Nuclear Statement: Yucca
Mountain and Private Fuel Storage at Skull Valley”, “The Peoples Summit on High-Level Radioactive
Waste”- MWH
The nuclear industry has waged an undeclared war against our Indigenous peoples and Pacific Islanders
that has poisoned our communities worldwide. For more that 50-years, the legacy of the nuclear chain,
from exploration to the dumping of radioactive waste has been proven, through documentation, to be
genocide and ethnocide and a deadly enemy of Indigenous peoples. The ancestral lands of the
Indigenous peoples in the United States has been used for testing nuclear weapons, experimenting with
biological and chemical warfare agents, incinerating and burying hazardous wastes, and mining uranium.
United States federal law and nuclear policy has not protected Indigenous peoples, and in fact has been
created to allow the nuclear industry to continue operations at the expense of our land, territory, health
and traditional ways of life. This system of genocide and ethnocide policies and practices has brought
27
our people to the brink of extinction. This disproportionate toxic burden – called environmental racism has culminated in the current attempts to dump much of the nations nuclear waste in the homelands of
the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin region of the United States. This action does not provide
homeland security to our Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples have already made countless
sacrifices for this country’s nuclear programs
Colonialism inflicts massive daily suffering that creates powerlessness and destroys
culture.
Russel Lawrence Barsh, Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Lethbridge and
United Nations Representative of the Mikmaq Grand Council and Four Directions Council, University of
Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Winter, 1993, 26 U. Mich. J.L. Ref. 277
If there is a fundamental cause of American Indian isolationism, it is 500 years of abuse. Colonialism and
oppression operate at a personal, psychological, and cultural level, as well as in the realms of political
and economic structures. The children of dysfunctional, abusive parents grow up in a capricious world
of arbitrary punishment, humiliation, and powerlessness. They suffer from insecurity, low self-esteem,
and a loss of trust in others. Colonialism is the abuse of an entire civilization for generations. It creates
a culture of mistrust, defensiveness, and "self-rejection." The effect is greatest on women, who already
are suffering from patriarchal domination in some cultures, and in others, are subjected to patriarchal
domination for the first time by the colonizers. This can produce a politics of resignation, reactiveness,
and continuing dependence on outsiders for leadership. Arguably the worst abuse of indigenous peoples
worldwide has taken place in the United States, which not only pursued an aggressive and intrusive policy of
cultural assimilation for more than a century, but also has preserved a particularly self-confident cultural
arrogance to this day, denying Indians the recognition that they need to begin healing themselves.
The
negative effects of cultural abuse are proportional to the thoroughness with which the colonizer intervenes in
the daily lives of ordinary people. Intense warfare can be less damaging than the captivity and daily
"disciplining" of an entire population, which characterized reservation life at the end of the last century.
Under these conditions, the only avenue of escape permitted is to embrace the habits and values of the
oppressor, leaving people with a cruel choice between being victimized as "inferior" Indians or as
second-class whites. In either case, much more was lost than cultural knowledge. Also lost was confidence
in the possibility of genuine self-determination.
28
Destruction of native livelihoods through nuclear waste violence uniquely causes extinction
Tano 1 – President of the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management (Mervyn L. Tano,
May 15-18 2001, “Indigenous Identities: Oral, Written Expressions and New Technologies,”
http://www.bluecorncomics.com/iiirm.htm)
Long term stewardship activities currently range from record-keeping, surveillance, monitoring, and
maintenance at sites with residual contamination posing hazards of little concern, to possibly maintaining permanent
access restrictions at sites having hazards of greater concern, they are generally described as the activities necessary to maintain either institutional controls or
engineered controls in place at the sites. Institutional
controls are designed to control future land or resource use of a site with
residual contamination by limiting land development or restricting public access to the resources. Institutional controls
include physical systems (e.g., fences or other barriers), governmental controls (e.g., ordinances and building permit requirements), and proprietary controls (e.g.,
deed restrictions and easements). Engineered controls are barriers constructed to prevent contaminant migration or to prevent intrusion to an otherwise restricted
area. Examples of engineered controls include caps and liners and monitoring and containment systems. B. Shortcomings of Institutional and Engineering Controls
Both proprietary
and governmental controls have weaknesses in terms of long term reliability. Where turnover in
land ownership is likely, common law doctrines restricting enforcement by parties who do not own adjoining land can render proprietary controls ineffective;
governmental controls may be preferable in such cases. At the same time, over the long term governmental controls may not be effectively enforced because
political and fiscal constraints may influence a state or local government's exercise of its police power. A draft DOE study states the problem bluntly: "there is little
or no evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of enforcing and maintaining institutional controls.') A study by the National Research Council reaches a similar
conclusion, noting that land use controls "for both legal and physical reasons, are very difficult to enforce." IV. The Role of Indigenous Peoples and Traditional
Knowledge In
the current debates about "long-term stewardship" of waste, not enough attention has been paid
to how institutional memory is maintained in difficult transitions and over long time periods-memory that is
necessary for maintaining the integrity of physical barriers and management systems. Disadvantaged communities in particular need to
conceptualize cultural controls that can endure over thousands of years and reduce dependence on present-day governing
institutions and existing technological capabilities that may not last far into the future. Such controls should be relatively inexpensive, take
advantage of human resources that already exist within the community, and remain embedded in community decision-making processes to assure their long-term
viability. Our research demonstrates that indigenous
individuals, families, and communities have expertise about the
places they live and work in. Stories about ancient abandoned settlements have helped archaeologists locate these sites. At Hanford, in eastern
Washington, similar stories should have helped the DOE avoid unearthing ancient burial and cultural sites had the DOE listened to tribal warnings. Moreover,
Indian tribes and other indigenous peoples can create stories about hazardous places that will help
maintain institutional memory of the hazards found there. Stories-including songs, poems, and histories-are told over and
over again, confirming and preserving local knowledge. Stories can adapt to changes in technology and governments
and still maintain their central message. And stories can be produced and maintained as easily by disadvantaged communities as others. In
fact, storytellers from Indian tribes and other indigenous communities often create stories in reverence of place, describing community origins, memorializing
important events, and re-affirming cultural practices of a place. Such
stories can also transmit information about environmental
contamination that is crucial for safeguarding future generations.
29
Observation 2 – Solvency
The plan solves—multiple layers of protection from leakages—oceans are
comparatively better than land due to dilution
Eschenbach, 5/6/11—B.A. from Sonoma State University (Willis, "A Modest Proposal for Nuclear Waste
Disposal", Watss up With That, wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/06/a-modest-proposal-for-nuclearwaste-disposal/)
For many people the sticking point for nuclear power is, what do we do with the waste? We can “vitrify” the waste, but
what do we do with it after that? We have a pretty good idea what was happening on the bottom of the ocean millions of years ago. This is
because there are places in the ocean where what you might think of as the
local underwater climate never changes. It’s
is a continuous rain of very fine particles from the upper
ocean. And it’s been like that for the last X million years. We know that this has been the case for millions of years because
we can take a core sample of the top layers of the thousands of feet of silt up at the top, and we can see that it has been
undisturbed for that time. The conditions have not changed much year after year for millions of years. Every year a tiny amount
is added to the thickness of the primordial ooze at the ocean floor. Those spots in the mud at the ocean bottom seem
to me to be ideally suited for the storage of nuclear waste. We know these areas are geologically stable
on the multi-million year scale. It also gives us multiple layers of protection both from human
interference, as well as from accidental release. It is isolated from humans for the most obvious of reasons—it is
way down at the bottom of the ocean. It isolates any leak through the use of several redundant mechanisms.
First the nuclear waste is already solidified. So in order for it to escape it would have to leach out of the solid glass. At that
point it finds itself inside a sealed welded stainless steel container. However even the best of steels may develop some
chemical corrosion. At that point it is encased in concrete. Suppose it gets through the concrete. Then it is still contained by
the stainless steel outer container. Again, perhaps the outer container cracks. At that point the leaking radioactivity
finds itself buried under 50 feet of silt and mud. And if somehow it manages to make it to the environment, it
comes out in the best spot, the spot where radioactivity will do the least damage. That spot is the bottom of the ocean. Here’s
why. On land there are a number of scarce elements that are necessary for life. One of them is calcium. We needed for our bones and
our teeth. So the bodies of land animals have developed special mechanisms that gather up these various scarce
elements like calcium and concentrate them so we can use them in our bodies. This makes for trouble. When
radioactive elements enter the environment, our bodies avidly seek them out. We concentrate these
radioactive elements, and they then damage our bodies. The ocean, on the other hand, is a veritable stew of all
kinds of chemical compounds. Take iodine as an example. Radioactive iodine on land is concentrated by our bodies and stored in our
always cold. It’s always dark. There’s not much current. There
thyroid glands. And since there is so little iodine around on land, any radioactive iodine in the environment stands a good chance of being
picked up by some living animal. Thus, it is dangerous. In the ocean, however, iodine is quite common. It’s responsible for the “medicinal” smell
of seaweed. There’s lots and lots of iodine in the ocean. So where
will a spill of radioactive iodine cause more damage?
answer is on land. In the ocean, at the very bottom of the ocean, that radioactive iodine will be
immediately diluted among millions and millions of atoms of iodine which are already there. This has two effects. First, the sea
creatures use iodine as well—but they have no special mechanisms to pick it up and concentrate it because it exists all
around them. Second, because of the large amount of natural iodine in the ocean, the concentration of
radioactive iodine in the ocean is very low compared to natural abundance. So between the animals not concentrating
Obviously, the
the iodine, and the low and well-diluted levels of radioactive iodine within the reservoir of natural iodine, any release is much less dangerous in
the ocean than on land. And for the obvious reasons of dilution
and separation from the larger surface biosphere, a
release is much less dangerous at the bottom of the ocean than at the top.
30
The Plan is Feasible Sub-seabed disposal in the EEZ is the best mechanism to solve this
critical problem
McAllister 13
http://inis.iaea.org/search/searchsinglerecord.aspx?recordsFor=SingleRecord&RN=45045842SubSeabed Repository for Nuclear Waste - a Strategic Alternative – 13102 by McAllister, Keith R.
(Department of the Navy, 15 Turkey Foot Court, Darnestown, MD 20878 (United States)); WM Symposia,
1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9-332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
It was recognized at the outset of nuclear power generation in the 1950's that the waste products would
require isolation away from humans for periods in excess of 10,000 years. After years studying
alternatives, the DOE recommended pursuing the development of a SNF/HLW disposal facility within
Yucca Mountain in the desert of Nevada. That recommendation became law with passage of the
NWPAA, effectively stopping development of other approaches to the waste problem. In the face of
political resistance from the state of Nevada, the 2010 decision to withdraw the license application for
the geologic repository at Yucca Mountain has delayed further the most mature option for safe, longterm disposal of SNF and HLW. It is time to revisit an alternative option, sub-seabed disposal within the
US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which would permanently sequester waste out of the biosphere, and
out of the reach of saboteurs or terrorists. A proposal is made for a full scale pilot project to
demonstrate burying radioactive waste in stable, deep ocean sediments. While much of the scientific
work on pelagic clays has been done to develop a sub-seabed waste sequestration capability, this
proposal introduces technology from non-traditional sources such as riser-less ocean drilling and the
Navy's Sound Surveillance System. The political decisions affecting the issue will come down to site
selection and a thorough understanding of comparative risks. The sub-seabed sequestration of nuclear
waste has the potential to provide a robust solution to a critical problem for this clean and reliable
energy source.
Sub seabed is the most sustainable and technologically feasible solution—other countries will model
US’s nuclear policies—empirics prove
Dillon, 10— B.A. in history from Georgetown University and a Ph.D from Cornell, historian who writes
on science, medicine, and history (Kenneth J., Scientia Press, www.scientiapress.com/nuclearwaste)
So a
shared international solution to the problems of the long-term storage of nuclear waste should represent
a high priority. And investigating sea-based solutions makes eminent sense because they are peculiarly suited to international cooperation. Four sea-based
approaches recommend themselves. Sub-Seabed Disposal in Stable Clay Formations First formally proposed in 1973, the concept of burying nuclear
waste in stable clay formations under the seabed was investigated by international teams of scientists for many years. A
substantial scientific literature details the various modalities, associated risks, and geological conditions.
The large undersea plain some 600 miles north of Hawaii, stable for some 65 million years, received special attention. Researchers found that the clay muds in such
sub-seabed formations had a high capacity for binding radionuclides, so that any leakage would be likely to remain within the clay for millions of years, by which
time radioactive emissions would decline to natural background levels. However, in 1986 the U.S.
Department of Energy cut off funding for research
on sub-seabed and other nuclear waste disposal options in favor of pursuing the Yucca Mountain one. Even though
Congress had established an Office of Subseabed Disposal Research within the Department of Energy, it soon changed its mind, and the Office spent
31
allocated funds on other projects. From the outset, environmentalists voiced hostility to the concept of sub-seabed disposal, though it is clear
that some failed to make the elementary distinction between casual dumping and the planned burial of nuclear waste in secure containers either in deep boreholes
under the seabed or in a prepared sub- seabed geological repository. Also, it must be noted that some environmentalists oppose all specific proposals for nuclear
waste disposal as a way of putting an end to nuclear technology entirely. Given the determination of quite a few governments around the world to pursue nuclear
technology, however, this stance may prove unrealistic, unhelpful, and ultimately dangerous to the environment itself. At the very least, such environmentalists
should state that they oppose all solutions when objecting to any specific one. The London Dumping Convention prohibits dumping nuclear waste at sea. It is not
clear whether this applies to a sub-seabed geological disposal solution. Moreover, the Convention will be coming up for renewal in the not-too-distant future.
Other countries have tended to follow the U.S. lead thus far, but this situation might change as nuclear
waste disposal becomes an ever more pressing problem and land-based solutions appear inadequate. At a
minimum, funding further research into sub-seabed disposal makes sense. Since the abandonment of research, fundamental
changes have occurred. The danger of terrorists or others gaining access to nuclear waste and using it in radiological weapons looms far larger now than in the
1980s. New technology for containing storage reduces the threat of early leakage. And bottom-crawling submarines are now available that can effectively insert
canisters of waste deep into the sub-seabed. Restarting investigation into sub-seabed disposal in stable clay formations is a commonsensical way to develop a
fallback alternative to geological disposal on land. The possibility
of creating an international consortium that would ensure that all
high-level nuclear waste from every country in the world would be buried in a single sub-seabed storage area
seems promising.
Only the plan sends an international signal – this solidifies regulatory control and
complies with status quo statutes
McAllister 13, 2/28/13—works at the department of Navy, Assistant Program Manager at PEO LMW,
LCS Mission Modules Program Office (Keith R., “Sub-Seabed Repository for Nuclear Waste - a Strategic
Alternative – 13102”, Department of the Navy, email chenemily817@gmail.com,
http://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:45045842)
In 1996, an update to the Convention, known as the
London Protocol, banned all dumping with a list of exceptions for dredged
material; sewage sludge; fish wastes; vessels and platforms; inert organic geological material; organic material of natural origin; bulky items primarily comprised of
iron, steel, and concrete; and carbon dioxide for sequestration [17]. The Protocol
took the added step of clarifying that sub-seabed
disposal of HLW was considered to be “dumping” [16]. The view at the time was that nuclear waste was the source country’s problem,
and not to be transferred to a common area. As of this writing, the 1996 London Protocol has not been ratified by the US. The
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 10 December 1982 is another treaty pending ratification by the US which includes provisions to limit
ocean dumping. Between
the London Protocol of 1996 and the UNCLOS, both unratified by the US at this
time, the window of international law under which sub-seabed disposal can be implemented is closing . WM2013 Conference,
February 24 – 28, 2013, Phoenix, Arizona, USA 9 WAY AHEAD – PILOT PROJECT PROPOSAL The way ahead is to restart and accelerate
the research for a sub-seabed waste disposal capability as an alternative or complement to Yucca Mountain
or the status quo. To that end, a full scale pilot project is proposed which will develop and implement a prototype subseabed disposal area within the US EEZ as a way to demonstrate the process, work out process details
and procedures, instrument a subsea test site, and collect data on a small HLW disposal installation – which would be fully
recoverable within the timeframe of the pilot program. With a coordinated inter-agency approach, such a pilot project could be implemented in a few years and
give the US a credible alternative to mined geological repositories. An
international solution will require international legislation
for the London Convention and Protocol and the UNCLOS. Such support will be much easier to obtain
with full scale pilot data in hand and a viable proposal to safely implement waste sequestration . The
existing UNCLOS should permit such an experiment . From UNCLOS Part 1, Article 1, Part 1 (5) (b) (ii) “Dumping does not
include placement of matter for a purpose other than the mere disposal thereof, provided that such
placement is not contrary to the aims of this Convention.” [18]. This provision implies that placement of waste
in the sub-seabed for an experimental pilot project would be permissible under the UNCLOS. In the interim, the US should
defer ratification of the 1996 London Protocol, as the US is complying with the spirit of the agreement already. Its ratification would remove sub-seabed disposal as
32
an option until 2019. Eventually for sub-seabed waste disposal to work in the long term,
the London Protocol will need to be amended to
reclassify managed sub-seabed disposal as a recognized exception.
Sub-seabed is analogous with geological disposal and thus legal.
Alexander & McKinley 07
Deep Geological Disposal of Radioactive Waste, 2007, page 58 ebook
edited by W. R. Alexander, Linda McKinley
An exception to this seems to be sub-seabed formations which are accessed from land. Although the
legal situation here is certainly ambiguous, the existence of such repositories indicates that there are de
facto, acceptable, although the recent EU “COMPASS” study (Dutton et al, 2004) is rather disingenuous
in this regard. – distinguishing only “on-shore disposal” and “off-shore disposal in deep-sea sediments.”
–thus avoiding any discussion of costal disposal options.
Basically, a costal sub-seabed repository could be developed in a completely analogous way to an
equivalent facility on land and hence will implicitly be included within the category of geological
disposal. On the short term, such an option may have distinct advantages (as mentioned above) but,
given the long timescales of interest, the effect of sea-level change on such costal facilities neds to be
considered very carefully. Advantages in ease of making a safety case over shorter timescales may be
well compensated by much greater complexity at later times. Operationally, the safety concerns
associated with massive construction projects below the sea also need to be carefully considered, but
the existence of sub-seabed mines shows that this is feasible.
33
Inherency Extensions
34
35
The United States does not have a land based solution to the nuclear waste issue.
Merchant 9 – contributer @ TreeHugger Politics, Slate, Paste, Salon, GOOD, and Huff Post (Brian
Merchant, 7/23/9, “Securing Long Term Nuclear Waste Storage “Not an Urgent Problem,”
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/securing-long-term-nuclear-waste-storage-notan-urgent-problem.html) As you may know, the
US has struggled for decades to find an acceptable way to store nuclear waste long-term-vast majority of it languishes onsite at nuclear power plants across the country. The notorious, and faulty, frontrunner for a permanent storage facility, Yucca Mountain, was definitively scrapped by Obama earlier this year. But not to worry--the head
of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just announced that securing a permanent storage site for
radioactive spent nuclear fuel "is not an urgent problem." How reassuring. From Bloomberg: Gregory Jaczko, who took over as
right now, the
chairman of the agency in May, said in an interview that the material can continue to be stored safely for the time being at nuclear power
plants. "Certainly,
in the short term it's not an urgent problem," Jaczko, 38, said. But certainly, in the long term, it will
become one . At the moment, there are some 120 sites storing radioactive waste in 39 states, and that number is growing. There are 104
operating commercial reactors in the U.S., and 17 applications have been submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build 26 more
reactors. The commission oversees operations at existing reactors, as well as licensing new reactors and regulating waste facilities. That
may
not mean it's "urgent" that the US start seriously looking at a long term storage facility. But it at least
emphasizes the fact that some sort of plan should be underway. So what's the plan, at this point? Essentially,
to put off making a plan . "Probably 100 years" is a short time frame for storing fuel, Jaczko said. "Changes aren't likely to
happen significantly in that period of time with the fuel." Current rules took into account the fact that Yucca Mountain was supposed to
be ready by 2025 to start accepting waste--now, a motion is being pursued to simply extend the amount of time waste can be kept onsite to 5060 years, or more. The concern here is not that onsite nuclear waste storage cites are bubbling over, poised to wreak havoc on the environment
and human health. It's that the
issue will only get more complicated as more plants open up and start storing
waste while others keep waste onsite long after their doors are closed. It could become exceedingly difficult to manage
hundreds of storage sites with differently aged facilities and different storage capacities. I for one do not sit easily with the knowledge
that there will be 120+ sites storing (an ever-growing amount of) radioactive waste without at least the fledgling of a plan on what do with it all
when dozens of sites start reaching maximum storage capacity.
Is a little foresight too much to ask for,
here?
Proper storage Key to Nuclear power—despite recent leaks, existing plants can store
for 60 years—a huge risk for environmental contamination.
Bala 14
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law ReviewAmal Bala, Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the
Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically, Could It Also Succeed Legally?, 41 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 455
(2014), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/
ealr/vol41/iss2/6 455 LMC
INTRODUCTION¶ Sustainable living is a popular environmental philosophy that promotes¶ the importance of “living in harmony with nature.”1
This concept sometimes¶ appears as a trendy marketing device to sell eco-friendly products ranging¶ from electric lawnmowers to “Grow Your
Own Mushrooms” kits, but the underlying¶ idea of preserving Earth’s environment remains important.2 Unfortunately, nuclear energy policy in
the United States threatens this ideal.3 Nuclear¶
power plays a significant role in supplying electricity to homes and
businesses¶ across the nation.4 America’s nuclear power industry has become unsustainable,¶ however,
because the United States continues to create huge amounts of¶ high-level radioactive waste with no
clear plan for long-term storage or disposal.¶ 5 Without proper storage or disposal, nuclear waste can
36
contaminate the¶ environment and threaten human health for extremely lengthy periods of time.6¶
Leaks discovered in 2013 at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington¶ state illustrate this
problem.7 Officials found that six underground tanks¶ were leaking nuclear waste and threatening to
contaminate soil and groundwater¶ beneath the site, which was established in 1943 as part of the U.S. government’s¶
Manhattan Project.8 The leaks were discovered at a time when federal¶ budget cuts threatened to delay cleanup efforts.9 The government
planned a¶ multi-billion dollar cleanup that would make the waste suitable for burial¶ elsewhere, but the plan was announced as being years
from implementation.10¶ The EPA estimated that disposal from weapons production at the 586-squaremile¶ site contributed to 130 million
cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris.¶ 11 About 475 billion gallons of contaminated water have entered the soil.12¶ The
environmental damage from the Hanford site illustrates a lack of¶ foresight.13 The United States has
ignored the consequences of unrestrained¶ nuclear activity in a rush to develop atomic weapons and
generate nuclear¶ power for electricity.14 The Obama Administration recently halted construction¶ of a
national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, because of¶ local political opposition.15
After this failure, President Obama’s blue-ribbon¶ panel on nuclear disposal still advocated “one or more
geologic disposal facilities.”¶ 16 Perhaps to buy more time, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared¶ in 2012 that
decommissioned nuclear plants could store nuclear waste¶ for at least sixty years after the licensed life
of a plant, which is twice the¶ length of the previous rule.17 Despite the difficulties that America has encountered¶ with
land-based storage, alternative disposal options are potentially¶ available.18 One such option would involve burying
nuclear waste deep under¶ the ocean floor, but this option has not received serious attention lately despite¶ its
potentially attractive benefits.19
37
No storage space left for spent fuel
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
On-site spent fuel storage is nearing capacity and has exceeded pool capacity at some reactor sites, 37
making the need for a permanent repository or other alternative imminent. The GAO published a report in August 2012,
which examined the amount of spent fuel currently stored onsite and the amount expected to accumulate before it can be transported from
nuclear reactor sites to a permanent storage site. 38 The
GAO discovered that about 74 percent of spent nuclear fuel is
stored in pools of water while the remaining 26 percent is stored in dry storage casks. 39 These storage facilities
span 33 states and account for nearly 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel. 40 The GAO determined that the amount of spent fuel stored onsite
would increase annually by 2,000 metric tons. 41 Because a permanent disposal facility may take between 15 and 40 years to construct, the
GAO estimated that the current amount of spent fuel could increase to 140,000 metric tons before it
could be transported to an off-site repository. 42 This growing dilemma illustrates the importance of
developing an alternative storage option to on-site storage as soon as possible.
38
Nuclear Power inevitable
Nuclear Power inevitable and key to US Energy Consumption
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
Nuclear power plays a vital role in America’s energy sector because it generates a substantial amount of
electricity each year. Currently, 104 nuclear reactors are operating 24 hours a day in 31 states. 11 Each
year the reactors produce about 20 percent of all electricity generated in the United States. 12 In Connecticut,
Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, Vermont and Virginia, nuclear energy produces more electricity than any other source. 13
By 2035, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that the demand for electricity will rise by 22
percent in the United States. 14 America must keep nuclear energy in the mix of energy sources to generate
sufficient amounts of electricity to meet the nation’s growing energy needs.
39
Yucca Fails
Yucca mountain is not a suitable waste dump – multiple reasons
Ledwidge in 2012 – Lisa ()”If not Yucca Mountain, then what?”, Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research,http://ieer.org/resource/factsheets/yucca-mountain/ - MWH
Moving waste to Yucca Mountain will not eliminate risks associated with nuclear power plants, it would
only create another waste dump. In the event of a transportation accident, moving waste to Yucca could
create more than one more nuclear site. Furthermore, shipping waste to Yucca Mountain will not
decrease the terrorist threat associated with spent fuel; it may even increase the risk by putting nuclear
waste on the country’s rails and roads.
Yucca is a failed site—the delay to find secure storage increases all costs. SSB could
solve.
Bala 14
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review in 2014
Amal Bala, Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically,
Could It Also Succeed Legally?, 41 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 455 (2014),
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/ealr/vol41/iss2/6 455 LMC
See BLUE RIBBON COMM’N ON AMERICA’S NUCLEAR FUTURE, supra note 5, at vi (“Put simply,¶ this nation’s failure to come to
grips with the nuclear waste issue has already proved damaging and¶ costly and it will be more
damaging and more costly the longer it continues . . . .”).¶ 15 See id. at vi, 22. Local opponents derided the
legislation designating Yucca Mountain as the¶ only candidate for a national nuclear waste site as the
“Screw Nevada” bill. Id. at 22.¶ 16 Id. at vii.¶ 17 See New York v. Nuclear Reg. Comm’n, 681 F.3d 471, 475 (D.C. Cir. 2012).¶ 18 See, e.g.,
Storage and Disposal Options, WORLD NUCLEAR ASS’N, http://goo.gl/6v1UEx (last¶ updated Aug. 2013), available at http://perma.cc/7AK44QQ5.¶ 19 See Steven Nadis, The Sub-Seabed Solution, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, Oct. 1996, at 28, available¶ at
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/10/the-sub-seabed-solution/308434 and http://¶ perma.cc/S2U6-SR9B (describing sub-
seabed disposal as “possibly the best solution yet advanced to¶ the nuclear-waste problem” despite setbacks
from “a series of political blunders”).¶ 20 See infra notes 24–62 and accompanying text.¶ 21 See infra notes 63–134 and accompanying text.¶ 22
See infra notes 135–189 and accompanying text.¶ 458 Environmental Affairs [Vol. 41:455¶ domestic laws if America were to implement such
disposal methods, at least¶ not based on the limited sample of laws discussed in this Note.23¶
Aquifers and groundwater will be contaminated at Yucca Mountain – recent studies
show
Kamps in 2000 – Kevin()”If You’re For Dumping Nuclear Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, You Must
Be for Weakening the Safe Drinking Water Act, Too”, Nuclear Information and Resource Sevice,
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/0400yuccaupdate.htm - MWH
40
Ground water and drinking water are at the very heart of the growing controversy about the proposed
national high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Ground water is the
main pathway by which harmful radiation doses from the leaking dump will reach people downstream.
Rain water will percolate down through Yucca Mountain’s fractured rock to the level of the nuclear
waste repository. This process may take just a few decades, rather than the thousands of years
previously assumed. Once in contact with the wastes, water can rapidly corrode the metallic waste
containers. Radioactive contaminants would then mix with the water, flow down into the aquifer
beneath Yucca Mountain, and eventually be drawn up in well water downstream. Even plutonium, once
thought to be highly insoluble in water, now seems to be highly soluble in water in certain chemical
states (see the January, 2000 issue of Science). This may explain why plutonium from nuclear weapons
test explosions at the Nevada Test Site immediately adjacent to Yucca Mountain has migrated nearly a
mile in just the past few decades, rather than the fraction of an inch that was predicted. Such
discoveries raise grave doubts about the wisdom of attempting to isolate forever deadly nuclear wastes
inside the leaky, watery innards of Yucca Mountain. Why will Yucca Mountain fail to isolate nuclear
waste? Why is it fractured? The answer is simple: there’s a whole lot of shaking going on. The Yucca
Mountain area is as seismically active as the San Francisco Bay area. There have been more than 600
earthquakes registering more than 2.5 on the Richter scale within a 50-mile radius of the site just within
the past 25 years. A major 5.6 jolt epicentered just 10 miles from Yucca Mountain knocked windows out
of a DOE field office studying the proposed repository in 1992. In 1998 and 1999, there have been a
whole spate of tremblers, at greater frequencies than previously observed. A recent quake derailed a
train on a rail route that would be used to transport high-level nuclear waste casks to Yucca Mountain.
All this shaking has fractured the relatively soft rock (volcanic tuff) that forms this low snaking ridge.
There are 35 active fault lines running through the area, including two that traverse the proposed
repository itself. The entire mass of Yucca Mountain is a sieve with tiny fractures that allow water and
gas to flow right on through. The ground water beneath the proposed repository site is already the sole
source for drinking water, agricultural irrigation, and watering livestock in communities downstream.
Just 12 miles from Yucca Mountain, Amargosa Valley boasts a 5,000 head dairy herd, alfalfa farmers,
pistachio farmers, specialty crop growers, and 1,300 residents. Yucca Mountain’s ground water
eventually bubbles forth as springs in Death Valley National Park, sustaining unique, fragile, and
threatened species and ecosystems, for which reason the U.S. National Park Service has spoken out
against the proposed repository. The question is not if Yucca Mountain will leak, but how soon. Given
high-level nuclear waste’s hundreds of thousands of years of persistent deadliness, massive ground
water contamination at Yucca Mountain is inevitable over time.
Yucca Won’t Contain Waste-nuclear waste containers will break
Kamps in 2000
(Kevin, Nuclear Waste Specialist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service) Comments on the
Department of Energy’s "Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County,
Nevada". Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
https://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/ymdeiscomments.htm
41
DOE’s own data shows that the Yucca Mountain site will fail to contain nuclear waste – radioactive gases
will be released and radioactive waste will be washed into the ground water a short time after the first
containers fail. Containers do fail – about 70 dry storage casks are in use at reactors, and there have already been
numerous failures and defects in just the first decade of use – not in the many thousands of years that
the DEIS so confidently predicts the Yucca Mountain emplacement casks will reliably contain the waste.
Repository casks will be made of different material, but the manufacturing will be subject to the same
problems, and the casks will be licensed by the same all-too-imperfect Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There will be more than 10
thousand repository casks, and so likely hundreds of early cask failures. The failures with dry storage casks thus far have included faulty welds in
Ventilated Storage Cask-24’s at Palisades and Arkansas One nuclear power plants, resulting in loss of the inert helium environment and thus yet
unknown amounts of deterioration to the fuel rods inside, which could lead to future fuel handling problems. A TN-40 cask at Surry nuclear
plant also leaked helium, as well as developed cracks in its outer concrete shield, with increased potential for radiation escape. Dry storage
casks at Point Beach, Palisades, and Trojan nuclear plants have suffered inadvertent chemical reactions between zinc inner anti-corrosion liners
and acidic spent fuel pool water, generating hydrogen gas which led to an explosion that dislodged a three ton cask lid. Vectra NuHoms casks
have suffered failure of Quality Assurance/Quality Control of the concrete aggregate, resulting in casks with too-thin walls at Davis-Besse
nuclear plant. Such repeated inadvertent chemical reactions, premature aging, degradation, and deterioration in irradiated nuclear fuel storage
casks – with young casks less than a decade old -- seriously challenges DOE’s very optimistic assumptions about Yucca Mountain emplacement
cask performance out to thousands of years into the future. The DEIS must address potential and inevitable cask failure within the repository. In
the meantime,
the Yucca Mountain site violates a disqualifying condition for nuclear waste repositories –
which requires that water move very slowly in the ground. DOE’s own data shows that water travels
very quickly through the rock at Yucca Mountain. Rather than disqualify the Yucca Mountain site from further consideration
for the national repository as its own Site Selection Guidelines call for, DOE has repeatedly changed the rules of the game. Over 200 local,
state, national and international environmental / public interest organizations petitioned the DOE to
disqualify the site under existing repository Site Suitability Guidelines, based on the demonstrated fast flow of young rainwater (less than
50 years old) deep down into Yucca Mountain to repository depth (the finding of high levels of Cl-36, the significance of which is obscured in
this DEIS). DOE denied the petition to disqualify, not because they could prove the 200 groups were wrong, but because DOE
wanted to study the site more in order to try to prove us wrong. DOE is in the process of attempting to change the Site Selection Guidelines,
even while they are taking public comments on this DEIS that should be based on them. Since
the Yucca Mountain site is not fit
to isolate nuclear waste, DOE has come to rely on engineered barriers for containment. This contradicts the
legislative mandate for the program of geologic isolation. If DOE is going to rely on engineered structures, the whole process must be started
over to examine appropriate siting and design for engineered isolation. Instead of holding public hearings and taking public comment on Yucca
Mountain, DOE should be holding public meetings on how to start over on a high-level nuclear waste program.
Yucca leaks cancerous-contaminated water has serious health effects
Kamps in 2000
(Kevin, Nuclear Waste Specialist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service) Comments on the
Department of Energy’s "Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County,
Nevada". Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
https://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/ymdeiscomments.htm
One would be hard pressed to find in the DEIS many citations that refer to the dangers of irradiated fuel rods and high-level nuclear waste.
Where is it described in there that just a few minutes exposure to fuel rods that have cooled down for
years is still enough to cause a lethal exposure? Where is it mentioned that a lethal exposure to fuel
rods just coming out of a reactor core after three years irradiation could occur in less than a minute?
Where are the particular hazards of different radioactive poisons – alpha particles, beta particles,
gamma rays, neutrons – described in simple enough terms that ordinary citizens can understand? When I
was in Las Vegas for the public hearing on January 10th, I visited the Yucca Mountain Project information center. I spent
a few hours reading all the information displays in the whole place. There too I was hard pressed to find
ANY information on radioactivity’s harmfulness to human health. Only in one place was it mentioned
42
that radiation can cause "changes" in human tissue. Only in one place was it mentioned that high-level wastes and "spent"
fuel remains radioactive for a long time. The information center made high level wastes seem so safe, most visitors who have no more
information must be left wondering what all the fuss is about? This DEIS retains that same "conspiracy of silence" about the health dangers of
radioactivity that I encountered in the Yucca Mountain Project information center. But really, it’s healthier for all of us to openly discuss that
800 pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the room. As mentioned above, Yucca Mountain will
leak radioactive contaminants
into the ground water over time. Persons living downstream will ingest this contaminated water – they
will drink it. They will water their crops with it. They will feed those crops to their cows, who will
concentrate the radioactivity in their milk. The subsistence farmers will ingest the radioactivity by eating
their crops, or drinking that milk. Watering crops with radioactively contaminated water will deposit
radioactivity on the soil. This will "shine" radiation directly onto the people. Contaminated soil will blow
up into the air as dust particles, which the people will inhale; they can also inhale radioactive gases
escaping directly from within Yucca Mountain. These kinds of exposures describe exactly what is happening in the Chernobyl
region right now – fission products entering people’s bodies through the food chain. Through all of these pathways and more, residents living
downstream of the repository will take in radiation from Yucca Mountain. This will begin not long after the casks begin to fail. It will continue
for thousands of years into the future. Peak doses will be orders of magnitude above levels that anyone would call acceptable. Establishing the
repository at Yucca
Mountain will condemn future generations to very harmful doses of radioactivity. The
DEIS only addresses latent cancer fatalities. What about the many other harms that radiation causes?
Birth defects, genetic damage, non-fatal cancers, immune system depression, visual impairment, mental
retardation, spina bifida – these maladies and many others have been associated with exposure to
ionizing radiation. Why are such impacts not talked about in this DEIS? Because he/she would be the
most vulnerable human, the fetus in the womb of a woman subsistence farmer should be defined as the
maximally exposed individual downstream from Yucca Mountain. Not only folks living downstream from Yucca
Mountain would be exposed. So would folks living along the transport routes. What if a pregnant woman got stuck in a traffic jam on the
Indiana toll road or on the south side of Chicago right next to a light weight truck cask? At 10 mrem/hour, stuck in a three hour Chicago jam, she
would receive 30 mrem dose. That’s not good for her fetus. What kind of psychological trauma would this mother-to-be suffer, seeing the
radiation warning symbol next to her, having no real way to get away from it, fearing that it could be harming her unborn child?
43
Yucca extremely dangerous-seismic activity proves
Kamps in 2000
(Kevin, Nuclear Waste Specialist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service) Comments on the
Department of Energy’s "Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County,
Nevada". Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
https://www.nirs.org/radwaste/yucca/ymdeiscomments.htm
Why will Yucca Mountain fail to isolate nuclear waste? The answer is very simple. Yucca Mountain is as
seismically active as San Francisco Bay. Indeed, Nevada is the third most earthquake prone State in the Union after Alaska and
California. Riddled with dozens of fault lines, there’s a whole lot of shaking going on at Yucca Mountain.
Well over 600 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 2.5 on the Richter scale have struck within 50
miles of the proposed repository site in the past 25 years alone. A 5.6 jolt, centered less than 10 short miles from Yucca
Mountain, did serious damage to the DOE field office in June, 1992. In the past few years, the tremors seem to have increased in frequency.
Just last fall, a quake derailed a train on a proposed repository transport route. What does this mean for the proposed Yucca Mountain
repository. Researcher Jerry Szymanski has concluded that the level of the water table has risen dramatically – perhaps over 100 meters higher
than the current level – in the past. Other researchers, Davies and Archambeau, predict that a small earthquake at Yucca Mountain
could raise the water table 150 meters, while a
severe earthquake could raise the level nearly 250 meters – high
enough the flood the repository. Such a catastrophe would lead to early breaching of waste casks and a
massive release of radioactivity into the groundwater below. The DEIS admits that such a scenario is
possible, but leaves it at that, not addressing the potential environmental impacts. All this shaking has
fractured the relatively soft rock (volcanic tuff) that forms this low snaking ridge. The entire mass of
Yucca Mountain is a sieve with tiny fractures that allow water and gas to flow in and out, which is not
exactly ideal for isolating deadly nuclear wastes. The Western Shoshone Nation, which by the way has
the rightful claim to Yucca Mountain by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley which the U.S. government
signed, has a different name for the site. It translates as "Serpent Swimming Westward." Indeed, global
positioning satellite studies, published in Science magazine in 1998, have confirmed that the crust at Yucca Mountain is expanding westward,
and at a rate an order of magnitude greater than previously believed. (Another recent finding, published in Scientific American in the last
month or two, is that plutonium is much more soluble in water than previously believed, which may account for its unexplained mobility in the
soil of the Nevada Test Site. This finding challenges the very concept of long-term geologic isolation of plutonium. This issue should be
addressed in the EIS, for it holds great import for the ability of Yucca Mountain to contain plutonium.) This observation is consistent with the
presence of a magma pocket beneath Yucca Mountain. Indeed, standing atop Yucca Mountain, one can see a line of lava cones extending
westward. The youngest cone is closest to Yucca Mountain. This too is
striking evidence of the presence of a magma
pocket beneath Yucca Mountain – like the formation of the Hawaiian Islands, these lava cones are like the squirts from a gigantic
subterranean pastry bag. Perhaps the biggest danger from the presence of lava beneath Yucca Mountain is the possibility that it
could drive hot groundwater up into the repository, flooding the waste casks. Indeed, recent analyses of
gas trapped in crystals that are abundant inside Yucca Mountain shows that these crystals were formed
by HOT water welling up into the mountain from below. The question scientists are currently examining is how recently
this took place. Hot water flooding the repository could quickly deteriorate the casks, and could even lead to a steam or chemical explosion or
nuclear criticality event. In any case, the radiation release would be catastrophic. If
only we could listen to the ancient wisdom
of the Western Shoshone, who knew long ago that Yucca Mountain was swimming westward, we might
be able to avert a major environmental catastrophe of burying nuclear waste where it will almost
certainly leak into the biosphere. It is our generation’s job to prevent such a catastrophe, not cause one!
44
Disproportionally targets disenfranchised communities
Kamps 01
Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste specialist, Radioactive Racism: The History of Targeting Native American
Communities with High-Level Atomic Waste Dumps, NIRS,
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/scullvalley/historynativecommunitiesnuclearwaste06142005.pdf
Low-income and minority communities are disproportionately targeted with facilities and wastes that
have significant and adverse human health and environmental effects.1 This places the burdens of
society on those who are most vulnerable. These communities are at a tremendous economic and
political disadvantage over the decision-making process that is dominated by large, wealthy
corporations and/or government agencies. Ironically, low income and People of Color communities targeted with hazardous
facilities often benefit the least from whatever societal “good” is purported to justify the generation of the hazardous substances in the first
place.2
According to the 1990 U.S. Census (the very time period when the U.S. nuclear establishment intensified and accelerated its targeting of Native
American communities with high-level radioactive waste dumps, as shown below), over 31% of Native Americans living on reservations had
incomes below the federal poverty line.3 After
centuries of oppression and domination, stripped of their lands,
resources, and traditional governments, these communities lack political power, and desperately need
economic development. The “tribal sovereignty” of Native Americans, which makes their lands exempt
from state law and many environmental regulations, only increases their attractiveness as targets for
facilities unwanted elsewhere. Native Americans have already disproportionately borne the brunt of the
impacts from the nuclear fuel chain over the past 60 years.4 In the case of radioactive waste storage and disposal, the
nuclear power establishment in industry and government is simply taking advantage of these vulnerable communities, attempting to hide from
environmental regulation and widespread public opposition behind the shield of tribal sovereignty.
Yucca makes leaks inevitable – volcanic eruptions
Onion 5/17 – staff writer for ABC News (Amanda Onion, 5/17/14, “Nuclear Waste: Do we Know what to
Do With It?” http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=98555&page=1&singlePage=true)
Still, scientists and citizens — especially those based in Nevada — argue the mountain location is not safe enough.
Yucca Worries: Water, Volcanoes, Shakes Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a non-profit public
advocacy group opposed to the Yucca plan, argues the
ground around the Yucca site is too active. Nevada ranks third
in the country for seismic activity and M.I.T.'s Macfarlane points out there are three volcanic cones located within 10
miles of Yucca Mountain. She says if one should erupt (an event that geologists have estimated is unlikely), "it would spew
nuclear material all over the place." Water is another big worry. Nevada geologist Steve Frishman and others have found that
water seeps through the mountain much faster than researchers originally thought. If water can reach the cask-contained waste, Treichel
argues, then it can also carry the radiation to groundwater supplies. Finally, some scientists have questioned the durability of the material that
would contain the nuclear waste. According to the plan as it's now written, the canisters would be built from a nickel alloy. Although studies
show the material to be strong, there are no long-term studies on its performance. "In Sweden they use a copper canister — and we have very
long-term data on copper's durability," says Ewing. "This material they want to use appears to be strong, but we have no way of knowing if it
will break down, say, 500 years from now." In fact, Ewing has questioned
the whole approach that DOE scientists have
taken in assessing the safety of the Yucca site. He argues that since so much of the evaluation has been based on
estimations, an accurate conclusion about whether the mountain location would be safe is impossible. It
would be better, he says, to locate other possible sites and then compare them. "The Yucca site may be adequate," he says, "but it's difficult,
even impossible to say that now with confidence."
45
Impact Extension – Environment
Storage of excess waste creates a high risk of toxic nuclear waste
contamination of air and major aquifers
Trento 12 (Joseph, has spent more than 35 years as an investigative journalist, working
with both print and broadcast outlets and writing extensively. Before joining the National
Security News Service in 1991, Trento worked for CNN‘s Special Assignment Unit, the
Wilmington News Journal, and prominent journalist Jack Anderson. Trento has received six
Pulitzer nominations and is the author of five books, EPA Helpless to Stop Further Pollution
at Major Superfund Site, July 13th, http://www.dcbureau.org/201207137454/nationalsecurity-news-service/epa-helpless-to-stop-further-pollution-at-major-superfund-site-nnsato-resume-plutonium-separation-at-the-savannah-river-sites-h-canyon-for-mox-fuel.html)
The ongoing problems with disposing of highly radioactive waste have been 60 years in
the making. Starting in the 1950s, five reactors designed to produce nuclear weapons grade materials
churned out plutonium at a blistering pace. The fuel was then sent to two huge plants at SRS called
canyons to chemically separate the plutonium from other elements and turn it into pits for nuclear bombs. Everything
the radioactive chemicals and waste touched became contaminated with radioactivity. The
giant F and H Canyons have accumulated a generation’s worth of plutonium particles
in every nook and cranny of these huge and decaying buildings. The F Canyon is in the worst
condition and is a few hundred yards from the new MOX plant under construction. There is also the plumbing – hundreds of
miles of pipes connecting these canyons to two tank farms where scores of carbon steel tanks – each the size of a National
Basketball Association Court – hold the deadly toxic brew from the nuclear separation process. The tanks began to
corrode and rust not long after their installation in the damp South Carolina climate. At least a
dozen of them began leaking into the sandy soil. That deterioration process is hurried by radiation which
damages and breaks down metals and cement. The lesson of SRS and other DOE sites is that the radiation over time will
defeat anything mankind has contrived to contain it. More than a billion dollars of President Obama’s Recovery Act monies
have been spent to clean up SRS, yet it is more dangerous today than it was before the vast amounts were spent. The
“clean-up” undertaken by contractors with DOE oversight is at best a temporary solution to a problem Americans will face for
thousands of years. Instead of actually removing and remediating radioactive elements at the site, vast amounts of grout or
cement are used to bury old reactors and fill the waste tanks. Experts believe that at best the
cement will last about 30 to 50 years, while the radiological power of the waste would
take hundreds and even thousands of years to decay. Because radiation cannot be destroyed – simply
isolated and contained – these monies are being spent for a comparatively very short term for which future generations will
have to contend, much like the SRS workers are dealing with the Cold War legacy waste. More troubling, according to SRS
veteran engineer William Lawless, is that like the Japanese reactors that failed and exploded after
the earthquake in 2011, the tanks at SRS build up explosive hydrogen that present a
constant danger of high level nuclear waste being released in a massive explosion at
one or more of the tanks. The Atlanta Office of the Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to oversee
the clean-up at SRS as a designated Superfund site. But NNSA operates under the Atomic Energy Act that exempts it
from EPA authority to stop it from increasing radioactive pollution at the site. EPA official Rob Pope and his colleagues are
unable to stop NNSA from adding high-level radioactive waste to the leaking tanks at SRS that were supposed to be
emptied, grouted and shuttered. “We have no operational authority because of the way the Atomic Energy
Act is written. The ongoing operations are exempt from EPA oversight,” Pope
said. Saltstone Facility NNSA is not like a conventional chemical or mining company that the EPA could stop from
continuing to pollute at a declared Superfund site. At SRS and the other major federal nuclear sites, the Atomic Energy Act
allows NNSA to operate in any manner it deems appropriate. Its powers exceed the EPA’s in all nuclear matters – including
private nuclear waste dump sites. The only way EPA can assist in the clean-up is if there is an accident or radiation leak and
even then the EPA must defer to DOE. More startling is that even if EPA officials detect or suspect
potential problems at SRS, they have no power to prevent them. For example, if a safety issue
threatened the release of a deadly and powerful carcinogen like plutonium oxide from the H Canyon or MOX plant, EPA
does not have the power to take preventative action. While the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental
Control (DHEC) has serious concerns about the eighteen pollution plumes at SRS and other waste issues, the state agency
also has limited ability to stop ongoing activities that result in current pollution on the federally controlled site. DHEC Federal
46
Facilities Liaison Shelly Wilson said in an email, ”Treatment of high level waste and tank closure remain high focus areas of
DHEC for Savannah River Site due to the risk posed by toxic and radioactive liquid in aging tanks. The South Carolina
Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) has discussed with Department of Energy the possible addition of
relatively small volumes to the high level waste tanks. DHEC respects that this is a DOE decision, ultimately subject to
regulatory milestones for overall waste treatment and tank closure.” Glass Containers The most toxic liquid waste and
sludge from the H Canyon is sent in tiny batches from the Tank Farms to a nearby Defense Waste Processing Facility to
vitrify the plutonium-riddled waste in glass. Even these glass and stainless steel canisters will break down before the
plutonium decays. These canisters were supposed to be shipped to a national repository for long term storage. Because the
Obama administration shuttered Yucca Mountain, the canisters are being storied in shallow cement silos next to the
DWPF. SRS sits on an active earthquake fault. “Earthquakes are not an uncommon
occurrence in South Carolina,” the state’s Department of Natural Resources website says. SRS also sits on
one of the South’s most important aquifers. According to leading geologists, its hot, humid, swampy
location on the Savannah River make it uniquely unsuitable for long term storage of radioactive waste. South Carolina
is subject to tornados, hurricanes and other natural threats that seriously complicate
safety storing nuclear waste in these temporary storage facilities. The DWPF is years behind
schedule in reducing and isolating tank waste. Now the NNSA is proposing to
increase the amount of waste that will need to be processed through the tanks to the
DWPF to the storage canisters. To complicate matters, NNSA is creating more radioactive waste at
the site on a daily basis as it processes radioactive weapons materials coming into
SRS from around the world as part of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation programs . Some of
that material has been run through H Canyon and has produced additional tank waste as the weapons grade material is
blended down into reactor fuel.
Current disposal methods of radioactive waste need leadershipFukushima, British nuclear fuels plant, French nuclear reprocessing plant,
and Soviets already dump waste into the ocean.
Grossman in 2011
Elizabeth (the author of Chasing Molecules, a writer about environmental and science issues for Scientific American), Radioactivity in
the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless, Environment 360,
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/radioactivity_in_the_ocean_diluted_but_far_from_harmless/2391/
With contaminated water from Japan’s
crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to
pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might
affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are
that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain.¶ Over the past half-century,
the world has seen its share of incidents in which radioactive material has been dumped or
discharged into the oceans. A British nuclear fuels plant has repeatedly released
radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, a French nuclear reprocessing plant has
discharged similar waste into the English Channel, and for decades the Soviets
dumped large quantities of radioactive material into the Arctic Ocean, Kara Sea, and
Barents Sea. That radioactive material included reactors from at least 16 Soviet nuclearpowered submarines and icebreakers, and large amounts of liquid and solid nuclear
waste from USSR military bases and weapons plants.¶ Still, the world has never quite seen an event
like the one unfolding now off the coast of eastern Japan, in which thousands of tons of
radioactively contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are pouring
directly into the ocean. And though the vastness of the ocean has the capacity to dilute
nuclear contamination, signs of spreading radioactive material are being found off
Japan, including the discovery of elevated concentrations of radioactive cesium and iodine in small fish several dozen
miles south of Fukushima, and high levels of radioactivity in seawater 25 miles offshore. ¶
47
Leaks cause extinction
Lewis 13 – talk radio host @ Ground Zero (Clyde Lewis, 2/26/13, “Fear of a Nuclear Harvest,”
http://www.groundzeromedia.org/fear-of-a-nuclear-harvest/)//twonily
The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in the U.K., were transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia. Of special significance were those
from the Tora Bora bombing in Afghanistan in 2001 and the “Shock & Awe” bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003. The British government facility that monitored the lethal effects was
taken over 3 years ago by Halliburton, which refused to release air monitoring data, as required by law. It seems that private enterprise doesn’t want you to know just how lethal “depleted
uranium tipped bombs can be.” When we hear of depleted uranium weaponry we don’t stop and think that the word ‘depleted’ is public relations spin. It makes it sound like the nuclear
Nuclear waste remains radioactive for billions of years, contaminating ground,
water and air which causes cancer, birth defects and death although DU is allegedly “safe” for humans, according to Pentagon scientists. Safe even though it is made
to kill people? stupidity never ceases to amaze me. Cancer rates and birth defects have skyrocketed in Iraq. Infertility rates have
also skyrocketed, as have cases of depression and suicide. However, Americans can sit back and say that the so called enemy had it coming. The
material is worn out. It’s not. It’s uranium.
demon that they created is the demon we can control. However the same demon is being unleashed and the deaths can be had with another bit of plausible deniability because it takes years
to realize the effects, and years to forget that the cause was always there beaming deadly radiation, as the numerous protestors and pseudo scientists spout off their nonsense of global
cooling, warming and change as if there is anything we can do about it. Where is the concern for global radiating, and the waste and contamination that is far more expedient than paying out
compensation for carbon credits? When it comes to anyone who has to endure radioactive contamination, should we resolve that we had it coming? That we deserve the radiated death and
nuclear harvest?
The federal government built the Hanford facility at the height of World War II as part of the Manhattan
Project to build the atomic bomb. The remote site produced plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan and continued supporting the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal for years.
Today, it is the most contaminated nuclear site in the country, still surrounded by sagebrush but with Washington’s Tri-Cities of Richland,
Kennewick and Pasco several miles downriver. Several years ago, workers at Hanford completed two of three projects deemed urgent risks to the public and the environment, removing all
weapons-grade plutonium from the site and emptying leaky pools that held spent nuclear fuel just 400 yards from the river. But successes at the site often are overshadowed by delays, budget
overruns and technological challenges. Nowhere have those challenges been more apparent than in Hanford’s central plateau, home to the site’s third most urgent project: emptying the
tanks. Hanford’s tanks hold some 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste enough to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools and many of those tanks are known to have leaked in the
An estimated 1 million gallons of radioactive liquid has already leaked there. Despite evidence that every aspect of
our physical environment is being manipulated and damaged for various war efforts, some Americans cannot accept that there
are more immediate dangers to the environment other than the politically based global warming.
past.
Our very own country and
its various scientists have put us in danger and the biggest stumbling block for most is that a government would not harm others because “they have families too” and that they can empathize with ‘family” and “survival.” Although “they” had families too, the U.S. government and its defense contractors exposed citizens of the United States to huge and deliberate releases of
radioactive iodine from the Hanford Nuclear Site, and the Nevada test Site, where downwinders were affected by fallout, virtually creating mutant citizenry prone to thyroid problems and cancers. Those Cold War “protectors of freedom” released unleashed radiation illnesses upon thousands of down winders, some of whom received up to 350 rads of radiation, during radioactive
bomb tests in Utah and New Mexico. To this day, Dugway Proving Ground in Utah contains some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world and whistleblowers have stated that there are still strange things that go on in the west deserts of Utah. We are told that defense officials perpetrated these tests so that scientists can learn about how to “protect” Americans from nuclear
attack. Now it seems we are under a silent attack because of our gullible support of a political war machine. The federal government spends $2 billion each year on the Hanford cleanup — one-third of its entire budget for nuclear cleanup nationally. The Energy Department has said it expects funding levels to remain the same for the foreseeable future, but a new Energy Department
report released calls for annual budgets of as much as $3.5 billion during some years of the cleanup effort. What is inexplicable and inexcusable is the amount of our nation’s money that has been spent on climate change since that UN Panel, composed mainly of research-money-seeking scientists, invented global warming. We put into a black hole nearly 79 billion dollars that we
spend on global warming research. Meanwhile, the nuclear harvest is guaranteed so that some “progressive lobbyist” can ban plastic bags in supermarkets and jet around the country – all the while warning us of the dangers of bottled water and how it contributes to the carbon footprint. Priorities seem to be misdirected and that is an understatement. If you have ever wondered if
the government wants to let a few die just look at nuclear cleanup budgets compared to global warming budgets and you will walk away realizing that your government is banking on your death by cancer, leukemia and thyroid, kidney and liver failure. All can be diagnosed as all part of your so called lifestyle of over eating, drinking and smoking. Most of the forces involved in making
earth’s weather are beyond man’s ability to control or alter or even prevent from going chaotic. How is man going to eliminate the unpredictable behaviors of volcanoes, sea currents, and the sun itself? The Sun fluctuates the amount of energy and heat it radiates; these cycles have been going on for hundreds of millions of years. Meanwhile, Hanford is leaking and it won’t be
cleaned up until 2052. Clearly, the public should not trust the government-controlled media as it extols the benefits of trying to control the weather by culling people and their carbon footprint. It is obvious that the way they carry out this murder is to pay less money to the lean up of radioactive waste. We were told in 2006 by NASA and other groups that the earth did not stand a
The nuclear harvest is
inevitable as we bump and smash our way through a catastrophic cycle that may include nuclear
disasters and possible bomb detonations.
chance of remaining a stable eco-system within a 4 year window. Now the truth is coming forward. In the seven years we have been mentally beaten and reeducated about global warming and climate change. The Earth continues to deteriorate under the radioactive cloud of uncertainty.
Nuclear waste leaks cause extinction
Ruppert 14 – LAPD officer, investigative journalist, political activist, peak oil awareness advocate
(Michael C. Ruppert, 4/13/14, “The Three Guarantors of Near-Term Extinction,”
http://www.amara.org/en/videos/K3AaltJQ619V/en/692937/?tab=subtitles)
The second of these causes
of death is radiation. By now we understand fully that the totally unresolved and
uncontrolled disaster at Fukushima has, for 33 months, bombarded the entire Northern Hemisphere and
Pacific Ocean with radiation. A lesser realized truth is that there are some sixty nuclear power plants around
the United States that are boiling along long past their operating lines; they're wreckady, they have fires, they
have leaks they have pooling system failures, they flood, there are also many nuclear storage facilities like Hanford and West
Lake, outside of Saint-Louis, which in the case of Hanford are releasing... or West Lake, are in serious danger of releasing enormous quantities
of radiation into the air, water tables and soil. It
takes 40 years, a lot of money, energy and an enormous amount of
fossil fuel to fully decommission a nuclear reactor. Absent industrial civilization, it will never be
possible to safely shut down all 450 operating nuclear reactors and recover or maintain control of perhaps thousands
of nuclear waste facilities around the world. And our obligation is to provide safe and secure storage for all that
radioactive waste for a million years. Mankind has still to build a structure which will last 50 thousand years, let alone a million.
Damned if we do, damned if we don't.
48
49
Seeking justice for this environmental racism is critical to preventing global collapse
Byrant 95 (Bunyan, Professor in the school of Natural Resources and Environment, and an adjunt
professor in the center for Afro-American and African studies at the University of Michigan,
“Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions, p.209-212, MV)
The cooperative relations forged after World War II are now obsolete. New
cooperative relations need to be agreed upon –
cooperative relations that show that pollution prevention and species preservation are inseparably
linked to economic development and survival of planet earth. Economic development is linked to pollution prevention
even though the market fails to include the true cost of pollution in its pricing of products and services; it fails to place a value on the
destruction of plant and animal species. To date, most industrialized nations, the high polluters, have had an incentive to pollute because they
did not incur the cost of producing goods and services in a nonpolluting manner. The world will have to pay for the true cost of production and
to practice prudent stewardship of our natural resources if we are to sustain ourselves on this planet. We cannot expect Third World countries
to participate in debt-for-nature swaps as a means for saving the rainforest or as a means for the reduction of greenhouse gases, while a
considerable amount of such gases come from industrial nations and from fossil fuel consumption.¶ Like disease, population growth is
politically, economically, and structurally determined. Due to inadequate income maintenance programs and social security, families in
developing countries are more apt to have large families not only to ensure the survival of children within the first five years, but to work the
fields and care for the elderly. As development increases, so do education, health, and birth control. In his chapter, Buttel states that ecological
development and substantial debt forgiveness would be more significant in alleviating Third World environmental degradation (or population
problems) than ratification of any UNCED biodiversity or forest conventions. ¶ Because population control programs fail to address the
structural characteristics of poverty, such programs for developing countries have been for the most part dismal failures. Growth and
development along ecological lines have a better chance of controlling population growth in developing countries than the best population
control programs to date. Although population control is important, we often focus a considerable ¶ amount of our attention on population
problems of developing countries. Yet there are more people per square mile in Western Europe than in most developing countries. “During
his/her lifetime an American child causes 35 times the environmental damage of an Indian child and 280 times that of a Haitian child (Boggs,
1993: 1). The addiction to consumerism of highly industrialized countries has to be seen as a major culprit, and thus must be balanced against
the benefits of population control in Third World countries. ¶ Worldwide
environmental protection is only one part of the
complex problems we face today. We cannot ignore world poverty; it is intricately linked to environmental protection.
If this is the case, then how do we deal with world poverty? How do we bring about lasting peace in the world? Clearly we can no longer afford
a South Africa as it was once organized, or ethnic cleansing by Serbian nationalists. These types of conflicts bankrupt us morally and destroy our
connectedness with one another as a world community. Yet, we may be headed on a course where the politically induced famine, poverty, and
chaos of Somalia today will become commonplace and world peace more difficult, particularly if the European Common Market, Japan, and the
United States trade primarily among themselves, leaving Third World countries to fend for themselves. Growing poverty will lead only to more
world disequilibrium to wars and famine – as countries become more aggressive and cross international borders for resources to ward off
widespread hunger and rampant unemployment. To tackle these problems requires a quantum leap in global cooperation and commitment of
the highest magnitude; it requires development of an international tax, levied through the United nations or some other international body, so
that the world community can become more involved in helping to deal with issues of environmental protection, poverty, and peace. ¶ Since
the market system has been bold and flexible enough to meet changing conditions, so too must public
institutions. They must, indeed, be able to respond to the rapid changes that reverberate throughout the world. If they fail to
change, then we will surely meet the fate of the dinosaur. The Soviet Union gave up a system that was unworkable in
exchange for another one. Although it has not been easy, individual countries of the former Soviet Union have the potential of reemerging
looking very different and stronger. Or they could emerge looking very different and weaker. They could become societies that are both socially
and environmentally destructive or they can become societies where people have decent jobs, places to live, educational opportunities for all
citizens, and sustainable social structures that are safe and nurturing. Although North Americans are experiencing economic and social
discomforts, we too will have to change, or we may find ourselves engulfed by political and economic forces beyond our control. In 1994, the
out-sweeping of Democrats from national offices may be symptomatic of deeper and more fundamental problems. If the mean-spirited
behavior that characterized the 1994 election is carried over into the governance of the country, this may only fan the flames of discontent. We
may be embarking upon a long struggle over ideology, culture, and the very heart and soul of the country. But despite all the political turmoil,
we must take risks and try out new ideas – ideas never dreamed of before and ideas we thought were impossible to implement. To implement
these ideas we must overcome institutional inertia in order to enhance intentional change. We need to give up tradition and “business as
usual.” To view the future as a challenge and as an opportunity to make the world a better place, we must be willing to take political and
economic risks. ¶ The question is not growth, but what kind of growth, and where it will take place. For example, we can maintain current levels
of productivity or become even more productive if we farm organically. Because of ideological conflicts, it is hard for us to view the Cuban
experience with an unjaundiced eye; but we ask you to place political differences aside and pay attention to the lyrics of organic farming and
not to the music of Communism. In other words, we must get beyond political differences and ideological conflicts; we must find success stories
50
of healing the planet no matter where they exist – be they in Communist or non-Communist countries, developed or underdeveloped
countries. We must ascertain what lessons can be learned from them, and examine how they would benefit the world community. In most
instances, we will have to chart a new course. Continued use of certain technologies and chemicals that are incompatible with the ecosystem
will take us down the road of no return. We
are already witnessing the catastrophic destruction of our environment
and disproportionate impacts of environmental insults on communities of color and low-income groups.
If such destruction continues, it will undoubtedly deal harmful blows to our social, economic, and
political institutions. ¶ As a nation, we find ourselves in a house divided, where the cleavages between the races are in
fact getting worse. We find ourselves in a house divided where the gap between the rich and the poor has increased.
We find ourselves in a house divided where the gap between the young and the old has widened. During the 1980s, there were few visions of
healing the country. In the 1990s, despite the catastrophic economic and environmental results of the 1980s, and despite the conservative
takeover of both houses of Congress, we must look for glimmers of hope. We must stand by what we think is right and defend our position with
passion. And at times we need to slow down and reflect and do a lot of soul searching in order to redirect ourselves, if need be. We must chart
out a new course of defining who we are as a people, by redefining our relationship with government, with nature, with one another, and
where we want to be as a nation. We need to find a way of expressing this definition of ourselves to one another. Undeniably we are a nation
of different ethnic groups and races, and of multiple interest groups, and if
we cannot live in peace and in harmony with
ourselves and with nature it bodes ominously for future world relations. ¶ Because economic institutions are based
upon the growth paradigm of extracting and processing natural resources, we will surely perish if we use them to foul the global nest. But it
does not have to be this way. Although sound environmental policies can be compatible with good
business practices and quality of life, we may have to jettison the moral argument of environmental
protection in favor of the self-interest argument, thereby demonstrating that the survival of business enterprises is intricately
tied to good stewardship of natural resources and environmental protection. Too often we forget that short-sightedness can propel us down a
narrow path, where we are unable to see the long-term effects of our actions. ¶ The ideas and policies discussed in this book are ways of
getting ourselves back on track. The ideas presented here will hopefully provide substantive material for discourse. These policies are not
carved in stone, nor are they meant to be for every city, suburb, or rural area. Municipalities or rural areas should have flexibility in dealing with
their site-specific problems. Yet we need to extend our concern about local sustainability beyond geopolitical boundaries, because dumping in
Third World countries or in the atmosphere today will surely haunt the world tomorrow. Ideas presented here may irritate some and dismay
others, but we need to make some drastic changes in our lifestyles and institutions in order to foster environmental justice. ¶ Many of the
policy ideas mentioned in this book have been around for some time, but they have not been implemented. The
struggle for
environmental justice emerging from the people of color and low-income communities may provide the
necessary political impulse to make these policies a reality. Environmental justice provides opportunities
for those most affected by environmental degradation and poverty to make policies to save not only
themselves from differential impact of environmental hazards, but to save those responsible for the
lion’s share of the planet’s destruction. This struggle emerging from the environmental experience of
oppressed people brings forth a new consciousness – a new consciousness shaped by immediate demands for certainty and
solution. It is a struggle to make a true connection between humanity and nature. This struggle to resolve environmental
problems may force the nation to alter its priorities; it may force the nation to address issues of
environmental justice and, by doing so, it may ultimately result in a cleaner and healthier environment
for all of us. Although we may never eliminate all toxic materials from the production cycle, we should at least have that as a goal.
Risks increase—more dangerous waste created every day.
Bala 14
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
Amal Bala, Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically,
Could It Also Succeed Legally?, 41 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 455 (2014), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/
ealr/vol41/iss2/6 455 LMC
51
II. DISPOSAL OF NUCLEAR WASTE¶ A. Overview of Nuclear Waste Disposal¶ According to one of many
varying estimates, in 2012 the United States¶ was storing at least 71,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel
(SNF) at nuclear power¶ plants across the nation with a generation rate of at least 2200 tons of SNF
per¶ year.63 SNF usually exists in a solid state and consists of fuel pellets in long¶ metal rods.64
Developing a strategy for storage, reprocessing, and disposal of¶ these used fuel pellets is a national
priority because of the dangers that such¶ high volumes of radioactive waste can pose to humans and
the environment.65¶ Scientists advise that long-term policies for handling SNF are necessary to protect¶
living creatures and ecosystems from the potentially lethal effects of radioactive¶ matter.66¶
Reprocessing is a partial solution that can allow manufacturers of nuclear¶ energy to recover unused
uranium and plutonium from SNF and gain additional¶ energy from the original materials.67
Reprocessing can turn SNF into a liquid¶ state, and research is ongoing to develop processes to solidify
such waste¶ for geologic burial.68 Reprocessing cannot eliminate all nuclear waste, however,¶ so nuclear
power plant operators still require long-term storage or disposal¶ for their remaining SNF.69
Nuclear waste devastates the environment
Hynes 14 – Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in western Massachusetts, retired environmental
engineer and Professor of Environmental Health (Pat Hynes, Summer 2014, “The “Invisible Casualty of
War:” The Environmental Destruction of U.S. Militarism, http://traprock.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/06/Militarism-and-the-Environment.pdf)
Since the United States exploded the first nuclear bomb in New Mexico in 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons have been tested worldwide in multiple
environments: aboveground, underwater, underground, and in outer space. According to some estimates, the equivalent of more than 29,000 Hiroshima bombs
have been tested in the atmosphere, discharging more than 9,000 pounds of plutonium— with a half-life of 24,000 years—into the environment. 9,10 Hundreds of
thousands of military personnel, civilian workers, their families, and people living downwind of test sites have been exposed to radiation at levels sufficient to cause
cancer and other diseases. Compensation programs set up by the U.S. government place many obstacles in the way of claimants, including burden of proof,
maximum limits on compensation and grossly inadequate underfunding, particularly in the case of compensating citizens of the Marshall Islands and Micronesia,
both of which places were environmental sacrifice zones for the U.S. nuclear program.11 Most of the uranium
mined for the U.S. nuclear
program was in or near Navajo tribal lands in New Mexico. More than 1,000 regional mines and mill sites are now abandoned and unsealed sources of soil and
drinking water contamination. Navajo miners worked without protection from exposure to uranium dust and still live
with their families near the contaminated sites. The Navajo and nearby Laguna tribes suffer lung cancer, kidney
disease, and birth defects at higher than average rates.12 Even if all nuclear weapons were dismantled tomorrow, the radioactivity of
waste from mining, manufacturing, and testing will endure for millennia. By 1994, nearly 5,000 contaminated sites at the DOE nuclear weapons
and fuel facilities had been identified for remediation. The now-closed Hanford nuclear weapons facility, which recycled uranium and extracted plutonium for
nuclear weapons, is the largest nuclear waste storage site in the country and may be the world’s largest environmental cleanup site, with a projected budget of
$100 billion U.S. dollars. The
operating plant regularly released radioactive iodine emissions and discharged more than 400
billion gallons of radioactive waste into adjacent soil and the Columbia River, exposing tens of
thousands of people living nearby to some of the largest amounts of radiation in the world. Over the course of its 30year operations, Hanford workers developed a rare blood cancer and other work related diseases at elevated rates. Nearby residents, including the Yakima Nation,
also experienced high rates of cancers, miscarriages and other health problems. The waste on the closed 600 acre site includes nearly five tons of plutonium and
more than 53 million gallons of radioactive plutonium waste stored in underground tanks. According to DOE about 60
of the tanks have leaked
and others may be leaking into soil and groundwater which flows into the Columbia River, a regional
source of salmon, agricultural irrigation, and drinking water supply.14 Nuclear weapons’ waste dwarfs all
other hazardous waste in scale, toxicity, dispersion across the world, and cost. Moreover, it defies technical
solutions for permanent environmental cleanup and environmental safety.15
52
Environmental racism is real- The Government attacks minorities and those who don’t
have another way out.
Bullard in 1993 (MAYBE> I COULDN’T FIND THE DATE)(Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D. Environmental Justice
Resource Center Clark Atlanta University
POVERTY, POLLUTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING HEALTHY AND
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES)
Despite significant improvements in environmental protection over the past several decades, over 1.3
billion individuals worldwide live in unsafe and unhealthy physical environments. Hazardous waste
generation and international movement of hazardous waste and toxic products pose some important
health, environmental, legal, political, and ethical dilemmas. The systematic destruction of indigenous
peoples' land and sacred sites, the poisoning of Native Americans on reservations, Africans in the Niger
Delta, African-Americans in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," Mexicans in the border towns, and Puerto Ricans
on the Island of Vieques all have their roots in economic exploitation, racial oppression, devaluation of
human life and the natural environment, and corporate greed. Unequal interests and unequal power
arrangements have allowed poisons of the rich to be offered as short-term remedies for poverty of the
poor. The last decade has seen numerous developing nations challenge the "unwritten policy" of
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries shipping hazardous wastes
into their borders. Most people of color communities in the United States and poor nations around the
world want jobs and economic development-but not at the expense of public health and the
environment. Why do some communities get dumped on while others escape? Why are environmental
regulations vigorously enforced in some communities and not in other communities? Why are some
workers protected from environmental and health threats while other workers (such as migrant farm
workers) are allowed to be poisoned? How can environmental justice be incorporated into
environmental protection? What institutional changes are needed in order to achieve a just and
sustainable society? What community organizing strategies and public policies are effective tools against
environmental racism? The United States is the dominant economic and military force in the world
today. The American economic engine has generated massive wealth, high standard of living, and
consumerism. This growth machine has also generated waste, pollution, and ecological destruction. The
U.S. has some of the best environmental laws in the world. However, in the real world, all communities
are not created equal. Environmental regulations have not achieved uniform benefits across all
segments of society. Some communities are routinely poisoned while the government looks the other
way. People of color around the world must contend with dirty air and drinking water, and the location
of noxious facilities such as municipal landfills, incinerators, hazardous waste treatment, storage, and
disposal facilities owned by private industry, government, and even the military.[3] These environmental
problems are exacerbated by racism. Environmental racism refers to environmental policy, practice, or
directive that differentially affects or disadvantages (whether intended or unintended) individuals,
groups, or communities based on race or color. Environmental racism is reinforced by government,
legal, economic, political, and military institutions. Environmental racism combines with public policies
and industry practices to provide benefits for the countries in the North while shifting costs to countries
in the South. [4] ¶ Environmental racism is a form of institutionalized discrimination. Institutional
discrimination is defined as "actions or practices carried out by members of dominant (racial or ethnic)
53
groups that have differential and negative impact on members of subordinate (racial and ethnic)
groups." [5] The United States is grounded in white racism. The nation was founded on the principles of
"free land" (stolen from Native Americans and Mexicans), "free labor" (African slaves brought to this
land in chains), and "free men" (only white men with property had the right to vote). From the outset,
racism shaped the economic, political and ecological landscape of this new nation. ¶ Environmental
racism buttressed the exploitation of land, people, and the natural environment. It operates as an intranation power arrangement--especially where ethnic or racial groups form a political and or numerical
minority. For example, blacks in the U.S. form both a political and numerical racial minority. On the
other hand, blacks in South Africa, under apartheid, constituted a political minority and numerical
majority. American and South African apartheid had devastating environmental impacts on blacks. [6]¶
Environmental racism also operates in the international arena between nations and between
transnational corporations. Increased globalization of the world's economy has placed special strains on
the eco-systems in many poor communities and poor nations inhabited largely by people of color and
indigenous peoples. This is especially true for the global resource extraction industry such as oil, timber,
and minerals. [7] Globalization makes it easier for transnational corporations and capital to flee to areas
with the least environmental regulations, best tax incentives, cheapest labor, and highest profit.
54
Impact Extension – Health
Land-based storage results in genetic mutations—results in extinction and disease
spread—Japan’s nuclear crisis proves
Nadesan, 3/11/14—a professor at Arizona State University and the author of Fukushima and the
Privatization of Risk (Majia, "3 years since Fukushima: nuclear power 'road to our extinction' - expert",
The Voice of Russia, voiceofrussia.com/2014_03_10/3-years-since-Fukushima-nuclear-power-road-toour-extinction-expert-3829/)
Three years after the Fukushima catastrophe, Japan’s stricken power plant is still struggling to contain
radioactive water leaks that are making the area uninhabitable, while TEPCO’s effort to clean up what remains of the crippled
nuclear site has turned into a disaster of its own. The Voice of Russia spoke with Majia H. Nadesan, Associate Dean of the New
College at Arizona State University and the author of a blog on Fukushima, who believes humanity might have already “forged
its extinction” with nuclear technology and is now just waiting for it to unfold. Three years ago, a disastrous
tsunami and earthquake killed nearly 20,000 people and settled the nuclear crisis in Japan. Did the region manage to recover from the
catastrophe and what are the current results of its recovery? The situation at the Daiichi site remains unstable. Contaminated water production
is continuing as ground water and the water injected for cooling encounter uncontained nuclear fuel. And TEPCO has admitted that ground
water is indeed encountering uncontained nuclear fuel, and some of that water is ending up in the ocean, some of that water is saturating the
site and some of that water is being captured and stored in tanks, and those tanks are emitting radiation, including X-rays and Beta-radiation.
There are about a thousand tanks that hold approximately 350,000 tons of highly contaminated water and the IAEA is recommending that
some of that water, the less contaminated among it, be put into the ocean. So what we
are having is a situation of catastrophic
contamination that is ongoing for the Pacific ocean and increased water saturation at the site, simultaneously
atmosphere contamination is continuing through emissions and also through the reactions of the contaminated water in the tanks. So we
have a situation of great instability and ongoing significant levels of contamination. What are the other
consequences of Fukushima disaster? What have been done to struggle against them? Is it possible that the region will be safe to live in again?
The thing is that people in Japan are living in contaminated land. For example, The Asahi Shimbun described one resident who is living near 500
tons of stored radioactive waste measuring at least 8,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium and that is the only radionulcide that they
provided the measurements for, there could be uranium and plutonium, other nuclear waste stored there as well. So people
are living
amidst contaminated waste; reservoirs in Japan are contaminated. There was an article also in The Asahi Shimbun, that indicated
that the highest level of contamination measured in one of the contaminated reservoirs was 390,000 becquerels per kilogram of soil at the
bottom of the reservoir, so people
are potentially going to be drinking contaminated water. People are living in
areas that measure up to twenty millisieverts a year and there is even temporary living that is available in more contaminated areas.
And people who are living in areas of twenty millisieverts a year or less are responsible for clean-up, and the clean-up plan doesn't address hot
spots or recontamination and it doesn't help people dispose of the radioactive waste. People are living in highly contaminated areas with
children. There have been some surveys that looked at what the consequences are for children: diabetes rates have increased, thyroid nodules
have increased, thyroid cancer
has increased. And there was one recent survey that was published in The Mainichi that one in four
children in the disaster hit areas need mental care for problematic behavior and that was interesting because the
problematic behavior included things such as dizziness and nausea and symptoms that might be caused by psychological problems but
also could be symptomatic of radiation exposure. So the consequences of this disaster is that people who are living in
highly contaminated areas and the region are not going to be safe again for generations because the
amount of radiation contamination is increasing daily. So it is going to be land of dispossessed people. What prospects does
the region have in its future development? Is there any risk that Fukushima disaster can repeat? The thing that so tragic is that radiation
damage accumulates across time for a variety of reasons. First, because animals and plants and people all
bioaccumulate radionuclides. And so across time people and animals and vegetation will become more
contaminated rather than less contaminated. And the effects of radiation don't just affect one generation,
they affect multiple generations. There is quite a bit of research, done in the Chernobyl region, for example, by Anders Møller and
Timothy Mousseau, who found that the increased background radiation from Chernobyl has significant effects on
55
immunology, mutation and disease frequency across animal species and in fact they found decline in
population and long-term mutation accumulations. Over time, each generation inherits the mutations of
their parents and acquires their own. And then children have even more germline cell mutation and micro
delusions in DNA than their parents. Micro-deletions in DNA are increasingly linked to diseases such as autism
and congenital heart disease. So we can assume that over the long-term the health of the people in the zones
and the animals in the zones – their health also is going to decrease as bioaccumulation, bio-magnification and transgenerational mutations increase. And it is a human tragedy what is occurring there. It can happen anywhere in the world
because of a solar flare that knocks out a transformer, an earthquake, for example, that might affect Diablo Canyon in
California which is sitting on a fault, terrorism - all of these forces could create another Fukushima any place in the
world. Nuclear power is going to be the road to our extinction. We don't know what the trans-generational effects are
going to be, but we know they are going to be detrimental. And as humans acquire more of them, their ability to
successfully reproduce is going to decline. So we might already have forged our extinction and we are just waiting for it to
unfold. We need to make changes very quickly to find ways of dealing successfully with storing nuclear
waste. And we've just discovered in New Mexico of the US, there is a site near Carlsbad, they've just had a salt cave-in collapse and there
is nuclear waste which is now venting into the atmosphere, even though it is being filtered, it is still coming out. That is
not a successful solution. So we have to find solutions that work for nuclear waste and we need to find
alternative energy that will allow us to sustain civilization in the future.
Disruption of reproduction abilities causes extinction
Togawa 99 (Tatsuo, Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering – Tokyo Medical and Dental University,
Technology in Society, August)
Advanced technology provides a comfortable life for many people, but it also produces strong destructive forces that can
cause extinction of the human race if used accidentally or intentionally. As stated in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955, hydrogen
bombs might possibly put an end to the human race.1 Nuclear weapons are not the only risks that arise from modem technologies. In 1962,
Rachel Carson wrote in her book, Silent Spring [2], that the amount of the pesticide parathion used on California farms alone at that time could
provide a lethal dose for five to ten times the whole world's population. Destruction of the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, and chemical
pollution by endocrine destructive chemicals began to appear as the result of advanced technology, and they are now
considered to be potential causes of extinction of the human race unless they are effectively controlled.
Mutations ensure diseases cause extinction
Darling 12 (David, Astronomer, “9 Strange Ways the World Really Might End”, Seattle's Big Blog, 3-18,
http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/2012/03/18/9-strange-ways-the-world-really-mightend/?fb_xd_fragment, Washington State University)
Our body is in constant competition with a dizzying array of viruses, bacteria, and parasites, many of which treat us simply as a source of
food or a vehicle for reproduction. What’s troubling is that these microbes can
mutate and evolve at fantastic speed – the more
so thanks to the burgeoning human population – confronting our bodies with new dangers every year. HIV, Ebola, bird flu, and
antibiotic-resistant “super bugs” are just a few of the pathogenic threats to humanity that have surfaced over the past few decades. Our
soaring numbers, ubiquitous international travel, and the increasing use of chemicals and biological agents without
full knowledge of their consequences, have increased the risk of unstoppable pandemics arising from mutant viruses and
their ilk. Bubonic plague, the Black Death, and the Spanish Flu are vivid examples from history of how microbial agents can decimate
populations. But the consequences aren’t limited to a high body count. When the death toll gets high enough, it can disrupt the very
fabric of society. According to U.S. government studies, if a global pandemic affecting at least half the world’s population were to strike
56
today, health professionals wouldn’t be able to cope with the vast numbers of sick and succumbing people. The result
of so many deaths would have serious implications for the infrastructure, food supply, and security of 21st century man. While an untreatable
pandemic could strike suddenly and potentially bring civilization to its knees in weeks or months, degenerative
diseases might do so over longer periods. The most common degenerative disease is cancer. Every second men and every third women in the
western world will be diagnosed with this disease in their lifetime. Degeneration of our environment through the release of toxins and wastes,
air pollution, and intake of unhealthy foods is making this problem worse. If cancer, or some other form of degenerative disease,
were to
become even more commonplace and strike before reproduction, or become infectious (as seen in the transmitted facial cancer of the
Tasmanian Devil, a carnivorous marsupial in Australia) the very survival of our species could be threatened .
Long-term storage needed-risk of radiation is linear. Longer temp storage is used, the
bigger the risk
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
Even after the spent nuclear fuel is removed from the reactor, it continues to produce radiation, and
some reports contend that the spent fuel necessitates cautious management for thousands of years. 33
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed studies that determined that radiation releases from a storage site could
“harm human health or the environment” 34 and have dangerous consequences.35 Although the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) reassured the federal government that the possibility of a radiation leak is low, the longer the spent nuclear fuel
rests on sites created for temporary storage, the greater the potential for radiation releases. 36 To avoid
the health and environmental risks of storing the spent nuclear fuel on plant sites beyond the intended period, the federal
government must provide a permanent storage facility to receive the waste.
57
Impact Extension – Cancer
Cancer is treatment is something you shouldn’t wish on your worst enemy – cancer
patient describes his story
Hahn in August 9th, 2005
David J. (Cancer patient with Hodgkins Lymphoma), What Does Chemo Do To You?, Chronicles of a Cancer Patient,
http://www.chroniclesofacancerpatient.com/what-does-chemotherapy-feel-like/
EH
Ok, this one might be a little too much information for you. But if there’s somebody out there that will be going through all this, you should
read this. Or maybe you shouldn’t. People ask me on the bad days what chemotherapy is like, and although I consider myself articulate, I have a
really difficult time explaining it. Its difficult to describe the forest from the trees, right? But I figure I’ll try to describe it a bit here. Careful
reading this.¶ Chemotherapy side effects are worse than cancer, that’s for sure. With cancer, most of the time you’d hardly
know it if some doctor didn’t tell you. I mean, I was pretty hard up by the time they found it in me, but sometimes cancer can go all the way to
stage IV and you’d never know it.¶ Chemo, on the other hand, you
can never forget that. Not for a second. There’s no
ignoring chemotherapy. It invades every cell by the end of it. You spend months marinating in a stew of
toxic wastes that are out to kill you. And I don’t think that’s overly-dramatic. You try it sometime and see if I’m not right.¶ Well, I’ll
tell you what I can about chemo. I’ll go day-by-day.¶ I’ll start on Sunday, the day before chemo. Remember when you were a kid and you
dreaded Sunday night because it meant that you had to go to school early the next morning? And maybe you hadn’t done your homework yet,
and basically, your fun was just over? Or maybe its still like that for you, where you get to Sunday night and you start to dread the coming work
week, and what hassles are going to happen this time, etc., etc. Well, its a little like that, but I think I can, without hesitation, claim that my
Mondays are worse than yours.¶ The dread of chemotherapy now starts much earlier than Sunday. At first it did start on Sunday, but then I
realized how bad it was, so I moved the freaking out back a few days to Friday. Then Wednesday. I knew it was bad when the dreading would
start on Friday,
9 days before my chemo treatment – before I’d even recovered from the last one. But now I
dread it all the time. I get no rest from the dread of chemo now, because I know it gets worse every time
and, save a few surprises, I know just what’s going to happen to me.¶ And I suppose I should feel good that I only have 2 more treatments.
That’s what people keep saying, at least, “Hey – only 2 more, right? That’s gotta feel good.” It doesn’t. And people hate that answer. If I’ve
learned anything from the
progressive side-effects of chemotherapy treatments, its that the last treatments
will be the worst. I don’t look forward to them, and knowing that they are coming doesn’t make me feel
any better, even if completing them means its all over.¶ I try to distract myself on Sundays, and thankfully, I think everyone
around me tries to do the same. The only thing you can do is try not to think about it. The doctor gave me anti-anxiety pills to calm down, but I
don’t like taking them. So I just try not to let my mind rest on it.¶ I sleep as late as I can on Mondays. I don’t want to get up any earlier than I
have to, because I know if I have time to think, I will. I take a shower and put together a bag of stuff. I usually bring my computer, my iPod, my
headphones, maybe a book. I usually never use any of the stuff because the Benedryl knocks me out, but I bring it anyway. It makes me feel
better holding onto something.¶ Chemotherapy is about a 4 hour process. They take your blood and start your IV right away. They fill you with
steroids, saline and Benedryl to get your body ready, and they wait for the chemo drugs to be brought up from the pharmacy in the bright
green zip-lock bag they come in.¶ I have a mental reaction to the smell of the alcohol swabs and taste of saline now. They use a lot of alcohol
swabs during the whole process. They wipe down your port with alcohol, they swab the ends of the IV before they insert the vial for your blood,
or the syringes full of chemicals. I can’t smell or taste the chemo itself, so I guess my mind has just decided that the bad stuff must smell like
alcohol and taste like saline. The reality, of course, is that the saline and alcohol are the only things that are good for me in the whole process,
but that doesn’t stop me from wincing whenever I smell or taste them. I know what’s coming when they are around.
Sometimes when
I’m not at chemo I’ll remember the smell of the swabs or the taste of the saline and I’ll jerk my head to
the side and try not to puke. I really freak out sometimes.¶ You don’t really start to feel anything until an
hour after you’ve been given the drugs. First you go to the bathroom and pee red. Maybe that’s too personal to
tell everybody, but I’m telling you anyway. It freaks me out every time. I always forget its going to happen. It’s from the Andreomyacin, which is
a red chemical, and the first drug in the chemo. Some people pee red for days.¶ The heat starts about then. The heat comes from inside me,
from my chest I guess, and radiates into my face. By Tuesday I’m flush red all over, and
my face is puffy and hot. My skin starts to feel
start.
softer than usual, I don’t know why.¶ A heated, sharp indigestion starts about the same time that the hiccups
My nurse thinks the two are related. I think its all the same thing. The hiccups last for two days. They are double hiccups, where your
58
diaphragm pulses twice most times and really shakes your body.¶ The
nausea sets in immediately, despite all the drugs
they give me. It’s a sharp nausea, like someone is stabbing you in the stomach, and trying to pull your
throat out by reaching in through your mouth.¶ But, despite the nausea, and despite the fact that eating
just makes it worse, you are ravishingly hungry. You would eat rice cakes willingly, you are so hungry.
You eat until the nausea takes you over in a big wave, and you lay down and cry and wait for it to pass,
and then you eat again, until the wave of nausea comes again, etc., etc. Its awful.¶ But the effects of chemo
aren’t just in your stomach, chest, or throat, they are all over. Your eyelids droop and the muscles in
your thighs twitch, and your abdomen expands with all the food your body won’t digest (go get some ex-lax
and fiber bro, its going to be a long week…).¶ By Wednesday my legs are usually dog meat, but the hiccups are gone. The heat is still around,
but its second to the sheer exhaustion. I mean, absolute EXHAUSTION. Not like “I’ve had a long week and I haven’t slept much,” or “I just
lifted weights” kind of exhausted. Its much more powerful than that.¶ Last time,
I woke up with three fingers numb on
Thursday. The doc says that’s nerve damage from the Vinblastin. I say that’s some really nasty stuff for pianist. He’ll cut
out the Vinblastin if it happens again this time.¶ I don’t really know when it happens. Not right away. But sometime between Wednesday and
Friday my
mind starts to fall apart. It lasts for 4 or 5 days. I can’t remember people, or conversations, or I’ll
stop sentences halfway because I can’t think of the word. It goes away, though. I think.¶ By Saturday and Sunday I’m
recovering, and I’m usually ok by Monday. Then I have one good week to run around like a mostly normal person, but with more dread, until I
get hit again. The exhaustion
to as my “good” week.
never totally leaves me, and I can’t stand very long, but its not as bad during what I facetiously refer
59
Impact Extension – Renaissance
A credible waste disposal regime is key to revitalize public trust – solves global warming
Moniz 11 – Energy Secretary of the US, American nuclear physicist (Ernest Moniz, Nov/Dec 2011, Council
on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs Magazine, “Why We Still Need Nuclear Power,”
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136544/ernest-moniz/why-we-still-need-nuclear-power)
It would be a mistake , however, to let Fukushima cause governments to abandon nuclear power and its
benefits. Electricity
generation emits more carbon dioxide
in the United States than does transportation or
industry, and nuclear power is the largest source of carbon-free electricity in the country. Nuclear power
generation is also relatively
cheap, costing less than two cents per kilowatt-hour for operations, maintenance, and fuel. Even after the
Fukushima disaster, China, which accounts for about 40 percent of current nuclear power plant construction, and India, Russia, and
South Korea, which together account for another 40 percent, show no signs of backing away from their pushes for
nuclear power. Nuclear
power's track record of providing clean and reliable electricity compares favorably with other
energy sources. Low natural gas prices, mostly the result of newly accessible shale gas, have brightened
the prospects that efficient gas-burning power plants could cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants
relatively quickly by displacing old, inefficient coal plants, but the historical volatility of natural gas prices has made
utility companies wary
of putting all their eggs in that basket. Besides, in
the long run, burning natural gas would still
release too much carbon dioxide. Wind and solar power are becoming increasingly widespread, but their
intermittent and variable supply make them poorly suited for large-scale use in the absence of an affordable way to
store electricity. Hydropower, meanwhile, has
very limited prospects for expansion in the United States because of
power faces a number of challenges in terms of
safety, construction costs, waste management, and weapons proliferation. After Fukushima, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
environmental concerns and the small number of potential sites. Still, nuclear
Commission, an independent federal agency that licenses nuclear reactors, reviewed the industry's regulatory requirements, operating
procedures, emergency response plans, safety design requirements, and spent-fuel management. The NRC will almost certainly implement a
number of the resulting recommendations, and the cost of doing business with nuclear energy in the United States will inevitably go up. Those
plants that are approaching the end of their initial 40-year license period, and that lack certain modern safety features, will face additional
scrutiny in having their licenses extended. At the same time, new reactors under construction in Finland and France have gone billions of dollars
over budget, casting doubt on the affordability of nuclear power plants. Public
concern about radioactive waste is also
hindering nuclear power , and no country yet has a functioning system for disposing
of it. In fact, the U.S.
government is paying billions of dollars in damages to utility companies for failing to meet its obligations to remove spent fuel from reactor
sites. Some observers
are also concerned that the spread of civilian nuclear energy infrastructure could lead
to the proliferation of nuclear weapons -- a problem exemplified by Iran's uranium-enrichment program. If the benefits of nuclear power
are to be realized in the United States, each of these hurdles must be overcome. When it comes to safety, the design requirements for nuclear
reactors must be reexamined in light of up-to-date analyses of plausible accidents. As for cost, the government and the private sector need to
advance new designs that lower the financial risk of constructing nuclear power plants. The
country must also replace its
broken nuclear waste management system with a more adaptive one that safely disposes of waste and stores it for
centuries. Only
then can the public's trust be earned.
Warming is anthropogenic – the most comprehensive data-sets are conclusive
Green 13 – Professor of Chemistry @ Michigan Tech
60
*John Cook – Fellow @ Global Change Institute, produced climate communication resources adopted by
organisations such as NOAA and the U.S. Navy
**Dana Nuccitelli – MA in Physics @ UC-Davis
***Mark Richardson – PhD Candidate in Meteorology, et al.,
(“Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature,”
Environmental Research Letters, 8.2)
An accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public support for climate policy (Ding et al 2011).
Communicating the scientific consensus also increases people's acceptance that climate change (CC) is happening (Lewandowsky et al 2012).
Despite numerous indicators of a consensus, there is wide public perception that climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of
global warming (GW; Leiserowitz et al 2012, Pew 2012). In
the most comprehensive analysis performed to date, we
have extended the analysis of peer-reviewed climate papers in Oreskes (2004). We examined a large sample
of the scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21 year period, in order to determine the level
of scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global
warming, or AGW).¶ Surveys of climate scientists have found strong agreement (97–98%) regarding AGW
amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009, Anderegg et al 2010). Repeated surveys of scientists
found that scientific agreement about AGW steadily increased from 1996 to 2009 (Bray 2010). This is reflected in the
increasingly definitive statements issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al
1996, 2001, Solomon et al 2007).¶ The peer-reviewed scientific literature provides a ground-level assessment of the degree of consensus
among publishing scientists. An analysis of abstracts published from 1993–2003 matching the search 'global climate change' found that none of
928 papers disagreed with the consensus position on AGW (Oreskes 2004). This is consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found a
consensus on AGW forming in the early 1990s (Shwed and Bearman 2010).¶ Despite these independent indicators of a scientific consensus, the
perception of the US public is that the scientific community still disagrees over the fundamental cause of GW. From 1997 to 2007, public
opinion polls have indicated around 60% of the US public believes there is significant disagreement among scientists about whether GW was
happening (Nisbet and Myers 2007). Similarly, 57% of the US public either disagreed or were unaware that scientists agree that the earth is very
likely warming due to human activity (Pew 2012).¶ Through analysis of climate-related papers published from 1991 to 2011, this study
provides the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date in order to quantify and evaluate the level
and evolution of consensus over the last two decades.¶ 2. Methodology¶ This letter was conceived as a 'citizen science' is
not provided. Schulte estimated a higher percentage of endorsements and rejections, possibly because the strict methodology we adopted led
to a greater number of 'No Position' abstracts. Schulte also found a significantly greater number of rejection papers, including 6 explicit
rejections compared to our 0 explicit rejections. See the supplementary information (available at stacks.iop.org/ERL/8/024024/mmedia) for a
tabulated comparison of results. Among 58 self-rated papers, only one (1.7%) rejected AGW in this sample. Over the period of January 2004 to
February 2007, among
'global climate change' papers that state a position on AGW, we found 97%
endorsements.¶ 5. Conclusion¶ The public perception of a scientific consensus on AGW is a necessary element in public support for
climate policy (Ding et al 2011). However, there is a significant gap between public perception and reality, with 57%
of the US public either disagreeing or unaware that scientists overwhelmingly agree that the earth is
warming due to human activity (Pew 2012).¶ Contributing to this 'consensus gap' are campaigns designed to
confuse the public about the level of agreement among climate scientists. In 1991, Western Fuels Association
conducted a $510 000 campaign whose primary goal was to 'reposition global warming as theory (not fact)'. A key strategy involved
constructing the impression of active scientific debate using dissenting scientists as spokesmen (Oreskes 2010). The situation is exacerbated by
media treatment of the climate issue, where the normative practice of providing opposing sides with equal attention has allowed a vocal
minority to have their views amplified (Boykoff and Boykoff 2004). While there are indications that the situation has improved in the UK and
USA prestige press (Boykoff 2007), the UK tabloid press showed no indication of improvement from 2000 to 2006 (Boykoff and Mansfield
2008).¶ The
narrative presented by some dissenters is that the scientific consensus is '...on the point of
collapse' (Oddie 2012) while '...the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year' (Allègre et al 2012). A systematic,
comprehensive review of the literature provides quantitative evidence countering this assertion. The
number of papers rejecting AGW is a miniscule proportion of the published research, with the
percentage slightly decreasing over time. Among papers expressing a position on AGW, an overwhelming
percentage (97.2% based on self-ratings, 97.1% based on abstract ratings) endorses the scientific consensus on AGW.
61
Nuclear power transition solves warming
Moore 6 – co-founder of Greenpeace, chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd, co-chair
of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (Patrick Moore, 4/16/6, “Going Nuclear,”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html)
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's
the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to
protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the
environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can
save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change. Look at it this way: More than 600 coal-fired
electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of
CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, costeffective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for
power. And these days it can do so safely. I say that guardedly, of course, just days after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his country
had enriched uranium. "The nuclear technology is only for the purpose of peace and nothing else," he said. But there is widespread speculation that, even though
the process is ostensibly dedicated to producing electricity, it is in fact a cover for building nuclear weapons. And although I don't want to underestimate the very
real dangers of nuclear technology in the hands of rogue states, we cannot simply ban every technology that is dangerous. That was the all-or-nothing mentality at
the height of the Cold War, when anything nuclear seemed to spell doom for humanity and the environment. In 1979, Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon produced a
frisson of fear with their starring roles in "The China Syndrome," a fictional evocation of nuclear disaster in which a reactor meltdown threatens a city's survival. Less
than two weeks after the blockbuster film opened, a reactor core meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant sent shivers of very real
anguish throughout the country. What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three
Mile Island was in fact a success story: The
concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do -- prevent radiation from escaping into the environment.
And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the
only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology:
There hasn't been a nuclear plant ordered up since then. Today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent
of America's electricity. Eighty percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them (that's not including the nuclear workers). Although I
don't live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp. And I am not alone among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject.
British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock, father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear
energy is the only way to avoid
catastrophic climate change. Stewart Brand, founder of the "Whole Earth Catalog," says the environmental movement must embrace nuclear
energy to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. On occasion, such opinions have been met with excommunication from the anti-nuclear priesthood: The late British
Bishop Hugh Montefiore, founder and director of Friends of the Earth, was forced to resign from the group's board after he wrote a pro-nuclear article in a church
newsletter. There are signs of a new willingness to listen, though, even among the staunchest anti-nuclear campaigners. When I attended the Kyoto climate meeting
in Montreal last December, I spoke to a packed house on the question of a sustainable energy future. I argued that the only way to reduce fossil fuel emissions from
electrical production is through an aggressive program of renewable energy sources (hydroelectric, geothermal heat pumps, wind, etc.) plus nuclear. The
Greenpeace spokesperson was first at the mike for the question period, and I expected a tongue-lashing. Instead, he began by saying he agreed with much of what I
said -- not the nuclear bit, of course, but there was a clear feeling that all
options must be explored. Here's why: Wind and solar power
have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload
plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is
too volatile to risk building big baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the
only viable substitute for coal. It's that simple. That's not to say that there aren't real problems -- as well as various myths -- associated with nuclear
energy. Each concern deserves careful consideration: · Nuclear energy is expensive. It is in fact one of the least expensive energy
sources. In 2004, the average cost of producing nuclear energy in the United States was less than two cents per kilowatt-hour, comparable with coal and
hydroelectric. Advances in technology will bring the cost down further in the future. · Nuclear plants are not safe. Although Three Mile Island was a success story,
the accident at Chernobyl, 20 years ago this month, was not. But Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen. This early model of Soviet reactor had no
containment vessel, was an inherently bad design and its operators literally blew it up. The multi-agency U.N. Chernobyl Forum reported last year that 56 deaths
could be directly attributed to the accident, most of those from radiation or burns suffered while fighting the fire. Tragic as those deaths were, they pale in
comparison to the more than 5,000 coal-mining deaths that occur worldwide every year. No
one has died of a radiation-related accident
in the history of the U.S. civilian nuclear reactor program. (And although hundreds of uranium mine workers did die from radiation
exposure underground in the early years of that industry, that problem was long ago corrected.) Nuclear waste will be dangerous for thousands of years. Within 40
years, used fuel has less than one-thousandth of the radioactivity it had when it was removed from the reactor. And it is incorrect to call it waste, because 95
percent of the potential energy is still contained in the used fuel after the first cycle. Now that the United States has removed the ban on recycling used fuel, it will
be possible to use that energy and to greatly reduce the amount of waste that needs treatment and disposal. Last month, Japan joined France, Britain and Russia in
the nuclear-fuel-recycling business. The United States will not be far behind. · Nuclear reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attack. The six-feet-thick reinforced
62
concrete containment vessel protects the contents from the outside as well as the inside. And even
if a jumbo jet did crash into a reactor
and breach the containment, the reactor would not explode. There are many types of facilities that are far
more vulnerable, including liquid natural gas plants, chemical plants and numerous political targets. · Nuclear fuel can be diverted to make nuclear
weapons. This is the most serious issue associated with nuclear energy and the most difficult to address, as the example of Iran shows. But just because nuclear
technology can be put to evil purposes is not an argument to ban its use. Over the past 20 years, one of the simplest tools -- the machete -- has been used to kill
more than a million people in Africa, far more than were killed in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings combined. What are car bombs made of? Diesel oil,
fertilizer and cars. If we banned everything that can be used to kill people, we would never have harnessed fire. The only practical approach to the issue of nuclear
weapons proliferation is to put it higher on the international agenda and to use diplomacy and, where necessary, force to prevent countries or terrorists from using
nuclear materials for destructive ends. And new technologies such as the reprocessing system recently introduced in Japan (in which the plutonium is never
separated from the uranium) can make it much more difficult for terrorists or rogue states to use civilian materials to manufacture weapons. The 600-plus coal-fired
plants emit nearly 2 billion tons of CO2annually -- the equivalent of the exhaust from about 300 million automobiles. In addition, the Clean Air Council reports that
coal plants are responsible for 64 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 26 percent of nitrous oxides and 33 percent of mercury emissions. These pollutants are
eroding the health of our environment, producing acid rain, smog, respiratory illness and mercury contamination. Meanwhile, the
103 nuclear plants
operating in the United States effectively avoid the release of 700 million tons of CO2 emissions annually -the equivalent of the exhaust from more than 100 million automobiles. Imagine if the ratio of coal to nuclear were reversed so that only
20 percent of our electricity was generated from coal and 60 percent from nuclear. This would go a long way toward cleaning the air and
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Every responsible environmentalist should support a move in that
direction.
Alternative methods of solving warming fails—too costly and lack of consistency—nuclear energy is
the only viable solution
Lorenzini, 11/27/13—a retired PacifiCorp executive and former general manager of contract operations
at DOE’s nuclear defense facilities (Paul, "A Second Look at Nuclear Power", Issues in Science and
Technology, issues.org/21-3/lorenzini/)
This failure to perform cannot be blamed on inadequate support. Since 1978, DOE has invested more than $10
billion in renewable technologies, supplemented with generous tax incentives and state subsidies. Added support has
come from the private sector. Oil behemoths such as Exxon, Shell, Mobil, ARCO, and Amoco, as well as non-oil energy companies
such as General Electric, General Motors, Owens-Illinois, Texas Instruments, and Grumman, have all tried to enter the renewable energy
market. But renewable
energy production has been constrained by physical limitations that have resulted
in consistently high costs, because the energy that renewable energy technologies collect is both diffuse
and intermittent. New York City, for example, uses 10 times more energy than its land area collects in
sunshine. Resources such as sunlight and wind require large elaborate systems of collection, conversion, transport, and
distribution to make them available as electricity. Substituting wind power for the Indian Point nuclear complex that now
serves New York City would require somewhere between 125 and 385 square miles of wind farms, depending on the quality of
the wind site and under the dubious assumption that a suitable site is available in the region. Even that huge field would not be
sufficient, because wind turbines operate only when the wind blows, making backup supplies from other
sources necessary. In California, for example, 73 percent of wind output is generated during six months of the year. Overall, California wind
fields produce only about 23 percent of their energy capacity, because they are idle so much of the time.
Nuclear power with a sustainable disposal procedure would resolve the energy
revolution—generates enough electricity for the country—other alternatives fail
Loewe, August 2001—Chief Consulting Engineer at GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, member of the American
Nuclear Society, Ph.D., is a consulting engineer at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
63
Laboratory (Eric P., "Nuclear Power Can Help Solve Energy Crisis", National Defense,
www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2001/August/Pages/Nuclear_Power4218.aspx)
The United States must
increase its capacity to generate energy, in order to prevent the shortages in California from
cascading across the nation. Nuclear power should be a significant part of the solution. The energy crisis
witnessed in California has exposed a national energy problem that has been more than 20 years in the making. Energy
consumption in the United States is now stressing the limits of energy production. Witness the increasing numbers of
rolling brown-outs and black-outs on both the East and West coasts during the hot summer months of the past several years. This nation’s political and business
leaders have acceded to the will of the very vocal environmental minority. The Three Es—Environment, Economy and Energy—are out of balance. Even
though the U.S. electricity consumption growth rate has slowed to 2-3 percent a year as compared to the pre-1970s growth
rate of 7 percent, energy generation stations still need to be added. Electrical generation plant construction
originally slowed because of so-called NIMBY (not in my back yard) activism. In their efforts to protect the
environment, many groups, for many valid reasons, have opposed the basic, reliable, base-load generators:
nuclear, coal, oil and hydroelectric dams. They support only “renewable” energy sources—defined as wind, solar
[photovoltaic], low-head [run-of-the-river] hydro, geo-thermal and biomass. These generators can, and should, contribute to the energy mix. But the
renewables are too small to constitute adequate, reliable and economical energy sources to sustain U.S.
industry. By successfully lobbying for federal and state-level regulations and restrictions, activists have imposed overly stringent air-emission constraints on
fossil-fuel generation facilities, as well as severely slowed exploration for new oil and natural gas reserves and limited coal mining. Thus, expansion of both power
generators and fuel reserves for their operation have slowed. This is counter to the steady increase in the demand for electricity. These activists have created a
regulatory atmosphere in which their versions of the renewables are the only politically correct new power sources. But those renewables
alone
cannot meet U.S. power demands. The potential power supplies from the renewables are either
unreliable (insufficient wind, cloudy day, sunless night), or have an insufficient capacity, or occupy an unacceptably
extensive beautiful land area (large-scale hydro). Further, hydroelectric power is under siege by environmentalists, who want to remove existing
dams and prevent the construction of new dams, in order to save specific fish species. The less environmentally damaging and easy to turn on-off natural gas-fired
power plants were originally designed and installed to supplement the grid to meet peak power requirements. Now, any economic
benefit of
natural gas electrical generation that provides 16 percent of U.S. electrical power has been erased in the last nine months by
the escalating fuel costs. For example, in 1999, electricity generated by natural gas fired plants cost 3.52 cents per kilowatt-hour. Today, it is up to 17
cents. These power plants also are competing with other utilities that provide natural gas for household and
business uses and for production of anhydrous ammonia fertilizers in the agricultural industry. Even as new natural gas
fired generating plants are planned, their construction again is resisted by the small, but vocal groups for
environmental, esthetic and zoning and land-use reasons. The environment itself is compounding the electrical supply problem. Drought
conditions in the West for the past couple of years have reduced the water volume behind hydroelectric dams, so their
capacity for electricity generation is reduced. The agricultural industry is competing with the energy industry for that limited water. Not all
energy producers or energy production technologies are anti-environmental. The need to control pollution and to protect the land
is well recognized. But by injecting some common sense and balance into environmental regulation, the
United States could eliminate many of the burdensome and costly requirements that are slowly strangling the power
generation and distribution industry. Energy Costs It is worth looking at statistics for the generation costs of the four conventional electrical
production technologies in 1999: The cost for hydro (produced 9 percent of electricity generated in 1999) is not available. The cost for the remaining 2 percent
produced by the renewables is estimated to be higher than the other generators. In the 1970s, the activists convinced both federal and state governments to divert
taxpayer energy research and development dollars to renewables. That
investment, to date, is about $13 billion. California, the prime
example, is now stuck with low-efficiency, costly solar and wind facilities that generate inadequate amounts
of power for base load and occupy large land space. Their cost, repayment for past development plus current operation, may contribute to the high utility bills.
It was economics that stopped new nuclear power-plant construction in the 1980s, not safety. The
economic roadblock began with the high interest rates of the 1970s. Then came the lack of energy market
growth after the 1973 oil embargo. Then came the environmentally imposed regulatory and legal morass. A total of 131
commercial nuclear plants have been built and licensed in the United States. Twenty-eight of those have been shut down. The remaining 103 now produce one-fifth
64
of the nation’s electricity. The
nation currently lacks a comprehensive energy policy. The following points should be considered in
developing such a policy: There is a clear need to construct new electric power plants. They must be
environmentally friendly, economical in construction and operation and provide reliable base load electricity. And for
national security reasons, they must use a sustainable fuel of U.S. origin. What is interesting, and should be of national concern, is
the government’s long silence about nuclear power as part of the solution for both environmental
problems and economic power generation woes. The Energy Department’s national laboratories have been working toward the
definition and design of the next generation of nuclear power plants, Generation IV. To date, little has been said publicly about their work. When considering the
total life cycle, nuclear
power plants create a small fraction of the greenhouse gases that all fossil-fuel plants
produce.
Reductions of electricity generated through carbon emissions sufficiently solve global
warming
Akorede, 12—.F., Ph.D degree in Electrical Power Engineering from Universiti Putra Malaysia (H.
Hizam,M.Z.A. Ab Kadir,I. Aris,S.D. BubaElectrical & Electronic Engineering Department, Faculty of
Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, “Mitigating the anthropogenic global warming in the electric
power industry,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16.5)
5. Power industry's share of CO2 emissions To identify the most productive mitigation strategies, it is crucial to understand the current as well
as the projected sources of GHGs, most especially CO2[30]. Looking at Fig. 5, it is glaringly evident that CO2 constitutes the largest share (76.7
percent) of the total global GHGs emissions recorded in
2004. In the same vein, energy supply sector which comprises of
power generation and heat supply, accounted for nearly 26 percent of the overall anthropogenic GHG
emissions in the same year, as depicted in Fig. 6. To narrow down to CO2 emissions, Fig. 7 identifies individual contribution of each sector
to global CO2 emissions. As a group, energy supply, which is responsible for 41 percent of the total global CO2 is by far the largest producer of
CO2 in 2008, followed by the transportation sector. In fact, it is glaringly visible in the figure that these two sectors alone constitute two-thirds
of the total CO2 in the atmosphere in the year. According to the International Energy Agency, out
of the 41 percent of the manmade CO2 emissions mentioned previously, the power sector is responsible for 37 percent. The sector
creates about 23 billion tons of global CO2 emissions per year. Out of this, the United States produces
the most CO2 from electricity generation, releasing 2.8 billion tons of CO2 each year, while China is close to
overtaking it with her annual 2.7 billion tons emissions [31]. By this amount, China CO2 emissions in electric supply sector is about half of the
country's total volume, even though plans are still underway to expand her coal-fired facilities in the next decade [8]. In the UK, 38 percent of
GHG emissions produced is from energy supply sector [32]. Carbon dioxide emissions by source compiled in 2005 by Information Analysis
Center, World Resources Institute (WRI) for the year 2000 is plotted and shown in Fig. 8. The emissions sources considered are CO2 emitted
primarily in to the air from burning of solid fuels (SF) such as coal, liquid fuels (LF) such as petroleum products, gaseous fuels (GF), e.g. natural
gas, gas flaring (GL), cement manufacturing (CM), and land-use change (LU). All together, it is evident from the plots that 73.3 percent of the
total anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the atmosphere is from fossil fuels burning. Meanwhile, the International Energy Outlook (IEO2010) [33]
has forecasted the world energy demand at 739 quadrillion Btu in 2035. This figure is equivalent to 49 percent increase of the energy consumed
in 2007, estimated at 495 quadrillion Btu. To adequately cope with the projected demand, the said document similarly projected a growth in
the generation of 95.12 MWh in the same period. Fig. 9 illustrates the energy mix of the projected generation from
2007 to 2035. From
the figure, it is seen that the world net coal-fired generation nearly doubles over the projection period, from 7.9 trillion
kWh in 2007 to 15.0 trillion kWh in 2035. It is apparent in the reference case that coal continues to fuel
the largest share of worldwide electric power production by a wide margin of 43 percent of the total generation.
With this scenario, all things being equal, more GHGs are expected to be emitted into the atmosphere, leading
to more globalwarming. Due to this fact, the power generation sector, which is projected to grow at an
annual rate of 2 percent, is seen to have the greatest potential to reduce CO2 emissions in the coming
decades [30]. To accomplish this goal, the CO2 emissions per kWh of electrical energy produced can be reduced by using newer and novel
power production technologies. Current retrofit technology is theoretically available, but will likely be substantially more expensive per unit of
power generated, than would be the case for new plants with CO2 capture [30]. To mitigate globalwarming arising from the power industry,
various areas and approaches are suggested and discussed in details in the following section of this paper. 6. Mitigating globalwarming in
65
Since the highest amount of CO2 is generated in the power sector, curbing the CO2 produced
in this sector would go a long way in mitigating global warming. To address this issue, it is suggested in [4] to
power sector
decarbonise the power sector by at least 60 percent by 2050 since coal emits about 1.7 times as much carbon per kWh of energy produced as
natural gas and 1.25 times as much as oil. However, the task to accomplish this is not an easy one, as elaborated in the later part of this paper.
Other measures proposed for addressing globalwarming in the realm of power generation identified and discussed in this study include
adoption of carbon capture and storage technology, improvement in energy efficiency, increasing the use of renewable energy, increasing the
share of nuclear power generation, and decarbonisation of fossil fuels. Each of these possible mitigation techniques is discussed in turn in the
following subsections.
Nuclear Energy provides clean air-prevents emissions
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
Nuclear energy also provides clean-air benefits. 16 Nuclear energy generation does not release greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere and accounts for more than 75 percent of the carbon-free energy produced
in the United States. 17 In 2010, the electricity generated by nuclear power plants, as opposed to fossil fuel powered
plants, prevented the release of nearly 650 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 18
This reduction in emission is significant because electricity generation in the United States generally produces and
emits more carbon dioxide than both transportation and industry. 19 Nuclear power provides an essential
amount of electricity in an ozone friendly manner, and the United States must ensure the longevity of this
viable power source.
66
Impact Extension – Terrorism
Small amounts of waste have huge weapons potential.
Taebi 12
Intergenerational Risks of Nuclear Energy, Benham Taebi 2012
http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-94-007-1433-5_12 LMC
To conclude, ‘‘[d]eploying reactor-grade Pu is less effective and convenient than weapongrade
in nuclear weapons’’, but still ‘‘[. . .] it would be quite possible for a potential proliferator
to make a nuclear explosive from reactor-grade plutonium using a simple design that would be
assured of having a yield in the range of one to a few kilotons and more, using an advanced
design’’ (DOE 1997). Separated plutonium whether it is weapon-grade or reactor-grade carries
serious security risks.
Nuclear terrorism threatens safety and health of the nation and the world.
The United Nations in 2007, nuclear power and security threats, No2NuclearPower.org.uk Briefing,
accessed 7/15/2014
The terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001 (9/11), alerted the world to the potential of nuclear terrorism making it "far more likely", according to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that terrorists could target nuclear
facilities, nuclear material and radioactive sources worldwide. "The willingness of terrorists to sacrifice their lives to
achieve their evil aims creates a new dimension in the fight against terrorism," says Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director General of the IAEA [2]
Nuclear facilities have not been designed to withstand a deliberate crash by a jumbo jet full of fuel or many other types of attack. A
successful attack could have widespread and catastrophic consequences for both the environment and
public health. The extent of damage caused will depend on the type of nuclear facility, the nature of the attack, weather conditions and
the success of mitigation measures put in place. Nuclear terrorism has the potential to cause a large number of
deaths, and the risk of a successful attack will increase if more nuclear power stations and radioactive
waste stores are built. Indeed there appears to be a growing disconnection between the justifiable international concern over security
threats posed by nuclear facilities, and the promotion of an expanded nuclear sector by the very international authorities warning of the risk!
[3] So great is the risk of a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities that some say nuclear power should no longer have a role to play in supplying
energy, and that it is not compatible with an open and democratic society. [4] Others have responded by saying that information on nuclear
reactors and radioactive waste facilities needs to be withheld, reversing the trend of the last decade in many countries to allow greater
openness and transparency in what has traditionally been a highly secretive industry. [5]
Plutonium has gone unaccounted for in the past if reprocessed, Japan proves
Union of concerned scientists 11
Union of concerned scientists (organization of scientists for science and democracy)
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handlingnuclear-waste/reprocessing-and-nuclear.html
67
This is not just a theoretical problem: two striking examples have occurred in Japan. In 1994, it was revealed
that over five years of operation, the total amount of plutonium unaccounted for at the Plutonium Fuel
Production Facility in Tokai-mura had grown to seventy kilograms—enough for some 11 nuclear weapons.
Ultimately, in 1996 it was determined that most of the missing material was in dust that accumulated on the equipment inside the facility.
Had the material instead been stolen, the theft would have remained undetected for years—more than
enough time for terrorists to convert the material into crude nuclear weapons.
Reprocessing increases risk of nuclear proliferation direct disposal is better.
Union of concerned scientists 11
Union of concerned scientists (organization of scientists for science and democracy)
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handlingnuclear-waste/reprocessing-and-nuclear.html
U.S. reprocessing would encourage other countries to do likewise and undermine the U.S. goal of halting
the spread of proliferation-prone fuel cycle technologies, which is why U.S. policy has been to not
engage in reprocessing.
Some reprocessing advocates claim that a new generation of so-called "proliferation-resistant" reprocessing technologies now under
development would resolve the proliferation concerns of conventional reprocessing. However, these
technologies would actually
be more difficult for international inspectors to safeguard because it would be harder to make precise
measurements of the weapon-usable materials during and after processing. Moreover, all reprocessing
technologies are far more proliferation-prone than direct disposal, and require much greater resources to
be safeguarded against diversion and theft of plutonium.
Nuclear terrorism is inevitable in the next decade—prefer expert consensus
Allison, 4/16/7 — professor of political science at Harvard; professor at the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard, director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
(Graham T., “How Likely is a Nuclear Terrorist Attack on the United States?” Council on Foreign
Relations,
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13097/how_likely_is_a_nuclear_terrorist_attack_on_the_united_states
.html)
In the hotly contested American presidential election in 2004, the two candidates agreed on only one
fundamental point. In the first televised debate, they were asked, what is "the single most serious threat
to the national security to the United States?" President Bush, answering second, said: "I agree with my
opponent that the biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a
terrorist network." I also agree. This debate asks how likely is it that terrorists will explode a nuclear
bomb and devastate a great American metropolis. In the judgment of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn,
the likelihood of a single nuclear bomb exploding in a single city is greater today than at the height of
the Cold War. Nuclear Terrorism states my own judgment that, on the current trend line, the chances of
a nuclear terrorist attack in the next decade are greater than 50 percent. Former Secretary of Defense
William Perry has expressed his own view that Nuclear Terrorism underestimates the risk. From the
68
technical side, Richard Garwin, a designer of the hydrogen bomb who Enrico Fermi once called, "the
only true genius I had ever met," told Congress in March that he estimated a "20 percent per year
probability with American cities and European cities included" of "a nuclear explosion—not just a
contamination, dirty bomb—a nuclear explosion." My Harvard colleague Matthew Bunn has created a
probability model in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science that estimates
the probability of a nuclear terrorist attack over a ten-year period to be 29 percent—identical to the
average estimate from a poll of security experts commissioned by Senator Richard Lugar in 2005. Rather
than quibble over percentage points, the bottom line is recognition that risk equals probability times
consequences. Even skeptics who believe that experts overestimate the probability find it difficult to
discount the risk. Prior to 9/11, most terrorism experts argued that terrorists sought not mass casualties
but rather mass sympathy through limited attacks that called attention to their cause. But after that
horrific attack, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission issued its major conclusion: The principal failure to act to
prevent the September 11 attack was a "failure of imagination." A similar failure of imagination leads
many today to discount the risk of a nuclear 9/11. It is a mistake to confuse al-Qaeda's patience and
careful planning with the view that they "hate to fail" or lack grander ambitions. When Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, the chief planner of 9/11, first proposed an easier plan to charter a small plane, fill it with
explosives, and crash it into CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Osama bin Laden replied, "Why do
you use an axe when you can use a bulldozer?" Finally, a crude gun-type bomb built from highly
enriched uranium would be relatively simple to construct and reliable. Manhattan Project scientists
were so confident about this design that they persuaded military authorities to drop the bomb,
untested, on Hiroshima.
On-site storage causes terrorism
Lowe 5 – Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology, and Society @ Griffith University, President of the
Australian Conservation Foundation (Prof. Ian Lowe, September 2005, “Nuclear Power: No Solution to
Climate Change,”
http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/Nuclear_Power_No_Solution_to_Climate_Ch
ange.pdf)
Nuclear smuggling – much of it from
civil nuclear programs – presents a significant challenge . The IAEA’s Illicit
Trafficking Database records over 650 confirmed incidents of trafficking in nuclear or other radioactive materials
since 1993. In 2004 alone, almost 100 such incidents occurred. (El Baradei, 2005C; IAEA, n.d.) Smuggling can
potentially
provide fissile material for nuclear weapons
bombs’.
Civil nuclear
and a wider range of radioactive materials for use
in ‘dirty
plants are potentially “attractive” targets for terrorist attacks because of the
importance of the electricity supply system in many societies, because of the large radioactive inventories in many facilities,
and because of the potential or actual use of ‘civil’ nuclear facilities for weapons research or production. A 2004 study by the Union of
Concerned Scientists concluded that a major
as 44,000
terrorist attack on the Indian Point reactor in the US could result in as many
near-term deaths from acute radiation syndrome and as many as 518,000 long-term deaths
from cancer among individuals within fifty miles of the plant. The attack would pose
a severe threat to the entire New York
metropolitan area . Economic damages could be as great as US$2.1 trillion. (Lyman, 2004.) Proliferation concerns
have led
a number of nation states to use conventional weapons to attack nuclear facilities. Iraq’s nuclear facilities have
been bombed by Iran, Israel and the US, and Iraq itself targeted a nuclear plant in Iran in the 1980s and claimed to have targeted Scud missiles
at Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant in 1991. The IAEA Director-General Mohamed El Baradei (2005) addressed a range of serious nuclear security
69
problems in his address to the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference: “In five years,
of a deadly nuclear detonation
– whatever the cause –
the world has changed . Our fears
have been reawakened . In part, these fears are driven by
new realities. The rise in terrorism. The discovery of clandestine nuclear programmes. The emergence of
a nuclear black market. But these realities have also heightened our awareness of vulnerabilities in the NPT
regime. The acquisition by more and more countries of sensitive nuclear know-how and capabilities. The uneven
degree of physical protection of nuclear materials from country to country. The limitations in the IAEA’s verification authority
– particularly in countries without additional protocols in force. The continuing reliance on nuclear deterrence. The ongoing
perception of imbalance between the nuclear haves and have-nots. And the sense of insecurity that persists, unaddressed, in
a number of regions, most worryingly in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula .”
70
Impact Extension – Nuclear Colonialism
Yucca is on Indian land--not chosen because it was good, but because least NIMBY
resistance in DC.
CNN.Com ‘11
http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/06/news/economy/nuclear_waste/
In addition to geology, critics point to other problems.¶ Nuclear waste: America's 'biggest security threat'¶ Yucca
was originally
Shoshone land, taken by the federal government in 1951 for weapons testing, said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste
specialist at Beyond Nuclear.¶ And Nevada was chosen not because it was a good site, but because it had the
fewest representatives in Washington of any state under consideration, critics say.¶ "The most common name for
that legislation was the 'Screw Nevada Bill,' " said Kamps. "It never should have been targeted to begin
with."¶ Kamps said better sites for a repository include deep granite formations in places like New Hampshire, Wisconsin or Minnesota.¶ A
new list of cites could still include Yucca, especially if its supporters succeed in getting the NRC to rule that the administration can't unilaterally
take it off the table.¶ But while all the bickering goes on, all that radioactive waste will stay right where it is -- sitting at power plants all across
the country.
Native Americans do not want nuclear waste on their land – NW causes cancer
Goodin 14
Ph. D. University of New Mexico. Dept. of American Studies, SOVEREIGN CONFLICTS AND DIVIDED
LOYALTIES: NATIVE AMERICAN SURVIVANCE IN THE ERA OF NUCLEAR MODERNITY A STORY OF THE
WESTERN SHOSHONE AND THEIR RESPONSE TO THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE
WASTE REPOSITORY, University of New Mexico Lobo Vault,
http://repository.unm.edu/handle/1928/23114
For instance, consider the statement made by Chief Yowell, Chairman of the Western Shoshone National
Council, during the Yucca Mountain project evaluation process. He stated, “we don’t really say we ‘own’
the land, because we have always been taught to respect Mother Earth as a living thing” and this site
would just hurt the land and her, Mother Earth, and those that depend on the land for survival. Corbin
Harney, a Western Shoshone spiritual leader expressed a similar sentiment when he said the site and
transporting HLW to Yucca Mountain would put “people in contact with the most toxic poison.” Ian
Zabarte, another tribal official, stated that cancer rates and other illnesses have emerged as a result of
testing at the Nevada Test Site so the Yucca Mountain issue should be entirely revisited.
Nuclear waste is a harmful issue especially for native americans
Lopez 2004
Bayley Lopez is a Lena Chang Intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and
currently a sophomore at Stanford University.
Nuclear waste is not just an issue for those who live near a nuclear reactor or waste site. It is an issue
that in time – due to deadly, toxic waste that will remain harmful for thousands of years – will have
adverse effects on the entire world. However, the reality within the United States is that one group has
71
been disproportionately affected by waste policies since the inception of the US nuclear program – the
Native American population. In the quest to dispose of nuclear waste, the government and private
companies have disregarded and broken treaties, blurred the definition of Native American sovereignty,
and directly engaged in a form of economic racism akin to bribery.
Native Americans don’t have a choice to host a land-based disposal site – they need
the money
Goodin 14
Ph. D. University of New Mexico. Dept. of American Studies, SOVEREIGN CONFLICTS AND DIVIDED
LOYALTIES: NATIVE AMERICAN SURVIVANCE IN THE ERA OF NUCLEAR MODERNITY A STORY OF THE
WESTERN SHOSHONE AND THEIR RESPONSE TO THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE
WASTE REPOSITORY, University of New Mexico Lobo Vault,
http://repository.unm.edu/handle/1928/23114
This latter issue also emerged in the Goshute siting controversy, although the circumstances were
slightly different since the Goshute’s future was not as certain compared to that of the Mescalero and
remains equally uncertain to this day. The Goshute’s have been enmeshed in a complex web of
environmental, political, and social injustices that have limited their conditions of possibility for assuring
cultural survival into perpetuity. The lands upon which the Goshutes reside have been contaminated by
years of use by various groups in support of military weapons development and testing activities, and
the concomitant storage and disposal of the hazardous wastes used in these activities such that the land
is not useful for traditional agricultural practices. Additionally, since tribal lands lie within the confines of
the State of Utah, the Goshutes have little hope of engaging in gaming activities because the state
leadership tends to be Mormon and does not support such activities. Consequently, the Goshutes feel
they have little recourse but to take on activities of this sort as a result of having few options available to
them to assure economic viability and cultural survivance within their homelands.
Native Americans are targeted for a land-based site – environmental racism
Goodin 14
Ph. D. University of New Mexico. Dept. of American Studies, SOVEREIGN CONFLICTS AND DIVIDED
LOYALTIES: NATIVE AMERICAN SURVIVANCE IN THE ERA OF NUCLEAR MODERNITY A STORY OF THE
WESTERN SHOSHONE AND THEIR RESPONSE TO THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE
WASTE REPOSITORY, University of New Mexico Lobo Vault,
http://repository.unm.edu/handle/1928/23114
Overall, the negotiator received applications for Phase I study grants from 20 tribes compared to only
four counties whose governors eventually precluded them from proceeding with negotiations. Of the 20
tribal applicants, 12 potential hosts received Phase I study grants and five tribes went on to request
Phase II study grants; four additional tribes joined the process during Phase II.
Despite appearances, however, not all was going well. The states where tribes were offering to host
monitored retrieval storage facilities sought to abridge the rights of tribes to negotiate in this process
despite their sovereign authority to do so as nations. What is most interesting about this issue is the fact
that the federal government intervened in this process reminding the states that this authority was not
in their purview.
72
The tribes who remained involved in the process for the most extended period of time include: the
Mescalero Apache (New Mexico), the Prairie Island Indian Community (Minnesota), the Skull Valley
Band of Goshutes (Utah), the Eastern Shawnee Tribe (Oklahoma), the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone
Tribe (Nevada and Oregon), the Miami Tribe (Oklahoma), the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (Colorado), the
Tonkawa Tribe (Oklahoma), and the Northern Arapahoe Tribe (Wyoming). Only the Skull Valley Band of
Goshutes, the Fort McDermitt, and Tonkawa tribes remained involved after another change in policy
was enacted in 1993 at the request of the potentially affected states—this change obliterated the study
grant funding program. Nonetheless, this did not stop two tribes—both the Mescalero Apache and the
Skull Valley Band of Goshutes (who are Shoshone although recognized as a separate entity)—who
entered into private negotiations with a consortium of energy producers in an attempt to exert their
sovereign authority and to provide the means for self-determination after their withdrawal from the
federal siting process. This decision was not without its own problems, however, with opposition to the
plans of the tribal councils coming from two sides: from the states in which the tribes reside and from
more traditional factions within the tribes themselves. Another issue is the bottom-line for why both the
Mescalero and the Goshutes opted to participate in this process and remained involved as long as they
did. It is my contention that the participation of both tribes bespeaks the nature of non-Native and
Native relations as imbued by a history of internal colonialism that, in this case, addresses the issue of
nuclearism as put forth by Kuletz, as well as being environmental and social justice issues specifically. I
take these issues up forthwith beginning with the assertion that Mescalero involvement in the
monitored retrieval storage siting process was an effort to affirm their sovereign right to engage in
economic self-determination, as is also the case for the Goshutes. On the other hand, while the reasons
that both tribes participated had similar beginnings due to the conditions of possibility in terms of
intergovernmental relations, I contend that the Goshutes stayed involved because of something even
more heinous: they had no other choice due to the nature of internal colonialism that they faced and
the toll it took over time and the fact that the option of courting tourism and gambling were not
viable options for them as they were for the Mescalero.
Native American lands are targeted for land-based nuclear waste disposal – this is
environmental racism
Goodin 14
Ph. D. University of New Mexico. Dept. of American Studies, SOVEREIGN CONFLICTS AND DIVIDED
LOYALTIES: NATIVE AMERICAN SURVIVANCE IN THE ERA OF NUCLEAR MODERNITY A STORY OF THE
WESTERN SHOSHONE AND THEIR RESPONSE TO THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE
WASTE REPOSITORY, University of New Mexico Lobo Vault,
http://repository.unm.edu/handle/1928/23114
While it seemed that the terms of the process would encourage different locales to compete for the
right to host a site, this was not the case. The result was that the “political, environmental, and
ideological connotations of hosting a nuclear waste storage facility overshadowed any possible
economic benefits under the negotiators program.
”What options were left? Native Americans seemed to be the only remaining viable alternative for
hosting sites since they “enjoyed a level of sovereignty that precluded interference from state-level
73
officials” As a result, of the handful of counties that entertained the idea of hosting a facility, all were
blocked in the initial solicitation phase or during the Phase I study phase either by their governors or
staunch opposition from the public in the respective states, which hastened the governor’s withdrawal
of consent. The implication of this failure to find any serious takers was severe since the government
had an obligation to take possession of the wastes from the nation’s nuclear power plants whose on-site
storage facilities were rapidly filling up by 1998, and here it was nearing the end of the 1990s and
neither a permanent site was licensed nor a monitored retrieval storage site chosen and built. 104 who
were the primary inhibiting factors to date in terms of effectively siting nuclear waste facilities. Thus, in
1991 the negotiator violated his policy and actively invited Native nations to indicate what it would take
for them to host an monitored retrieval storage facility. It is here where the issue of sovereignty truly
becomes blurred and actually begins to take on the appearance of constituting what might be
considered environmental justice or social equity issues. At the root of the problem is the fact that the
terms of the deal would include money and other types of benefits that would be very enticing to Native
nations who have been plagued by centuries of devastating legal infringements on sovereignty and
efforts toward self-determination that jeopardized cultural viability and the health, safety, and overall
well-being of many tribal nations. This includes both in terms of lost land and royalties from resources
on remaining lands to no real funding for programs to assure the health, safety, and welfare of Native
peoples. And indeed this proved to be the case according to Gowda and Easterling who state “the
Negotiator’s Office spent much of its time responding to the interest that various tribal councils showed
in acquiring economic benefits [my emphasis] in return for hosting the facility.”
Nuclear waste companies are abusing the poverty and sovereignty of Native American
tribes to convince them to sell their land to them.
Kevin Kamps in 2001, Nuclear Waste Specialist, “Environmental Racism, Tribal Sovereignty and
Nuclear Waste”, Nuclear Information & Resource Service,
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pfsejfactsheet.htm
Nevadans and Utahans living downwind and downstream from nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining,
and radioactive waste dumping have suffered immensely during the Nuclear Age. But even in the "nuclear
sacrifice zones" of the desert Southwest, it is Native Americans--from Navajo uranium miners to tribal communities
targeted with atomic waste dumps-- who have borne the brunt of both the front and back ends of the
nuclear fuel cycle. The tiny Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation in Utah is targeted for a very big nuclear waste dump.
Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a limited liability corporation representing eight powerful nuclear utilities, wants to "temporarily" store 40,000 tons
of commercial high-level radioactive waste (nearly the total amount that presently exists in the U.S.) next to the two-dozen tribal members who
live on the small reservation. The PFS proposal is the latest in a long tradition of targeting Native American communities for such dumps. But
there is another tradition on the targeted reservations as well–fighting back against blatant
environmental racism, and winning. Skull Valley Goshute tribal member Margene Bullcreek leads Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia (or OGD,
Goshute for "Mountain Community"), a grassroots group of tribal members opposed to the dump. In addition to many other activities, OGD has
filed an environmental justice contention before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB). Both
the
federal government and the commercial nuclear power industry have targeted Native American
reservations for such dumps for many years. In 1987, the U.S. Congress created the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator in
an effort to open a federal "monitored retrievable storage site" for high-level nuclear waste. The Negotiator sent letters to every federally
recognized tribe in the country, offering hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars to tribal council governments for first considering
and then ultimately hosting the dump. Out of the hundreds of tribes approached, the Negotiator eventually courted about two dozen tribal
councils in particular. Resistance from members within the targeted tribes, however, prevented the proposed dumps from opening. Grace
Thorpe, founder of the National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans and an emeritus member of the Nuclear Information & Resource
Service board of directors, rallied her fellow tribal members and defeated the dump targeted at her own Sauk and Fox reservation in Oklahoma.
74
Tribal members on other targeted reservations turned to Thorpe, and to such Native-led groups as Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)
and Honor the Earth, to learn how to organize their community to resist the federal nuclear waste dump. The Negotiator eventually set his
sights on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. But tribal member Rufina Marie Laws spearheaded her community’s resistance
against her own tribal council and the Negotiator, thwarting the dump. After having failed to open the intended dump, Congress defunded and
dissolved the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator in 1994. The commercial nuclear power industry, however, picked up where the
Negotiator had left off. Led by Northern States Power (now Xcel Energy), 8 nuclear utility companies formed a coalition that attempted to
overcome the resistance at Mescalero. A tribal referendum, however, doomed the dump to eventual failure. The utility coalition regrouped as
Private Fuel Storage, and then turned to the Skull Valley Goshutes in Utah, another community that had been on the Negotiator’s target list. At
the same time, the nuclear power industry contributed large sums to Congressional and Presidential campaigns, and lobbied hard on Capitol
Hill to establish a "temporary storage site" at the Nevada nuclear weapons test site, not far from the proposed federal permanent underground
dump for high-level atomic waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Both these proposed "temporary" and permanent dump sites would be on
Western Shoshone land, as affirmed by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.
Yucca Mountain is sacred to the Western Shoshone,
and their National Council has long campaigned to prevent nuclear dumping there. Several incarnations of the
nuclear power industry-backed "Mobile Chernobyl" bill appeared between 1995 and 2000. They were so dubbed because, if enacted, they
would have launched the beginning of tens of thousands of dangerous irradiated nuclear fuel shipments to Nevada. Grassroots efforts across
the country, combined with Nevadan leadership in Congress and an unwavering veto pledge by President Clinton, has successfully stopped
"Mobile Chernobyl" in its tracks on Capitol Hill for the past five years. Having lost its bid to "temporarily" store its deadly wastes on Western
Shoshone land near Yucca Mountain, nuclear utilities have re-focused their hopes for "interim" relief on Nevada’s neighbor, Utah. PFS must
have done its homework: it would be hard to find a community more economically and politically vulnerable than the Skull Valley Goshutes to
the Faustian bargain of getting "big bucks" in exchange for hosting the nation’s deadliest poisons. Just 25 tribal members live on the tiny Skull
Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation, an hour’s drive west and south from Salt Lake City in Tooele County, Utah. The remaining 100 Band
members live in surrounding towns in Tooele County, in Salt Lake City, and elsewhere. The reservation is already surrounded by toxic industries.
Magnesium Corporation is the nation’s worst air polluter, belching voluminous chlorine gas and hydrochloric acid clouds; hazardous waste
landfills and incinerators dot the map; with a name straight out of Orwell’s 1984, Envirocare dumps "low level" nuclear waste in the next valley
and is applying to accept atomic trash hundreds of times more radioactive than its present license allows. Dugway Proving Ground has tested
VX nerve gas, leading in 1968 to the "accidental" killing of 6,400 sheep grazing in Skull Valley, whose toxic carcasses were then buried on the
reservation without the tribe’s knowledge, let alone approval. The U.S. Army stores half its chemical weapon stockpile nearby, and is burning it
in an incinerator prone to leaks; jets from Hill Air Force Base drop bombs on Wendover Bombing Range, and fighter crashes and misfired
missiles have struck nearby. Tribal members’ health is undoubtedly adversely impacted by this alphabet soup of toxins. Now PFS wants to add
high-level nuclear waste to the mix. This toxic trend in Tooele County has left the reservation with almost no alternative economy. Pro-dump
tribal chairman Leon Bear summed up his feelings: "We can’t do anything here that’s green or environmental. Would you buy a tomato from us
if you knew what’s out here? Of course not. In order to attract any kind of development, we have to be consistent with what surrounds us."
Targeting a tiny, impoverished Native American community, already so disproportionately overburdened with toxic exposures, to host the
United States’ nuclear waste dump would seem a textbook violation of environmental justice. But the nuclear utilities did not let such
considerations slow down their push for the PFS dump on the Skull Valley Reservation. Two days after Christmas in 1996, without the
knowledge or approval of the Skull Valley Goshute General Council (the 60 adult members who govern the tribe), Tribal Chairman Leon Bear
signed a lease agreement with PFS for an undisclosed amount of money. To this day, no tribal member outside the three member tribal
executive committee knows how much money the tribe would receive for hosting the nation’s atomic waste dump. The NRC, which must issue
a license in order for the dump to open, ruled in its June, 2000 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that the dump does not violate
environmental justice, because PFS will pay the tribe so handsomely. Estimates of the secretive pay-off to the tribal council range from 60 to
200 million dollars.
PFS’s strategy is simple: use unlimited amounts of money to buy out any potential
opposition to locate a dump on the reservation. In 1999, PFS entered into an undisclosed monetary agreement with resistant
local cattle ranchers, and in May 2000 signed a deal with Tooele County in exchange for support of the dump. In an area of economic scarcity,
money talks loudly.
"It's pretty clear that utilities are willing to spend billions to move the spent fuel out of
their back yard into ours," said Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, who adamantly opposes the PFS dump. "The real issue
is not the money," Bullcreek, has said. "The real issue is who we are as Native Americans and what we believe
in. If we accept these wastes, we're going to lose our tradition." Bullcreek, a tribal member who resides on the
reservation with her children, disagrees with NRC’s ruling that the dump presents "no disproportionately high and adverse impacts on low
income or minority populations." (DEIS, pg. LXX of the introduction). She first became concerned by the way in which Chairman Bear had gone
about signing the lease (without first bringing it to the general council for a vote). As she looked into it, she learned about the dangers of highlevel nuclear waste, about the ways the
PFS dump would threaten her tribe’s health, culture, traditions and
reservation community life. The NRC’s ruling assumes that, given enough money, tribal members such as
Bullcreek and her family could simply move from the reservation if they didn’t like the sight of a nuclear waste
dump out their kitchen window. Such false logic fails to recognize traditional tribal members’
inextricable spiritual attachment to the land they and their ancestors inhabit. "Cedar and Sage are sacred here,"
says Bullcreek. "I cut willow branches over there to cradle my babies like my mother did, and my grandmother did, and her mother and her
75
mother. Their bones are on this land. If you think this is desolate then you don’t know the land. You don’t know how to be still and listen. There
is peace here. I felt I had to be outspoken or lose everything that has been passed down from generations. The stories that tell why we became
the people we are and how we should consider our animal life, our air, things that are sacred to us. Leon Bear is trying to convince himself that
what he is doing is right, but this waste will destroy who we are." Bullcreek is fighting the dump because it would ruin that peace and her
family’s ancient connection to the land. If the dump is built, she has said she would be forced to move away from the homeland she loves. Has
NRC considered the fact that for Bullcreek-–a fluent speaker of her native tongue-–to move away from the community would be yet another
severe blow to the endangered Goshute language? What about other similar adverse impacts to the traditional culture? NRC’s ruling that the
dump is justified because of the large economic benefit for the tribe (DEIS, p. 6-28) also fails to recognize that Chairman Bear seems to have no
intention of sharing proceeds from PFS with opponents to the dump. OGD’s contention before the Licensing Board challenges this NRC finding
of no environmental justice (EJ) violation. Tribal opposition to the dump has taken a number of other, complementary paths as well. Tribal
member Sammy Blackbear, who lives with his four children on the reservation, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs,
alleging that it violated its trust responsibility to the tribe by quickly approving an illegitimate lease agreement between Chairman Bear and PFS.
Over twenty tribal members, including Bullcreek, have joined as co-plaintiffs. Blackbear is also working with his U.S. Congressman to investigate
allegations that Chairman Bear has used PFS income to bribe some tribal members into supporting the lease agreement and dump proposal,
while blocking other payments due tribal members who oppose the dump. Bullcreek and Blackbear are actively working with concerned citizens
of Utah to develop an alternative economic plan for their reservation. An effort is underway to obtain solar panels and wind turbines for
installation in the community as a clean, renewable source of electricity. Both are also working with allies in the political and grassroots arenas
outside the reservation, to counter the vast resources of the powerful nuclear utilities and other corporations promoting PFS. OGD’s EJ
contention before the ASLB could be key to stopping the dump. A successful EJ contention against Louisiana Energy Services (LES) was essential
in defeating a proposed uranium enrichment plant targeted at an impoverished rural African-American community. The NRC Licensing Board
overseeing the LES case quoted President Clinton’s Executive Order 12898 in its ruling: "[T]o the greatest extent practicable and permitted by
law…each Federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate,
disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and
low-income populations in the United States." OGD and its legal representatives must now navigate the complex legal and bureaucratic
labyrinth of the NRC’s Atomic Safety & Licensing Board. The huge financial costs—difficult for a small group such as OGD to raise--required to
effectively participate in NRC hearings poses the question, is the NRC ASLB process itself a violation of environmental justice? OGD’s contention
hearing, originally scheduled for June, has now been delayed until December, 2001. If
the NRC’s DEIS ruling--that the proposed
dump is not an EJ violation because PFS will pay the tribe a relatively large sum of money–stands
uncontested, it could serve as a precedent to "justify" federal regulatory agencies licensing toxic
facilities that target impoverished minority communities, so long as the polluting corporation
"compensates" the victims with "enough" money to "live with it" or relocate elsewhere. Offering
reservation communities "enough" money to "put up with" or relocate away from proposed toxic
facilities on their homeland nevertheless despoils or removes the land in which traditional culture and
spirituality is rooted. Dangling big bucks in front of impoverished reservation communities, tempting
them to do something they otherwise would not, enables corporations to "divide and conquer," by
setting tribal councils against traditionals, and tribal members against each other. Even though no waste has
been dumped yet, Bullcreek says PFS is already ripping her community apart. The outcome of the PFS fight may set important precedents for
tribal sovereignty and environmental protection on reservations. The nuclear power industry is attempting to evade environmental regulations
and State of Utah opposition by hiding behind the shield of tribal sovereignty. If successful, this could threaten to undermine tribal sovereignty
itself. "Sovereignty isn’t selling your independence and your heritage to the highest bidder," Bullcreek says. "What choice will we have after
they park all that radioactive waste on our land?" The lease agreement signed by Chairman Bear and PFS requires that the tribe "use its
sovereign nation status to support and promote this Lease and Project," and that the tribe "not, at any time, pass any law, rule or regulation
which could adversely affect or burden this Lease or the Project…" (Lease between Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and PFS, May 20, 1997,
p. 18). The lease also forbids the tribe from setting any environmental protection standards that are stronger than federal standards (p.24). The
agreement, in effect, forfeits control of the reservation dumpsite to PFS, and regulation to the federal NRC. Calling on the State of Utah to take
action by entering dialogue with the Goshutes about compensation, remediation and clean up of existing environmental devastation on and
around Skull Valley, Indigenous Environmental Network director Tom Goldtooth said "We recognize the sovereignty of the Skull Valley Tribal
Council to make decisions on behalf of their people, but the Tribe is in this situation to begin with because of unjust policies that have
negatively impacted their inherent rights to maintain a healthy, economically viable community. The Tribe is not the enemy here, Private Fuel
Storage is. The State needs to look at policies that threaten the Tribe’s health and well-being and work to rectify those first." "The
nuclear
industry is using Native land and Native people as a loophole to keep their reactors running," says Honor the
Earth spokesperson Winona LaDuke. "The nuclear industry needs to be called to the table for seeking a political
solution to the deadly environmental problem of nuclear waste they created by targeting isolated Native
communities. It’s bad policy and it’s wrong." "Our reservation is sacred. This is the only land we have–the only
thing the government left us after taking most of our country," Bullcreek said. Radioactivity, because of its
76
disproportionate harmful impact on Native Americans over the past 60 years, has been called the
"smallpox blanket of the Nuclear Age," referring to the practice of giving infested blankets to tribes to
wipe them out and clear their lands for expropriation. "It is time to right the injustices of the past, and
develop just and honorable relationships with Native peoples," said Winona LaDuke. Fighting against the PFS high-level
nuclear waste dump targeted at the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes is the front line of that struggle for Native American environmental justice
against corporate greed and environmental racism. What You Can Do April 26, 2001–the 15th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear
catastrophe–has been declared a National Day of Action against PFS’s environmental racism and the "Mobile Chernobyl" its dump would
launch. Demonstrations are being organized at the reactors and/or headquarters of the 8 utilities that comprise PFS, calling upon them to
withdraw from the consortium. Actions are also being organized along the targeted transport routes nationwide, seeking to win local
resolutions against the tens of thousands of irradiated fuel shipments that would go to Utah and Nevada if the PFS and Yucca Mountain dumps
go into operation. Sample resolutions are on NIRS’ website. Other action ideas: Host a letter writing party targeting the PFS companies’ CEOs.
Write letters to the editor and op-ed pieces. Organize a fundraiser to help pay for OGD’s legal actions. Hold a teach-in or press conference in
your community or campus. Check the NIRS website frequently for materials, new information and ideas. Contact NIRS to plug into the action
nearest you, to find out other ways to become involved, and to be connected to other groups across the country working on these issues.
Native Americans are being taken advantage of by US Nuclear waste policy
Lopez 2004
Bayley Lopez is a Lena Chang Intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and
currently a sophomore at Stanford University.
The broken treaties and the confusion injected into the issue of Native American sovereignty are
disturbing to be sure. However, the most disturbing aspect of United States nuclear waste policy is the
blatant economic racism this policy exhibits. As a whole, Native Americans are the most poverty stricken
ethnic group in the United States. On average, 23 percent of Native American families live in poverty,
which is almost double that of the national poverty rate of families at 12 percent. Nuclear utility
companies and the United States government take advantage of the overwhelming level of poverty on
native reservations by offering them millions of dollars to host nuclear waste storage sites.
77
Solvency Extensions
Development of Sub Sea Bed Disposal can create the precedent for solving other international
environmental crisis
Kaplan 91 – B.A. Carleton College, J.D. Candidate 1991, UPenn (Robert A. Kaplan, January, 1991, “Into
the Abyss: International Regulation of Subseabed Nuclear Waste Disposal,” 139 U. Pa. L. Rev. 769)
Thus, barring
resort to
discovery of any breakthrough transmutation process n15 in the next decade, the United States likely will
some form of
sea-based disposal in the near future . n16 The same result is even more likely for nuclear
countries such as Japan and England, whose size and geology impose tight constraints in siting a permanent
geologic facility. n17 In many respects, SSD seems to present a highly satisfactory way of dealing with high-level
waste: the vast depth of the water column tends to isolate the radionuclides from human activity; certain ocean
plates are among the most stable geologic formations on earth; and, ocean sediments bond with radionuclides to
immobilize them. n18 In many respects, however, SSD has the potential to be humankind's most fateful decision .
Similar to the nuclear power and weapon proliferation that gave rise to the waste disposal problem,
SSD is unforgiving of errors . A
miscalculation in planning, design, or execution could have catastrophic effects , not only for the present generation,
but also for
presently in
millennia. Careful decision-making now is imperative. The international order of the ocean environment is
its formative stages. In recent years, there has been a shift away from the notion that the oceans are "the ultimate 'sink' through [*774]
which we could dispose of all the things too dangerous or unpleasant to store or discard on land." n19 The oceans have come to be seen as "the common heritage
of mankind," and as such, a resource to be preserved, belonging exclusively to no country. n20 SSD
does not fit easily into any of these evolving
concepts of ocean use. Arguably, it is not "pollution" as contemplated by international anti-dumping accords. In fact, if the technology
functions as it should, SSD prevents the massive pollution
the regulatory regime that would affect any SSD initiative, and it concludes that the
that could attend failed land storage or disposal. This Comment analyzes
present legal order is inadequate to ensure its safe
development and implementation. Rather than proposing a ban on SSD, this Comment calls for the establishment of an international regulatory
body to oversee its development and implementation. Part I provides an overview of the history and technology involved in SSD and explains its risks and
advantages. Part II examines SSD's legality under current and developing sources of international law, including treaties and customary law. Part III outlines a
proposal to establish an international regulatory body to oversee SSD's development and operation. Part IV concludes that a
successful SSD regime
could serve as a precedent for solving several other international environmental crises .
Sub-seabed nuclear waste disposal – Solves radiation leakage
Dillon in 2014 – Kenneth (Historian who writes on science, medicine, and history)”Sea-Based Nuclear Waste
Solutions”, Scientia Press,http://www.scientiapress.com/nuclearwaste. MWH
First formally proposed in 1973, the concept of burying nuclear waste in stable clay formations under the seabed was
investigated by international teams of scientists for many years. A substantial scientific literature details the various modalities,
associated risks, and geological conditions. The large undersea plain some 600 miles north of Hawaii, stable for some 65 million
years, received special attention. Researchers found that the clay muds in such sub-seabed formations had a high capacity for
binding radionuclides, so that any leakage would be likely to remain within the clay for millions of years, by which time
radioactive emissions would decline to natural background levels.
Experiments of ocean disposal of nuclear waste prove it would contain radioactive
leaks for millions of years
The Atlantic 1996
78
“The Sub Seabed Solution”
https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96oct/seabed/seabed.htm
Experiments conducted by this international team of scientists from 1974 to 1986 support Hollister's opinion that
the sticky mud and clays that blanket the mid-ocean basins may provide the best burial grounds yet
proposed for nuclear waste. These tests suggest that if waste canisters were deposited just ten meters
below the ocean floor, any toxic substances that leaked out would be bound up by the clays for millions of
years. Deeper interment, at 100 meters or more, could easily be managed, providing an even greater margin
of safety. "The stuff sticks to the mud and sits there like heavy lead," Hollister maintains. "Nothing's going to
bring it into the biosphere, unless we figure out how to reverse gravity."¶ If he's right, and the
proposed technique could end the worldwide radioactive-waste problem that has
been building up for the past fifty years, why has almost nobody in this country heard
about it? The answer to this question -- along with the roots of many of the problems
plaguing current U.S. nuclear-waste-disposal efforts -- can be traced to a 1986 decision by
the Department of Energy which cut off research funds for sub-seabed and other
disposal alternatives, so that the agency could focus exclusively on developing a
land-based geologic repository for high-level wastes; a year later it settled on Yucca
Mountain, Nevada. The timing was unfortunate: ongoing sub-seabed experiments were
canceled in spite of encouraging results and after much experimental apparatus had
already been built.
Comparative Solvency – Need a tag
Wilson 1/16/14—founder of BuildingGreen, Inc. and executive editor of Environmental Building News,
founded the Resilient Design Institute (Alex, "Safe Storage of Nuclear Waste", Green Building Advisor,
www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/energy-solutions/safe-storage-nuclear-waste)
For more than 30 years, the
nuclear industry in the U.S. and nuclear regulators have been going down the wrong path
with waste storage — seeking a repository where waste could be buried deep in a mountain. Nevada’s Yucca
Mountain was the place of choice until… it wasn’t. Any time we choose to put highly dangerous waste in someone’s backyard, it’s bound to
cause a lot of controversy, even in a sparsely populated, pro-resource-extraction place like Nevada. NIMBY opposition can be boosted by
people in powerful places, and in the case of Yucca Mountain, Nevada senator Harry Reid has played such a role. (He has been the Senate
Majority Leader since 2006 and served prior to that as the Minority Leader and Democratic Whip.) Aside from NIMBYism, the problem
with burying nuclear waste in a mountain (like Yucca Mountain) or salt caverns (like New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns — an
earlier option that was pursued for a while in the 1970s) is that the maximum safety is provided at Day One, and the margin
of safety drops continually from there. The safety of such storage sites could be compromised over time due to seismic activity
(Nevada ranks fourth among the most seismically active states), volcanism (the Yucca Mountain ridge is comprised mostly of volcanic tuff,
emitted from past volcanic activity), erosion, migrating aquifers, and other natural geologic actions. A better storage option I believe a
much
better solution for long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste is to bury it deep under the seabed in a
region free of seismic activity where sediment is being deposited and the seafloor getting thicker. In such a
site, the level of protection would increase, rather than decrease, over time. In some areas of seabed, more than a
centimeter of sediment is being deposited annually. Compacted over time, such sediment deposition could be several feet
in a hundred years, and in the geologic time span over which radioactive waste is hazardous, hundreds to
thousands of feet of protective sedimentary rock would be formed. The oil and gas industry — for better or worse —
knows a lot about drilling deep holes beneath a mile or two of ocean. I suspect that the deep-sea drilling industry would love such a growth
opportunity to move into seabed waste storage, and I believe the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or other agencies could do a good job
regulating such work. The waste could be placed in wells extending thousands of feet below the seabed in sedimentary
rock in geologically stable regions. Let's say a 3,000-foot well is drilled beneath the seabed two miles beneath the surface of the ocean.
Waste could be inserted into that well to a depth of 1,000 feet, and the rest of the well capped with 2,000 feet of
79
concrete or some other material. Hundreds of these deep-storage wells could be filled and capped, and such a
sub-seabed storage field could be designated as forever off-limits. Industry or the Department of Energy would have to
figure out how to package such waste for safe handling at sea, since the material is so dangerous, but I believe that is a surmountable
challenge. For example, perhaps the radioactive
waste could be vitrified (incorporated into molten glass-like material) to
reduce leaching potential into seawater should an accident occur at sea, and that waste could be tagged with radiofrequency emitters so that any lost containers could be recovered with robotic submarines in the event of
such accidents. While I’m not an expert in any of this, I’ve looked at how much money taxpayers and industry have already poured
into Yucca Mountain — about $15 billion by the time the Obama Administration terminated federal funding for it in 2010, according
to Bloomberg News — and the estimates for how much more it would take to get a working waste storage facility of that sort operational had
risen to about $96 billion by 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Energy at the time. I believe that sub-seabed
storage would
be far less expensive. Should nuclear power be part of our energy future? I used to be a firm opponent to nuclear power, and I am still
opposed to the form of nuclear power we have today. But my position is softening. Should nuclear power plants be developed that have
failsafe, passive cooling systems that would prevent a meltdown even if sabotaged from the inside (I don’t know if that would be possible), if
the economics of such plants could work, and if we can shift to safer long-term storage, I could get behind a rebirth of the nuclear power
industry. Those are big “ifs,” and I have doubts that they will be satisfied, but I recognize that nuclear power is largely free of carbon emissions
— unlike natural gas, oil, and, especially, coal. We need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions if we are to prevent catastrophic global
warming, according to leading scientists. A starting point for the nuclear industry in building new support for nuclear power should be reexamining sub-seabed waste storage, which could be far safer and far less expensive than other approaches being focused on most actively
today.
Seabed repository disposal long term concept-less problematic than other forms
World Nuclear Association in 2013
(“Storage and Disposal Options” World Nuclear Association. http://www.worldnuclear.org/info/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/appendices/radioactive-waste-managementappendix-2--storage-and-disposal-options/)
The disposal of radioactive wastes in a repository constructed below the seabed has been considered by
Sweden and the UK. In comparison to disposal in deep ocean sediments, if it were desirable the repository design concept
could be developed so as to ensure that future retrieval of the waste remained possible. The monitoring
of wastes in such a repository would also be less problematic than for other forms of sea disposal.
Next, Sea-based disposal solves terrorism and radiation leaks
Dillon in 2014 – Kenneth (Historian who writes on science, medicine, and history)”Sea-Based Nuclear Waste
Solutions”, Scientia Press,http://www.scientiapress.com/nuclearwaste.MWH
Sea-based approaches to the disposal of nuclear waste have significant advantages. They make it hard for terrorists, rebels,
or criminals to steal for use in radiological weapons or in nuclear bombs. The world’s oceans have a vastly greater dilutive
capacity than any single land site in the event of unintended leaks (though by the same token the effects of a leak could
travel farther). And seawater itself contains a variety of radionuclides, so treating it as a domain in which there is no natural
radioactivity runs counter to fact. Even proponents of land-based geological storage sites of radioactive waste must recognize
that, without a great deal of additional investment and endless political arguments, these sites will not have the capacity to
store all the waste that will be generated in future decades.
80
Topicality Answers
Ocean development is weapons, transportation, communication, desalination, extraction of minerals,
research and food production
Steinberg 8, lecturer of communication studies – University of Miami, and Freeley, Boston based
attorney who focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, ‘8 (David L. and Austin J.,
Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making
I
divide
ocean development into half a dozen parts. These are: naval weapons, underwater
transportation and communications, freshwater conversion, mining or chemical extraction of minerals,
food production, and finally research activities.
should like to sub
the field of
Waste disposal is ocean development
Van Dyke 2 – Willia S. Richardson School of Law (Jon M. Van Dyke, 2002, “The Legal Regime Governing
Sea Transport of Ultrahazardous Radioactive Materials,”
http://www.hawaii.edu/elp/publications/faculty/JVD/Ultrahazardous_Radioactive_Materials.pdf)
Serious concern
should therefore be given to the future development of disposal of waste by ocean dumping.
disposed of by
ocean dumping—radioactive materials, chemical weapons, and ammunition—were particularly toxic and persistent.
Harmful substances were reaching the ocean from coasts, through rivers and the atmosphere, but the substances
The aff meets development
Ringius 1 – Prof. Univ. Oslo, MIT Press (Lasse Ringius, “Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea – Public Ideas,
Transnational Policy Entrepreneurs, and Environmental Regimes,” MIT Press)
In chapters 8 and 9 I examine the more recent regime development on radwaste disposal. I document and analyze a significant
change of this regime; the topic of regime change has so far remained relatively underexplored in regime analysis.27 In chapter 8 I document
the development from the late 1970s until the 1993 decision to globally ban radwaste disposal, showing that an ENGO acted as a catalyst for
change in the global ocean dumping regime and forced the transformation from regulation to Introduction 19 prohibition even though
scientists and powerful states supported radwaste disposal. In chapter 9 I suggest four general propositions about the influence of ENGOs on
environmental regimes. I also discuss
the strengths and weaknesses of the three prominent approaches to regime analysis in the
light of the 1993 global radwaste disposal ban. In chapter 10 I point out the limitations of this case study, discuss the generalizability of
the findings, and suggest how further research might shed more light on the issues raised earlier in the book. Finally, I discuss whether
the decision to ban radwaste disposal should be considered “good” international environmental policy.
.
More evidence – we’re ocean development
Ringius 1 – Prof. Univ. Oslo, MIT Press (Lasse Ringius, “Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea – Public Ideas,
Transnational Policy Entrepreneurs, and Environmental Regimes,” MIT Press)
Focusing on the global ocean dumping regime and on the developments in the control of ocean dumping of low-level
radioactive waste (commonly referred to as radwaste disposal) that have taken place under that regime, I examine the
formation and change of the deep normative structure within which global ocean dumping policy—
81
particularly with regard to radwaste disposal—has
been embedded. The case of the global ocean dumping regime and
radwaste disposal demonstrates the significance of transnational coalitions of policy entrepreneurs and public ideas in a
powerful way. In particular, it offers an opportunity to examine more carefully the political construction of a global environmental problem, the
role of persuasion and communication in an international setting, and the formation of international public opinion. These themes have not
previously been developed and integrated in regime analysis.
We meet – scholarly journal about ocean development proves
Finn 83 – Research Fellow @ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (“Nuclear Waste Management
Activities in the Pacific Basin and Regional Cooperation on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle,”
http://www.whoi.edu/seagrant/page.do?pid=51981)
Ocean Development and International Law Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 213-246, 1983 WHOI-R-83-014
Pacific Ocean and island sites have been used since World War II for nuclear activities, including effluent discharges from nuclear
facilities, sea dumping of packaged radioactive wastes, and testing of nuclear explosives. In the future, the amounts of
radioactive wastes deliberately released into the Pacific Ocean may increase in connection with planned commercialscale nuclear fuel processing operations, recommencement of plutonium production for weapons purposes, and resumption of sea dumping of low-level wastes.
Proposed storage
of spent nuclear fuel on Pacific island sites or disposal of high-level wastes in the deep
seabed of the Pacific could also expose the ocean to a risk of contamination by long-lived radionuclides. The consequences of all these activities should be
assessed in practical terms„their likely effects on the living marine resources of the Pacific and the economic development of the societies benefited by them; in
terms of the legal principles which govern activities such as marine radioactive waste disposal that could pollute the marine environment; and in relation to current
and future organizational arrangements that could achieve political resolution of outstanding international nuclear energy issues. Despite the prospective dangers
of marine nuclear activities, the use of relatively remote or extraterritorial marine locations including those in the Pacific basin for nuclear operations could provide
a basis for international cooperation on management of the "back end" of the nuclear fuel cycle, including storage and reprocessing of spent fuel and high-level
waste disposal. A
broadly recognized international regime for the nuclear fuel cycle could be based on
regional organization of such back-end operations, provided local acceptance could be obtained.
82
AT: Landbased Dumping Counterplan
No storage space left for spent fuel
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
On-site spent fuel storage is nearing capacity and has exceeded pool capacity at some reactor sites, 37
making the need for a permanent repository or other alternative imminent. The GAO published a report in August 2012,
which examined the amount of spent fuel currently stored onsite and the amount expected to accumulate before it can be transported from
nuclear reactor sites to a permanent storage site. 38 The
GAO discovered that about 74 percent of spent nuclear fuel is
stored in pools of water while the remaining 26 percent is stored in dry storage casks. 39 These storage facilities
span 33 states and account for nearly 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel. 40 The GAO determined that the amount of spent fuel stored onsite
would increase annually by 2,000 metric tons. 41 Because a permanent disposal facility may take between 15 and 40 years to construct, the
GAO estimated that the current amount of spent fuel could increase to 140,000 metric tons before it
could be transported to an off-site repository. 42 This growing dilemma illustrates the importance of
developing an alternative storage option to on-site storage as soon as possible.
A2 Land based storage CP
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
The large accumulation of spent nuclear fuel makes the development of a permanent solution more
difficult. For example, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), which will be discussed in more detail in Part II, set a numerical
limit on the amount of nuclear waste that a permanent storage site, such as a geologic repository, 43 can
receive.44 The NWPA prohibits an initial repository from receiving more than 70,000 metric tons of radioactive waste until a second
repository begins receiving waste. 45 Congress also required that 90 percent of the waste received by the
repository be commercial spent fuel, and Congress reserved the remaining 10 percent of storage space
for DOE spent nuclear fuel, such as naval spent nuclear fuel. 46 Currently, commercial nuclear reactors store nearly
70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel on-site, and this number does not account for the DOE spent fuel. 47 These storage amounts
exceed the congressional limit placed on the amount of waste a single repository can receive.
There is currently no feasible option for land-based disposal of nuclear waste.
Casey 2013
Emily, (third-year law student at Pepperdine University School of Law.) “WaistDeep in Nuclear Waste: How the NRC Can Rebuild Confidence in a Stalled Waste
Management Program”
http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/naalj/vol33/iss2/6
83
The United States is in a particularly uncertain situation as to how to dispose of spent nuclear fuel, which is
highly radioactive waste that is now being held at various facilities across the country. For over two decades,
U.S. nuclear waste policy rested on the development of a long-term geologic burial site in Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. However, the Yucca Mountain waste management program was suspended indefinitely in 2010. The
United States is now “back to the drawing board” in the sense that it lacks a long-term solution for the safe
disposal of nuclear waste.
Nuclear waste disposal on land dangerous-too much geological risk.
Wilson 14
Founder of BuildingGreen, Inc., exec. Editor of Environmental Building News. “Safe Storage
of Nuclear Waste” Green Building Advisor.
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/energy-solutions/safe-storage-nuclearwaste
For more than 30 years, the
nuclear industry in the U.S. and nuclear regulators have been going down
the wrong path with waste storage — seeking a repository where waste could be buried
deep in a mountain. Nevada’s Yucca Mountain was the place of choice until… it wasn’t. Any
time we choose to put highly dangerous waste in someone’s backyard, it’s bound to cause
a lot of controversy, even in a sparsely populated, pro-resource-extraction place like Nevada. NIMBY opposition
can be boosted by people in powerful places, and in the case of Yucca Mountain, Nevada senator Harry Reid has played
such a role. (He has been the Senate Majority Leader since 2006 and served prior to that as the Minority Leader and
Democratic Whip. Aside from NIMBYism, the problem with burying nuclear waste in a mountain (like
Yucca Mountain) or
salt caverns (like New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns — an earlier option that was
is that the maximum safety is provided at Day One, and the margin of safety drops
continually from there. The safety of such storage sites could be compromised over time due to
seismic activity (Nevada ranks fourth among the most seismically active states), volcanism
(the Yucca Mountain ridge is comprised mostly of volcanic tuff, emitted from past volcanic
activity), erosion, migrating aquifers, and other natural geologic actions.
pursued for a while in the 1970s)
84
AT: Liquid land based storage CP
Liquid waste disposal in UG testing facilities too untested and water too difficult to
move.
Whipple ‘10
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-level Radioactive Waste, Chris Whipple, Ph.D.
ENVIRON International Corporation, September 10, 2010-cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/brc/20120620234233/http://brc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/dis
posal_of_spent_nuclear_fuel_and_high_level_radioactive_waste_rev4.pdf
Disposal by in situ melting, perhaps in underground nuclear test cavities
One method suggested for disposal of liquid wastes from reprocessing is to put them into an
underground cavity such as those that were created by underground nuclear weapons testing. The idea
is that the wastes would have sufficient heat to melt the rock surface and produce a glassy lining that
would prevent migration. A rationale for this approach is that the cavities already contain radioactive
material, so the operation would not contaminate an otherwise pristine setting. In addition to
uncertainties in how such a system would perform and whether leakage could be detected, existing
regulations lead to a preference for shipping and disposing of solids in comparison to liquids. In
recognition of the difficulty in shipping liquid wastes, a variant of this proposal would co-locate an
underground nuclear test with a reprocessing plant.
85
A-2 Space CPs
Cost & Accident risk make it a non-starter.
Whipple ‘10
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-level Radioactive Waste, Chris Whipple, Ph.D.
ENVIRON International Corporation, September 10, 2010-cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/brc/20120620234233/http://brc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/dis
posal_of_spent_nuclear_fuel_and_high_level_radioactive_waste_rev4.pdf
Disposal by shooting the wastes into deep space or the sun
Cost and the risk of an accident during launch has kept space disposal from being taken seriously. With
the current cost of putting objects in orbit at around $10,000 per pound, and given that the U.S.
inventory of spent fuel and high-level waste is of the order of 100,000 metric tons, not including the
heavy shielding that would be required, the costs with present technology would be prohibitive, even if
the risks of radioactive wastes crashing back to earth could be managed somehow.
But if one wanted to dispose of only the very long-lived waste, e.g., technetium-99, cesium-135, iodine129, and the long-lived actinides, then the amounts are much more manageable, of the order of a few
million kilograms for all current U.S. wastes. This is still very expensive at $10,000 to put a pound in
orbit, and does not include the costs to separate out these long lived wastes from the other
components. Proposals to launch wastes into space using earth-based lifting devices23 (lasers,
microwaves, and high speed rail guns) offer the advantage that not all that fuel needs to be lifted, but
the capability of these technologies to put materials into space has not been demonstrated.
It appears that in order to make space disposal feasible, significant advances are needed in the
technologies for separating nuclear wastes and in the cost of moving materials into space.
Boreholes fail
Edwards 11
Gordon Edwards ,2011 gold medal in Mathematics and Physics and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. In
1972, he obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Queen's University. He co-founded the Canadian
Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and has been its president since 1978. Edwards has worked widely
as a consultant on nuclear issues and has been qualified as a nuclear expert by courts in Canada and
elsewhere. http://www.ccnr.org/GE_NWMO_ITK_Questions.pdf
(1) Boreholes
Deep boreholes have been studied in Sweden, Finland, and Russia, as possible ¶ repositories for some
kinds of radioactive waste -- but not usually for irradiated ¶ nuclear fuel. If this method were to be
adapted for nuclear fuel waste, the boreholes ¶ would typically have a diameter of less than one meter,
and they would be drilled ¶ several kilometers deep. Packages of irradiated nuclear fuel would then be
stacked ¶ one on top of the other in the borehole, separated by layers of bentonite or cement. ¶ It is
hoped that the depth of the repository would provide adequate assurance that ¶ these radioactive
86
poisons will not find their way back to the surface. However this ¶ assumption cannot be proven
scientifically. Moreover, retrieval of the irradiated ¶ fuel would be extremely difficult if not impossible.
There are many unanswered ¶ technical questions, such as the physical integrity of the waste packages
under the ¶ high pressures and temperatures to which they would be subjected in the boreholes. ¶ ¶ It is
unknown whether the combination of high temperature and high pressure ¶ could create some kind of
geyser effect through which dissolved radioactive wastes ¶ might be returned to the surface. Or
whether vertical migration under pressure ¶ might be followed by horizontal migration through
subterranean fracture zones, ¶ eventually leading back to the surface or contaminating groundwater, ¶ ¶
As for possible long term adverse effects on the environment, wildlife and ¶ humans, such harmful
effects have been studied only in a very abstract manner, ¶ using rather simplistic mathematical models.
¶ ¶ While deep borehole emplacement is regarded by the industry as a possible idea for ¶ managing small
quantities of radioactive waste, it is by no means sufficiently well ¶ developed to be considered as a
management option for the very large quantities of ¶ irradiated nuclear fuel under consideration by
NWMO. No country is currently ¶ pursuing this option.
Deep Injection and reprocessing are threats to environment and human health.
Edwards 11
Gordon Edwards ,2011 gold medal in Mathematics and Physics and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. In
1972, he obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Queen's University. He co-founded the Canadian
Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and has been its president since 1978. Edwards has worked widely
as a consultant on nuclear issues and has been qualified as a nuclear expert by courts in Canada and
elsewhere. http://www.ccnr.org/GE_NWMO_ITK_Questions.pdf
(2) Deep Injection ¶ ¶ Similar comments apply to direct injection, together with the fact that this method ¶
presumes that the wastes are in a liquid form. The only way irradiated nuclear fuel ¶ could end up in a
liquid form is due to reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. ¶ Reprocessing involves chopping the fuel
bundles into small pieces, dissolving the ¶ pieces in hot nitric acid, chemically separating out the
plutonium from the ¶ hundreds of other radioactive poisons (for re-use in reactors or in bombs),
resulting ¶ in the creation of millions of gallons of highly corrosive high-level radioactive ¶ liquid waste.
The reprocessing operation is itself a major threat to the ¶ environment. ¶ ¶ Direct injection of these
liquid wastes into underground rock strata would be ¶ problematic as liquids are much more mobile
than solids. Since there is no manmade ¶ control once the material has been injected, the method would
require a godlike ¶ knowledge of the subterranean geologic features, not only now, but also for ¶
thousands of years into the future. This idea is not being pursued by any country as ¶ a serious option,
although the former USSR used it in a number of locations in the ¶ past. No other country has ever done
so.
Rock Melting has not been proven as viable.
Edwards 11
Gordon Edwards ,2011 gold medal in Mathematics and Physics and a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. In
1972, he obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Queen's University. He co-founded the Canadian
Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and has been its president since 1978. Edwards has worked widely
87
as a consultant on nuclear issues and has been qualified as a nuclear expert by courts in Canada and
elsewhere. http://www.ccnr.org/GE_NWMO_ITK_Questions.pdf
(3) Rock Melting ¶ This bizarre idea involves placing the high- level radioactive waste in a ¶ concentrated
form in an underground cavity or borehole, sealing it up, and ¶ allowing the heat generated by the
radioactivity to build up to the point where it ¶ would literally melt the surrounding rock, dissolving the
radioactive wastes in a ¶ growing (and glowing) sphere of molten material which would eventually cool
¶ down and crystallize, thus incorporating the radioactive material into the rock ¶ matrix. ¶ ¶ A variant
form of this idea would be to enclose the waste in containers that would ¶ not melt; then the molten
rock would congeal and provide a tight and very strong ¶ protective shell around the radioactive waste in
its containers. ¶ ¶ Research on this idea was carried out in the 1970s, and interest was briefly revived ¶ in
Russia in the 1990s (where the idea was also explored of using an underground ¶ nuclear explosion to
melt the rock around the waste material), but this idea is not ¶ currently being investigated as part of
the national program of any country. There ¶ have been no practical demonstrations that rock melting
would be feasible, safe, or ¶ economically viable. With such heat goes much energy and pressure,
opening the ¶ possibility for some pretty powerful steam explosions.
88
Space won’t solve - affordability and launch risk factor
World Nuclear Association in 2013
(“Storage and Disposal Options” World Nuclear Association. http://www.worldnuclear.org/info/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/appendices/radioactive-waste-managementappendix-2--storage-and-disposal-options/)
The objective of this option is to remove the radioactive waste from the Earth, for all time, by ejecting it
into outer space. The waste would be packaged so that it would be likely to remain intact under most conceivable accident scenarios. A
rocket or space shuttle would be used to launch the packaged waste into space. There are several
ultimate destinations for the waste which have been considered, including directing it into the Sun. The
high cost means that such a method of waste disposal could only be appropriate for separated high-level waste (HLW) or spent fuel (i.e. long-
The question was investigated in the United States by
NASA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Because of the high cost of this option and the safety aspects
associated with the risk of launch failure, this option was abandoned.
lived highly radioactive material that is relatively small in volume).
89
AT: Spending Disadvantage
A2 Spending DA
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
Aside from public safety and environmental concerns, the federal government faces significant legal
liability for failing to receive nuclear waste from commercial reactors under the 1982 NWPA. 51 The government has
already paid about $1 billion in response to breach of contract claims regarding its failure to provide storage for spent nuclear fuel on
commercial reactor sites. 52 The
projected costs for the annual storage of spent nuclear fuel are about $500
million. 53 Delaying the development of interim and permanent storage facilities will continue to cost
the government billions of dollars.
A2 Spending DA
Miller in 2013
(Randall, Miller. Candidate for J.D., Washington and Lee University School of Law, May 2014 “Wasting
Our Options? Revisiting the Nuclear Waste Storage Problem” Washington and Lee University
http://law.wlu.edu/deptimages/Journal%20of%20Energy,%20Climate,%20and%20the%20Environment/
Miller.pdf)
The failure to establish a nuclear waste storage facility also costs nuclear energy utilities and consumers
billions of dollars. 54 The NWPA mandated that utilities pay for nuclear waste disposal through a fee of
1.0 mil per kilowatt-hour into a Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) in order to subsidize the construction of a
permanent waste disposal site. 55 Utilities have passed these fees on to their energy consumers, or
ratepayers. 56 The fees paid into the NWF exceeded $24 billion in 2010 with investment income, and
projections indicated that the 2012 balance would exceed $28 billion. 57 Therefore, the federal
government’s failure to development a plan for a permanent storage option unfairly prejudices both
utilities and ratepayers who have paid and are paying fees into the NWF with the expectation that their
money will be used for the construction of a waste
Money exists to create a nuclear waste storage facility – 15 billion has been
allocated for Yucca Mountain and it is not being used.
The Hill 2014
90
“House Rejects Bids to Abandon Nuclear Waste Site at Yucca Mountain”
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/211890-house-rejects-bids-toabandon-yucca-mountain
The House on Thursday defeated two proposals to prevent development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository in Nevada.¶ Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) offered two amendments to the fiscal 2015 Energy-Water
appropriations bill to block the potential facility.¶ One of her amendments, rejected 96-326, would have stricken a
section of the bill preventing the use of funds to "irrevocably remove the possibility that Yucca Mountain
may be a repository option in the future."¶ Titus urged fellow lawmakers to block construction of a
nuclear repository in her state.¶ "Nevada is not a wasteland," Titus said.¶ Rep. Steven
Horsford (D-Nev.) said construction of a repository at Yucca Mountain would threaten
Nevada's tourism industry.¶ "People come to Vegas for the bright lights, not for radioactive
glow," Horsford said.¶ But Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said that the government should
continue investing in a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain to avoid wasting
previously allocated funds.¶ "I am not trying to be a jerk. I know it is tough," Shimkus said.
"Thirty-two states have put in money to the Nuclear Waste Fund on a promise that the
federal government would have a site. Your amendment would say no, we are just going to
walk away again."¶ Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the chairman of the House Energy-Water
Appropriations subcommittee, argued that the administration had stalled action on Yucca
Mountain simply so that President Obama could win Nevada's electoral votes. ¶ "We need to
wait for the safety review by the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] to be done to
decide what we are going to do moving forward, instead of political decisions that have
been made on Yucca Mountain in the past," Simpson said.¶ Titus's second amendment,
defeated 75-344, would eliminate all $150 million allocated for nuclear waste disposal
and instead divert the funds toward reducing the deficit. Titus said the entire account
would ultimately be used toward developing Yucca Mountain.¶ "The legislation before us
directs $150 million to be spent on 'activities related to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.' For my constituents in
southern Nevada, we know that that is code for 'build the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository,'" Titus
said.¶ But Simpson argued it would be wasteful to abandon the study of the Yucca Mountain site. ¶ "We can
argue as to whether Yucca Mountain is the right place or not," Simpson said. "It is the most studied piece of
earth on this Earth. We know more about it than anywhere else. Yet, for political reasons, we have stopped it,
and it will truly be a $15 billion waste if we don't proceed."
91
On-shore nuclear waste cleanup is expensive - $155 billion at just one site
Dininny in 2013 – Shannon(Associated Press correspondent,),”Feds: Nuclear waste may be leaking
into soil from Hanford site”,NBC News,http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/22/19088481-fedsnuclear-waste-may-be-leaking-into-soil-from-hanford-site?lite - MWH
At the height of World War II, the federal government created Hanford in the remote sagebrush of
eastern Washington as part of a hush-hush project to build the atomic bomb. The site ultimately
produced plutonium for the world's first atomic blast and for one of two atomic bombs dropped on
Japan, and it continued production through the Cold War. Today, it is the nation's most contaminated
nuclear site, with cleanup expected to last decades. The effort — with a price tag of about $2 billion
annually — has cost taxpayers $40 billion to date and is estimated will cost $115 billion more. The most
challenging task so far has been the removal of highly radioactive waste from the 177 aging,
underground tanks and construction of a plant to treat that waste.
92
AT: Environment Disad
Non-Unique - Status quo has higher chances of radioactive waste to be leaked into the
ocean-Aquifers and surrounding rocks allow contaminated water into the ocean
ENENEWS in 2014
(ENE News, April 16th 2014, Marine Chemist: Highly contaminated waste flowing in aquifer below Fukushima — Mag: Groundwater can ‘erupt’
from seafloor offshore — Gov’t expert warned about radioactive substances ‘springing up’ in Pacific (PHOTOS), http://enenews.com/marinechemist-highly-contaminated-radioactive-waste-flowing-aquifer-below-fukushima-mag-groundwater-erupt-seafloor-offshore-many-ways-existdetermine-seeping-photo KG)
TEPCO has acknowledged ongoing direct radionuclide inputs to the local aquifer with the potential for
transport to the coastal ocean via submarine groundwater discharge. Contaminants may be introduced
into groundwater flow underground toward ocean [and] can influence [sea life]
abundance ¶ Groundwater often flows for long distances ¶ Submarine groundwater discharge [will]
often carry a substantial amount of pollutants ¶ Water at the bottom of the ocean — [Scientists try to
determine] where groundwater is entering the sea, how much is flowing out, and how fast. Freshwater
springs erupt on seafloor near many shores ¶ At some sites, water flows from onshore aquifers to sea
through porous rocks and then seeps up through seafloor ¶ Scientists [are now] more aware of large
volume of submarine groundwater discharge in some locations ¶ Factor that controls submarine
groundwater discharge is elevation of water table on land [adding] more pressure on water in aquifers
and more readily water is driven offshore ¶ Radon a radioactive element found in nearly all soil and
rock. Groundwater contains much higher concentrations of [it] than seawater.
Burying the nuclear waste is safe- it would take centuries for contamination to happen
J.M. Brewers No Year Marine Chemistry Division Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth,
Nova Scotia; “Sea Dumping of Radioactive Wastes”; Nuclear Journal of Canada; https://canteach.candu.org/Content%20Library/NJC-1-4-03.pdf
While the IAEA Definition and Recommendations set the limits for the amounts of material that can be dumped and impose constraints as to
the methods and locations for sea dumping, safety assessments of sea dumping operations are normally the responsibility of individual national
regulatory authorities. Safety assessments for sea dumping of radioactive wastes in the Northeastern Atlantic Ocean are carried out
multilaterally under the NEA Multilateral Consultation Mechanism [NEA, 1977] as part of the quinquennial site suitability review process. These
reviews are intended to outline the features of the site that make it acceptable for dumping under the LDC / IAEA criteria, define the nature and
composition of the wastes dumped, cover the process of optimization (both in terms of comparisons between sea dumping and other options,
and optimization specific to the sea dumping route of disposal), provide estimates of current doses and predictions of future doses resulting
from the practice, and demonstrate compliance with the provisions of the LDC (e.g., the provisions of Annex III) and the IAEA
Recommendations under the Convention. During the process of site SUitability review carried out in 1979 [NEA, 1980], it was recognized that
there existed a number of deficiencies in the information pertinent to the dumping site, which had the effect of limiting the degree to which
predictions of consequences could be made. Estimates of dose consequences of aggregate dumping were based upon the same models used as
the basis for the 1978 IAEA Definition, which, as already noted, were conservative. No attempt was made to estimate collective doses
associated with dumping because of a conviction that such estimates would be subject to extremely large (several orders of magnitude)
uncertainties. This meant (and was stated) that the ICRP principle of optimizatiun could only be applied to comparison among options, or within
the dumping option itself, on a wholly qualitative basis by individual national authorities. It was noted that it would be desirable if this
deficiency was corrected through the acquisition ofmore specific information on the consequences of dumping, and of other disposal options,
for optimization purposes. Consequently, in the conclusions of the review, it was stated that: 'There is a need to develop a site-specific model of
the transfers of radionuclides, particularly on short and medium time-scales, from the dump area to human populations. Therefore, there is
clearly a need to continue investigations presently aimed at improving our knowledge of transport processes in the NorthEast Atlantic. It is
recommended that a well defined programme planbe developed over the next 12 months within the appropriate international framework to
meet this objective.' It was further concluded that 'although the next assessment of the suitability of the present dump site will normally take
place in five years, it is recommended that a review of the scientific basis for making the assessment and of the growing body of knowledge
about radionuclide transport processes in the North-East Atlantic be undertaken before that time.' It was for these reasons that the NEA
established, in 1981, a Coordinated Research and Environmental Surveillance Program (CRESP) [NEA, 1981]. The basis of this program was,
93
predominantly, research to improve the quality of the site suitability review and safety assurance - particularly optimization - procedures.
Safety assurance procedures used for sea dumping of radioactive waste are based upon the use of
predictive models to describe the results of various scenarios for ocean disposal of radioactive wastes.
Since, in the main, the radionuclides released from previously dumped wastes are not detectable, even within the
area of the present dumpsite, heavy reliance has to be placed upon the use of models that depict the processes controlling the transport and
behaviour of analogue stable elements. In fact,
the weakest aspect of the most recent predictive models is the
reliability of representations of bio-accumulation and sediment-water partitioning processes for
radionuclides that are vitally important to an appreciation of the rates at which radionuclides are able to
enter exposure pathways for man, and the likely effects upon populations of organisms. Significant
individual exposures are many decades, perhaps centuries, distant, but the scenarios used for safety
evaluation conceive of ocean dumping and direct discharges continuing for the life of the nuclear fission
industry, currently projected to be 500 years. Early and reliable prediction of consequences is important
if the ocean's resources are to be continuously protected and the assimilative capacity of the ocean is
not be be exceeded. The process of refining both the models for, and the process of, safety assurance is not only dependent upon the
willingness of nations to be involved and to contribute to this kind of work but also on the acquisition of better understanding of the processes
of transport, behaviour, and bio-accumulation of radionuclides and their analogues in the marine environment. Oceanographic scientists and
health physicists, respectively, have played a very important role in the development of 1) oceanographic models that take account of physical,
biological, and geochemical processes in the ocean; and 2) radiological models that ensure that all important routes of humane exposure have
been identified and considered in establishing the suitability and safety of this practice. It must be remembered that the population potentially
exposed to radiation resulting from this practice is extremely widespread. Indeed, for the longer-lived nuclides, it is the group containing heavy
consumers of seafood in areas very remote from the northeast Atlantic that may be potentially the most exposed. Several non-dumping
nations, including Canada, have adopted the stance that they should participate in the assessment of such practices that have potential effects
on Widespread populations, not only to ensure that their own populations are adequately protected but also to satisfy international
obligations, such as those under the London Dumping Convention. Such involvement has had a very significant impact on the nature of
negotiations on the subject and has given these countries an enhanced reputation for objective assessment and as sources of sound scientific
advice. In the OECD / NEA forum, countries such as Canada and the United States have been very successful in stimulating substantial
improvements in the nature and quality of the safety assessment process and have been willing to contribute to the acquisition of scientific
information that is required to improve the technical aspects of these assessments.
Previous Dumping makes environmental impacts non-unique Kozakiewicz 14
Patrick Kozakiewicz, January 27, 2014, Reporter of the CBRNe Portal, The disposal of
nuclear waste into the world’s oceans, Headline Threats, http://www.cbrneportal.com/thedisposal-of-nuclear-waste-into-the-worlds-oceans/
After World War II, for many decades, the nuclear industries used the oceans as a dumping
ground. It was only two decades ago that dumping from ships was internationally banned.
From 1946 through 1993, thirteen nuclear capable countries used the ocean as an ends to
dispose of nuclear/radioactive waste. The waste materials included industrial, medical and
weapons, both liquids and solids housed in various containers, as well as reactor vessels,
with and without spent or damaged nuclear fuel.
The United States alone dumped vast quantities of nuclear material off its coasts between
1946 and 1970—more than 110,000 containers. More specifically, for up to 15 years after
World War II, the USS Calhoun County dumped thousands of tons of radioactive waste into
the Atlantic Ocean, often without heeding the simplest health precautions. In order to make
sure the waste-containing drums sank, the sailors would sometimes shoot them with rifles.
On top of that in the Pacific, there is an estimated 47,000 containers which lie at the bottom
94
of the ocean floor near San Francisco and Japan has also disposed of a magnitude of
radioactive waste into the ocean.
95
Damage is already done to the ocean – Fukushima, British nuclear fuels
plant, French nuclear reprocessing plant, and Soviets already dump waste
into the ocean.
Grossman in 2011
Elizabeth (the author of Chasing Molecules, a writer about environmental and science issues for Scientific American), Radioactivity in
the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless, Environment 360,
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/radioactivity_in_the_ocean_diluted_but_far_from_harmless/2391/
With contaminated water from Japan’s
crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to
pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might
affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are
that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain.¶ Over the past half-century,
the world has seen its share of incidents in which radioactive material has been dumped or
discharged into the oceans. A British nuclear fuels plant has repeatedly released
radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, a French nuclear reprocessing plant has
discharged similar waste into the English Channel, and for decades the Soviets
dumped large quantities of radioactive material into the Arctic Ocean, Kara Sea, and
Barents Sea. That radioactive material included reactors from at least 16 Soviet nuclearpowered submarines and icebreakers, and large amounts of liquid and solid nuclear
waste from USSR military bases and weapons plants.¶ Still, the world has never quite seen an event
like the one unfolding now off the coast of eastern Japan, in which thousands of tons of
radioactively contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant are pouring
directly into the ocean. And though the vastness of the ocean has the capacity to dilute
nuclear contamination, signs of spreading radioactive material are being found off
Japan, including the discovery of elevated concentrations of radioactive cesium and iodine in small fish several dozen
miles south of Fukushima, and high levels of radioactivity in seawater 25 miles offshore.¶
96
AT: Federalism
Federalism is trashed now – Arizona proves
Harmeyer 13 – trial attorney w/ extensive litigation experience in commercial business litigation,
products liability, and general civil litigation (Jeff G. Harmeyer, 6/18/13, “The Supreme Court and the
Effective End of a Federalist System,” http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=49691)
In case you hadn’t already heard, the
Supreme Court by a vote of 7-2 struck down an Arizona voter proposition that
had required that potential voters augment their federal motor voter forms with proof that they have
the legal right to vote — be it by showing a copy of a license, a passport, a social security card, or any other similar kind of
documentation. The people of Arizona, who are enjoined by SCOTUS from being able to police their own borders — that authority, the Court
ruled, being vested solely at the federal level, with the federal government having at its discretion the right to ignore federal immigration laws
entirely — were likewise (and as a consequence of the former) having their votes canceled out by fraudulent votes from ineligible voters, many
of them illegals. So they determined by ballot initiative to protect the integrity of their voting system within the state, something Justices
Scalia, Roberts, and Kennedy — along with the left liberals — now say they cannot do. This despite what is a clear history of the separation of
state and federal authority over election responsibilities, with the states, as a condition for ratifying the Constitution, retaining for themselves
the right to determine who is eligible to vote (within the bounds of civil rights and citizenship concerns). This is precisely why we have
Constitutional amendments post-slavery and with respect to women’s suffrage: the states had to ratify by 2/3 those changes. The upshot is,
the Court, incorporating a “conservative” textualist and a “conservative” federalist (along with whatever the hell
it is Anthony Kennedy might be) among the majority opinion, has essentially removed the state buffer from
federal election jurisdiction, a move that completely inverts the intent of the framers (and ratifiers),
who viewed the states’ sovereignty as a necessary
and profoundly important (and moral) check on the power of an
always insatiable centralizing impulse. And just like that, together with Wickard and Kelo and Raich and a ruling in favor of federal jurisdiction
over immigration policy, it has enshrined precedent that corrupts the integrity of a constitutional republic. In fact, it neuters it entirely,
changing it into something else entirely. Or, to put it another way, the “conservative” SCOTUS has now concluded that of course the
government can write health care plans for private companies, force those private companies to sell them, fix the prices of those plans, and
force Americans to purchase them under penalty of a “tax” on not doing what they were told; it has
ruled that states who joined
the union only after insisting upon a Bill of Rights that included the 9th and 10th amendments as a
protection against potential and inevitable attempts at federal overreach have no legal right nor
recourse to protect their own borders
and thereby protect the property and franchise of their legal citizens, that concern, per
SCOTUS ruling, falling entirely to the Executive in the swamp city of Washington DC, leaving the fate of border state residents to a man who has
already shown he will use his agencies to punish those who don’t toe the progressive / establishment line (be it through the EPA, HHS, Interior,
or most obviously the IRS), and who understands that the way to turn reliably red states blue is to take away their ability to tamp down on the
voter fraud that comes by way of illegal immigration, itself a crime that the President and his Justice Department, along with DHS, don’t feel
compelled to pursue or prosecute; it has concluded that though states can’t really protect their own sovereignty, their enforcement officers can
collect DNA as a condition of arrest — a procedure they determined wasn’t unduly intrusive — all this taking place in the context of a law
enforcement milieu in which officers cannot ask about citizenship status. All of which is proof that
we no longer live in the
country of our founding . And the people who have changed it are politicians and jurists at the federal
level whose power and wealth grows as a direct result of their willingness to repudiate intent — and of a public’s willingness to abide a
linguistic incoherence that I’ve demonstrated time and again moves us inexorably leftward. And is designed to do just that. It’s all over but for
the shouting. Lie back and think of England. And King George. Because that’s where we are now, anyway. Only the wigs have changed.
That’s specifically true in the context of nuclear waste – only the plan can restore critical checks on
federal power
Davenport 93 – Private Practice, Olympia, Washington; Of Counsel, Riddell, Williams, Bullitt &
Walkinshaw, Seattle, Washington; Special Deputy Attorney General, State of Nevada, 1983 to present;
Staff of the Environment and Public Works Committee, U.S. Senate, 1980-82 (James Davenport, Summer
97
1993, “THE FEDERAL STRUCTURE: CAN CONGRESS COMMANDEER NEVADA TO PARTICIPATE IN ITS
FEDERAL HIGH LEVEL WASTE DISPOSAL PROGRAM?” 12 Va. Envtl. L.J. 539)
***we do not endorse the gendered language in this evidence
I. Introduction In
1987 Congress passed what is known locally as the Screw Nevada Bill, terminating all investigations except the one at Yucca
Mountain . Despite the site's manifest uncertainties
- its history of geologic turbulence; its potential, as a world-class mineral district, for
being quarried by unsuspecting future miners; its unlikely location, thousands of miles from 90 percent of the nation's 110 nuclear-power plants - Congress
was persuaded by one simple fact: with fewer than a million people and but four legislative representatives, Nevada was the
weakest kid on the block. "It was the shabbiest, sleaziest political maneuver
I've
ever
seen," says former
governor Grant Sawyer, now chairman of the State's Commission of Nuclear Projects. n1 [*541] This article examines the national disposal system for nuclear waste
under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), as enacted in 1982 and amended in 1987 and 1992, focusing particularly on the constitutionality
of the
Act's "notice of disapproval" n2 and "congressional override" n3 provisions. Part I of this article describes the notice of
disapproval and congressional override provisions of the NWPA, including a brief analysis of their legislative history. Part II discusses the advantages of the federal
structure as a protection against the exercise of autocratic congressional power, and studies the United States Supreme Court's approach to federalism in two
recent cases. Parts III addresses Nevada's experience under the NWPA. Parts IV and V analyze the constitutionality of the notice of disapproval and congressional
override provisions of the NWPA in light of these two Supreme Court holdings. Part VI discusses the "environmental subsidy" imposed by the NWPA .
Part VII
concludes the article with a more practical, workable and constitutionally-defensible alternative to the
existing waste disposal siting process. A. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act's Notice of Disapproval and Congressional Override Provisions The problem of
what to do with spent fuel from nuclear power plants and high-level nuclear waste from nuclear weapons production led
Congress to create a national disposal system with the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act
(NWPA). n4 The 1982 NWPA, a
compromise, required the Department of Energy (DOE) to open a permanent waste repository by 1998 and to
recommend a second site in a different geographical and geological location. n5 The first repository site was to be
selected from among multiple candidates, after a seven year "characterization" process. n6 The 1982 law also provided that the site selected
by DOE and the President would be subject to a state veto, which Congress could override. This state veto, or
notice of disapproval provision, enabled any state to formally express its disapproval of a federally designated
repository site within sixty days after the President designated it: Upon the submission by the President to the Congress of a recommendation of a site for a
repository, the Governor or legislature of the State in which such site is located may disapprove the site designation and submit to the Congress a notice of
disapproval. Such Governor or legislature may submit such a notice of disapproval to the Congress not later than the 60 days after the date that the President
recommends such site to the Congress under 42 U.S.C. 10134. A notice of disapproval shall be considered to be submitted to the Congress on the date of the
transmittal of such notice of disapproval to the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate. Such notice of disapproval shall be accompanied
by a statement of reasons explaining why such Governor or legislature disapproved the recommended repository site involved. n7 Also in the 1982 NWPA,
Congress reserved to itself the right to override any state objections to a federally-designated
repository : If any notice of disapproval of a repository site designation has been submitted to the Congress under 42 U.S.C. 10136 or 10138 after a
recommendation for approval of such site is made by the President under 42 U.S.C. 10134, such site shall be disapproved unless, during the first period of 90
calendar days of continuous session of the Congress after the date of the receipt by the Congress of such notice of disapproval, the Congress passes a resolution of
repository siting approval in accordance with this subsection approving such site, and such resolution thereafter becomes law. n8 B. Congressional Policy Concerns
that Gave Rise to the Notice of Disapproval and Congressional Override Provisions Congress' early
discussions about the problem of what to do with
spent nuclear fuel had focused on the pivotal question: should state or federal law prevail in siting
decisions? The N ational C onference of S tate L egislatures, which favored giving the states an active voice in the
selection of nuclear waste repository sites, circulated a policy statement in support of an absolute state veto
over federal siting decisions. Congressman Morris Udall, then Chairman of the House Interior Committee, recognized and endorsed this policy statement in a 1977
article: "trends
in state legislation indicate that exclusive Federal pre-emption of waste management and
disposal is outdated public policy." n9 However, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Energy Committee, then Senators James McClure
and Bennett Johnston, and the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public
Works, then Senators Alan Simpson and George Mitchell, took a different view. Apparently believing that an absolute state veto would be unworkable in practice,
they successfully insisted on the inclusion of a congressional override provision in the final version of the NWPA. n10 In short, through
the state veto
and congressional override language of the 1982 NWPA, Congress defined the time and method by which states could register their
98
objections to the federal repository siting decision and reserved to itself the right to overcome those objections. Congress thus ensured
that it
would have the final word in the designation of a nuclear waste repository site. n11 [*544]
99
AT: Legal
Sub Sea-bed disposal would be legal—it’s NOT dumping.
Bala 14
Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review
Amal Bala, Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the Disposal Method Could Succeed Technically,
Could It Also Succeed Legally?, 41 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 455 (2014), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/
ealr/vol41/iss2/6 455
CONCLUSION¶ Nuclear power
is a relatively common yet controversial method of producing¶ electricity. Many
eventually such fuel becomes exhausted and
requires careful¶ storage and disposal because of its dangerous radioactive properties. The United¶ States
nuclear power plants use uranium fuel to sustain nuclear¶ fission, but
produces a large amount of nuclear waste every year that many civilian¶ nuclear power plants store on site. The United States is searching for
permanent¶ solutions to this growing amount of nuclear waste, but America
favors¶ land-based disposal methods and is
not giving serious consideration to alternative¶ methods, including sub-seabed burial. If further scientific
research could¶ show that sub-seabed burial of nuclear waste works properly and would seal¶ the waste beneath the ocean floor, the
United States could probably engage in¶ at least some form of the disposal method without
transgressing the international¶ and domestic laws analyzed in this Note.¶ mill of any kind, any refuse matter of any kind or
description whatever” into America’s navigable¶ waters. Id.¶ 262 See London Convention of 1972, supra note 96, 1046 U.N.T.S. at 140–41
(requiring nations to¶ prohibit dumping under Article IV, and defining dumping in Article III as “any deliberate disposal at¶ sea of wastes or
other matter”); Hollister & Nadis, supra note 115, at 62 (discussing SNF burial¶ through deep drilling whereby muddy clays on the ocean floor
“would prevent [high-level radioactive¶ waste] from seeping into the waters above”).¶ 263 Hollister
& Nadis, supra note 115, at 63–64
(calling for further research on sub-seabed disposal¶ based on encouraging results from preliminary
studies).¶ 264 See id. (stating that “scientists would want to know exactly what the consequences would be if¶ radioactive substances
diffused to the seafloor on their own,” within a context of ecological protection¶ of the marine environment). Such unintended diffusion of SNF
would have implications for the legality¶ of sub-seabed disposal. See id.¶ 265 See id. at 65 (arguing that dumping “is a wholly inappropriate
label” for sub-seabed burial¶ through deep drilling
The plan is legal under international law – Dumping is prohibited, but there is a
difference between dumping and sub sea bed disposal
Bala 14, 4/11/14—editor in chief at the Environmental Affairs Law Review, law student at Boston
College Law School, (Amal, "Sub-Seabed Burial of Nuclear Waste: If the Disposal Method Could Succeed
Technically, Could It Also Succeed Legally?", Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, 41 B.C.
Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 455,
lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2147&context=ealr)//twonily
On an international level, nations across the
world remain justified in their eagerness to prohibit the dumping of
SNF into the world’s seas because high-level radioactive waste can cause severe harm to the environment
and human health. 197 Congress is understandably sensitive to the disposal of radioactive waste in to America’s waters for the same
reason. 198 On a conceptual level, however, significant differences seem to exist between ocean dumping and the
burial techniques of sub-seabed disposal. 199 I n the latter method, waste and waste canisters would not remain in contact
with the surrounding ocean water, at least according to preliminary scientific research and tests. 200 Therefore, if sub-seabed burial
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actually works
properly, dumping might not be an appropriate label for the method because waste canisters
would pass through the water on their way to permanent burial beneath the ocean floor and would not
remain within the water . 201 Further research would be necessary to determine whether sub-seabed burial is a viable disposal option
from a technical standpoint. 202 If such research shows that sub-seabed burial would work properly and would not release SNF into the water,
the United States could
probably engage in the method, at least in some form, without placing America in
violation of international or domestic laws that regulate ocean dumping. 203 1. International Law International
law probably would not prohibit the United States from implementing assuming that sub-seabed burial works properly and does
not disperse waste into the water. 204 America ’ s international commitments appear somewhat limited in this regard considering that the
United States has not ratified either of two major treaties that regulate oceanic activity. 205 The London
Convention of 1972 and
subsequent 1996 Protocol that replaced the earlier treaty both ban oceanic dumping of wastes, but in different ways. 206 The
Protocol states that signatory nations must “ prohibit the dumping of any wastes or other matter, ” with limited exceptions that do not include
SNF. 207 The Protocol also includes “ any storage of wastes or other matter in the seabed and the subsoil thereof ” within its definition of
dumping. 208 T he Protocol therefore appears to treat dumping and sub - seabed disposal as equiv a- lent and forbids both. 209 Interestingly,
however, the
Protocol defines sea as “ all marine waters other than the internal waters of States, as well as the seabed and the subsoil
thereof; it does not include sub - seabed repositories accessed only from land. ” 210 This appears to create an exception for subseabed disposal of waste in a repository beneath the ocean floor, with access exclusively by land. 211 In
contrast, the London Convention of 1972 does not address sub-seabed disposal at all . 212 The London Convention only
states that signatory nations must “ prohibit the dumping of any wastes or other matter in whatever form or condition, ” with
limited potential exceptions that do not include SNF , and a list of permanently prohibited materials that include s high - level radioactive waste
. 213 The London Convention defines dumping as including “ any delibe r- ate disposal at sea of wastes or other matter from vessels, aircraft,
platforms or other man - made structures at sea. ” 214 Shallow penetrat ion of the seabed by dropping SNF canisters overboard could
potentially fit within this definition of dumping, but deep
burial through drilling could achieve greater depths and
might not constitute “disposal at sea” under the London Convention considering that the SNF would merely pass through the
water on the way to burial deep beneath the ocean floor . 215 The United States has not ratified the 1996 Protocol, which
generally forbids sub seabed disposal as a form of dumping. 216 The United States is only a party to the original London Convention
of 1972, which does not mention sub-seabed disposal. 217 Therefore, the United States is not bound to refrain from sub-seabed disposal under
the Protocol . 218 The United States would also not necessarily be bound to refrain from all forms of sub - seabed disposal under the London
Convention , but this is assuming that sub - seabed disposal of SNF works properly would not disperse high - level radioactive waste into the sea
. 219 If the United States were to bury SNF into the seabed, and if the waste were to enter the water under any circumstances, America would
probably violate its obligations under the London Convention. 220 Deep
burial through drilling, however, could allow the
United States to bypass the London Convention’ s definition of dumping. 221 The United Nations Convention on
the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is another major treaty addressing pollution into the world ’ s oceans . 222 UNCLOS defines oceanic dumping as
“any deliberate disposal of wastes or other matter from vessels, aircraft, platforms or other man-made structures at sea ” and states that
signatory nations must “ adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment by dumping. ” 223 The
treaty requires signatory nations to take actions necessa ry to regulate pollution of the ocean “ from any source .” 224
UNCLOS does
not appear to explicitly forbid sub-seabed disposal of wastes, however, and does not appear to mention the method
explicitly anywhere in its text. 225 Despite participating in the creation of UNCLOS, the United States has not ratified
the treaty . 226 The United States has incorporated the substantive provisions of UNCLOS as national policy but lacks an international
obligation to follow the treaty. 227 Therefore, the United States could engage in sub-seabed disposal of SNF without
violating any obligations under UNCLOS because America is not a party to the treaty and has no such obligation s in the first
place. 228 In contrast to the previous discussion of the London Convention, sub-seabed disposal that accidentally releases high - level
radioactive waste would not place the United States in violation of UNCLOS because America has no binding obligations under a treaty that it
has not ratified . 229 For America’s purposes under international law, whether UNCLOS could forbid sub-seabed disposal of SNF under various
interpretations or scenarios is mostly irrelevant because the United States is not a party to the treaty by lack of ratification . 230 In summar y,
under two major treaties that regulate dumping wastes into the world ’ s seas (the 1996 Protocol to the London Convention , and UNCLOS), the
United States would not violate any binding obligations under international law by engaging in sub - seabed
burial of SNF because America has no such binding obligations in the first place through a lack of
ratification . 231 The Uni t- ed States is a party to the original London Convention of 1972 but could conceivably engage in sub - seabed
burial using deep drilling methods th at might avoid the treaty ’ s definition of dumping. 232 Whether sub - seabed burial of America ’ s SNF
would violate other international law is beyond the scope of this Note , but assuming that sub - seabed disposal works properly and is gene rally not a form of oceanic dumping, similar results could be possible . 233
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