The Problem Of Atomic Waste (Part II)

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Ecoscience

by ANNE AND PAUL EHRLICH

Paul Ehrlich (Bing Professor of Population Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University) and Anne Ehrlich (Senior Research Associate Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford) are familiar names to ecologists and environmentalists everywhere. As well they should be. Because it was Paul and Anne who—through their extensive writing and research—gave special meaning to the words "population", "resources", and "environment" in the latter part of the 1960's. (They also coined the term coevolution, and did a lot to make ecology the household word it is today.) But while most folks are aware of the Ehrlichs' popular writing in the areas of ecology and overpopulation (most of us—for instance—have read Paul's book The Population Bomb) ... far too few people have any idea of how deeply the Ehrlichs are involved in ecological research (research of the type that tends to be published only in technical journals and college textbooks). That's why it pleases us to be able to present—on a regular basis—the following semi-technical column by authors/ecologists/educators Anne and Paul Ehrlich.

In our last column (MOTHER NO. 54) we left the reactor—produced radioactive wastes "cooling" at the power plant while those isotopes with short half-lives decayed away. The question now is: What can be done with the remaining long-lived wastes . . . those that will continue to be deadly for 1,000 to 500,000 years?

In theory, these reactor by-products can be shipped to a "reprocessing plant". If the wastes have been held at the power plant for 150 days, they will only contain about three percent of the radioactivity that they had when they were removed from the reactor. But, though this figure may sound small, these elements are still emitting an abundance of lethal radiation.

Furthermore, the heat generated by continuing radioactive decay is so intense that the used fuel rods would melt if they weren't constantly cooled during shipment. Therefore, any shipment must take place in heavily shielded, cooled casks which can weigh from 35 to 100 metric tons ... depending upon whether they're to be shipped by road or rail.

Needless to say, one of the first problems of nuclear waste management has been to design these containers so that they can stand up to possible accidents in transit ... such as a speeding train hitting a cask-bearing truck at a grade crossing. Considerable engineering effort has no doubt gone into these containers. We are, at any rate, constantly assured by the nuclear industry that an accident involving cask rupture is virtually impossible. (And, If the industry has its way, we'll get to test the reliability of these containers. Because by the end of the century, thousands of cask trips will be made every year.)

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