Nuclear Waste
Is nuclear power the best type of energy in today’s growing economy? The experts say yes, but are the nuclear waste worth all the trouble? There are many organizations that disagree with the production of nuclear power. In this essay we will take a look at the history, the current events surrounding the issue, and the anticipated future of this issue. Nuclear power isn’t wrong, it’s what they are doing with the waste is the issue at hand.
Before 1976, Britain had no idea what is was going to do with the nuclear waste produced from the military and nuclear electricity programs. At the beginning of the nuclear program some of the waste was dumped into the ocean and the rest was kept at the nuclear facilities. There have been many attempts to find reasonable locations for a dump. In late 1976, reports began to appear in the press that a team of UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) scientists from Harwell in Oxfordshire had selected the Highlands and Islands and the Scottish Uplands as offering the most suitable granite formations for a high-level nuclear waste (HLW) dump. At this time there were about 127 areas that the UKAEA had in mind for a dump. These areas ranged in size from 5to 6,000 kilometers. After months of planning the geologists had 8 possible locations for drilling. The only problem with they had to get permission and out of the 8 possible locations only 3 of them were sent permission applications. Two of them were in Scotland and one just south of the border. After the collapse of the UKAEA’s search for a HLW dump at the end of 1981, the Government decided instead to begin a search for dumpsites for low and intermediate-level waste (LLW and ILW), in the expectation that burying these wastes would be less controversial.
In 1982, the Government set up Nirex, the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive, but only gave it responsibility to implement a strategy for the disposal of LLW and ILW. In 1983, a resolution calling for a...