That fungus among us may be the answer to uranium-polluted soils eventually being brought back into use.
Researchers at Dundee Unversity in the UK have determined that fungi can block uranium from finding its way into plants, animals or the water supply.
Scientists have found that what they call free-living and plant fungi can, “colonise depleted uranium surfaces and transform the metal into uranyl phosphate minerals”.
Those steel tanks you see are some of the 177 that contain 53 million gallons of heavy metals, acids and solvents. They also contain plutonium, cesium, strontium and uranium. All are buried underground.
Of those 177, sixty-seven are confirmed leakers, meaning their contents are leaching into the soil and headed toward the Columbia River. Most have exceeded their anticipated 50 year life span, creating fear of a catastrophic tank failure.
Thousands of tons of radioactive and hazardous waste has been buried in unlined landfills and 450 billion gallons of liquid waste has been poured into ponds, ditches and drainfields at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the state of Washington.
This is the third and final segment of our interview with Robert Loux, Director of the agency for Nuclear Projects in Nevada.
In our previous podcasts, Yucca Mountain: The Nevada Case Podcast, Part One, Mr. Loux talked about his agency, it’s mission and why the state is so critical of the DOE and it’s practices.
In the second presentation, Yucca Mountain: The Nevada Cast Podcast, Part Two, he talks about the regulatory process and unsuitability of the mountain as a long-term repository for high-level nuclear waste.
It’s time to sequester voters in Nevada, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton headed for the jugular vein today by declaring if she’s president, Yucca Mountain will be a thing of the past.
The State of Nevada has opposed the Yucca Mountain project since it’s inception, and now, years overdue and billions of taxpayers dollars later, it’s still at least 10 years away from completion.
Amid increased activity signaling a possible resurgence of interest in nuclear power facilities, comes word from Nevada that isn’t at all surprising.
Ward Sproat, shown in the Las Vegas Review-Journal photo at the left, is director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and announced Tuesday that Yucca Mountain in Nevada is still a long way from receiving any spent nuclear fuel. Sproat told Nevada’s Legislative Committee on High-Level Nuclear Waste, that lack of funding will result in significant worker layoffs at the facility. He is quoted as saying, “They’re going to come in waves”.
Podcast, if you’d rather listen: yucca-layoffs.mp3
Here’s the scenario. You’re a young boy living in southern Utah, not far from Nevada’s atomic testing grounds. The mushroom clouds that rose in the sky were fascinating to see, as was the greenish tint that hung in the western sky for weeks. As your family drives from your home along the road to Zion National Park, you notice state troopers warning drivers to roll up their car windows, even when it was quite warm, and you wondered why.
Audio Here: utah-nuclear.mp3
Years later, your father dies of lymphoma, and you realize it may have been the result of breathing that green air from the atomic testing range. And you finally understand why the state troopers warned motorists about the dirty air.
A long time ago, I heard, or read, that the human animal is the only creature on earth that’s content with living in it’s own waste. The analogy being that most animals choose to leave their waste products somewhere outside their nests. Our nest is this beautiful, blue marble, maybe the only one of its kind, and we’ve treated it with careless disrespect.
I’ve created a podcast from this material. If you’d rather listen, the link is here: nuclear-jan-10.mp3
Looking at the current mess we have with nuclear waste, landscapes scarred with huge open-pit mines and tons of unprotected waste from those operations, greenhouse gasses and pollution of our waters, to name a few, I think the old saying is correct.
I have two concerns for the year 2008, the first is the proliferation of uranium mining and nuclear power stations, and the second is that George Bush and Dick Cheney will be in office for the entire year.
Before going on, I’ve made a podcast of this article, and if you’d rather listen, the link is here. 2008.mp3
It’s difficult to say which one of the two options above concerns me most, but the Bush/Cheney administration, in its own way, is about as scary as nuclear proliferation. Their environmental record may well go down in history as one of the worst ever, and there’s still plenty of time to make it even worse.
Here’s another one who thinks nuclear power is the energy panacea we all need, and that renewable energy production is, as he states, "a rape of nature." Strong words and I just had to talk about it. The story comes from Science Daily, and there’s also a link to Nuclear Waste Storage that pretty well explains the problem, and takes a good look at the controversial Yucca Mountain storage facility in
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