Due to the lack of a common site to store spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants the waste is currently held on site. Once used up, the fuel rods are moved to a cooling pool about 20 feet deep inside the facility in order to allow the material to cool below temperatures which can melt concrete and steel (Childress, 2009). After sufficient cooling (a couple of years) the rods are then placed in large concrete lined, steel encased containers about the size of a small tractor trailer container. These containers are sometimes stored below ground in even more concrete and steel but some sites have no choice but to store the containers above ground due to an excess of waste. While these containers are viewed as safe for the short run and maybe even for thousands of years they will not outlast the life of their radioactive contents (Wald, 2009).
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Despite the aggressive fight from the state of Nevada, Yucca Mountain was designated as the future site of around 70,000 tons of nuclear waste from the US. President Obama has basically destroyed the so far $7 billion dollar effort by only allocating around $200 million to the DOE budget for the upcoming year. Yet, Yucca Mountain was never going to be the solution because of its maximum capacity. Most nuclear plants are seeking to re-license for further operation, and combined with all the waste that lies in temporary storage sites, 84,000 metric tons of waste would need to be place underground by 2035. The capacity of Yucca is only 70,000 metric tons (Hansen, 2001). Along with the mountains inability to hold of the waste we have and will produce, it addresses environmental justice issues because as opponents of the site contest, the state of Nevada doesn't produce any nuclear waste from power plants (Marshall, 2005).
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