Nuke Facts

From a physicist sympathetic to Obama, a few nuke facts:

Nuclear Energy

Conventional wisdom: Nuclear power would be great if only we could figure out how to get rid of the horrific waste. Plutonium lasts 24,000 years. There is absolutely no way we can keep that waste safe for such a ridiculously long time.

The hard science: Yes, plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, but it is so insoluble in groundwater that most experts agree it is easy to store safely. Additionally, plutonium can be reprocessed for use as fuel in reactors—that’s what France does. The real worry about nuclear waste is the other radioactive elements involved in the process.

How bad is this other waste? The U.S. government has put fantastic restrictions on allowed levels of nuclear leakage. Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility, for example, is required to demonstrate that people living downstream, and drinking all their water from underground wells, will not get more than 15 millirems of radiation exposure each year from leakage. To put that number in perspective, those same people will get an average of 350 millirems per year from nature and typical medical procedures.

It’s true that after 300 years, nuclear waste is still about 100 times more radioactive than the original uranium that was removed from the earth. But even this isn’t as scary as it sounds. If the waste is stored underground in such a way that there’s only a 10 percent chance that 10 percent of it will leak—which should be more than doable—the risk will be no worse than if we had never mined the uranium in the first place.

Message for Obama: Politicians believe the problem with nuclear waste is technical in nature. The scientists and engineers believe the problem is political. Mr. Obama, you need to explain the numbers to the public, because you are probably the only person in the United States who can convince citizens that nuclear waste storage really is a solved problem.

Oil prices have dropped with the slowdown of the economy, but developing energy at home is critical for the future of our economy and national security. And with more revelations of bogus global warming numbers we need to get real on energy and the environment, balancing the risk to our way of life from being starved for energy. After all, we are the most responsible entrepreneurs and consumers in the world.