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Many times back and forth lately, there has been debate about whether or not Utah should use Skull Valley and other remote areas of the West Desert for the storage of low-level radioactive waste. Sadly, there is a great misconception about it. So, let's go over a little bit about radioactivity and clear up any ideas that people have on it....

I don't want radioactive waste buried in my state because:

FICTION: It will ooze out and cause cancer in everything around it.
FACT: Most people don't understand exactly what low level radioactive waste even IS.....just so that you don't think that it looks like a glowing ooze that the Ninja Turtles crawled through (which seems to be exactly what the public thinks of), this is a picture from a Scottish EPA site as to what exactly low level radioactive waste looks like:



As you can see, it's actually random parts of things that have been irriadiated. With the way the barrels are sealed, then the storage containers sealed, then buried, there is minimal chance of ANYTHING ever happening to it. Radiation normally has what is called a "half-life", where it only stays irradiated for an amount of time before it is safe to be handled again. At that point, it will be disposed of as normal trash would be.

FICTION: Radioactive waste is the nice way of saying "DECOMMISSIONED NUCLEAR WEAPONS".
FACT: Almost all of the low level radioactive waste that Energy Solutions is trying to get handled actually comes from Medical centers. The x-ray machines they use emit radiation to do what they do (hence the lead vests and whatnot). Unfortunately, there really isn't a place to store these things at the hospital, where they want people to have minimal exposure to it, and landfills aren't safe either. These items need to have somewhere they can be stored, and remote places where they will cause the least damage if something ever DOES happen are the best idea.

FICTION: I don't want 3-mile island happening all over again....
FACT: Most people don't seem to understand the incident at Three Mile Island back in 1979.....essentially, the core in reactor 2 overheated, melted, and leaked. Most people were insanely freaked out, but they didn't realize something.....containment. Unlike other nations, the United States actually deals with a less pure version of uranium in their reactors for the very purpose of not being able to weaponize it, and therefore, properly contained, it won't affect people in the same way.....in fact, here is something interesting about Three Mile Island...according to the American Nuclear Society, using the relatively low official radiation emission figures, "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year.". What will be stored is not melted down nuclear reactor materials, but again, simply low-level irradiated objects and devices. As they are things that no longer can be used, they are "waste".

(More will be added later when I am not working...)

honestly, i don't like the idea of burying stuff to hide it. I kinda like the semi-fictional idea of shooting radio-active stuff into space. But since it is low-level radiated stuff, i'm for it, as long as we dig it up once its not radioactive anymore and throw it into a normal dump.

here's a fun fact for everyone, to get rid of thyroid cancer, they give you a radio-active iodine treatment, and it kills the cancer in your thyroid, essentially destroying your thyroid tho. My mom had thyroid cancer, and was "low level radioactive" for a lil while. She went to mexico after the radioactive iodine was supposed to have worn off, and she set off one of the sensors coming back into the states lol.

I think that low level nuclear waste should be buried in the great basin. There are radioactive particles everywhere. Your body contains surprisingly large amounts of radioactive material, carbon-16, which occurs naturally. The point is though, the uncovering, processing, and eventual disposal are all parts of our society. If our state was willing to accept the waste, huge new sources of revenues would be opened to access, and every aspect of the waste's disposal could be heavily taxed and charged, simply because there is no other option. And the encasement of low-level radioactive waste within a 5 foot thick block of concrete will render it completely and utterly sealed, unless broken into intentionally.

Low level radiation is everywhere. If you have ever been near a mine in this state, you have been exposed to more radiation than any of this "contaminate waste" produces. As you all know, there are many uranium/ plutonium mines in this state. We sit on top of so much radioactive material that it's not even funny. And once encased in concrete, the waste is essentially the same as burying a 9 cubic foot block of concrete. So i ask, is it worth not taking advantage of this valuable economic opportunity to protect ourselves from something that is less dangerous than what it in the rock we build our houses on?

See, this is exactly why I agree. Congressmen in Utah (I won't name names) won't allow the state to get a tax cut of something in the low hundred MILLIONS because they don't want this stuff buried in the desert, where nothing will happen with it. And even if something DOES happen with it, it won't be enough to make a gigantic difference in our lives. It irritates me to no end that people have not educated themselves on this matter. It's like not using a toilet because you don't want fecal particulate all over your bathromm (which is another topic for another time). I mean, really.

The real issue here is that people fear what they don't understand. It's the same with nuclear power. Everybody thinks it's such a terrible, horrendous thing because of Chernobyl. What happened at Chernobyl will NEVER happen in the United States. Running Chernobyl's reactor the way they did vs. The average US Nuclear Power plant is like comparing a 76 pinto with a gas leak running on nitrous, methanol and E85 to a 2001 Toyota Corolla with a tank of 89 octane fuel idling......the former is just BEGGING for the wrong thing to happen. DO other countried use highly enriched uranium to increase the potency and power output? Absolutely. But, to avoid the possibility of having our materials be remanufactured into weapons grade elements, we use a less enriched version that is FAR more stable. The chances of having a meltdown that size in the US are slim to none. But, because it happened once, people are freaked out. Like parents only trick or trunking from now on because some creepo is out there putting razorblades in caramel apples. If you want to make an omelet, you gotta break a few eggs. If we don't assume the .0001% chance of a meltdown, we lose more than 70% of this nation's energy. It's CLEAN energy, too. But even then, all of this has nothing to do with what they're wanting to store in the west desert. THAT'S the other reason people freak out. They complain about property taxes hiking over 300% in the last year, but don't keep an open mind to feasible alternatives that cause less deaths than people choking on twinkies every year.

Not to mention the great basin is one of the most geologically and tectonically stable areas in the world. And if you bury the waste in individual blocks versus in one huge chunk of concrete, the blocks are much more likely to be upheaved rather than broken in the case of a seismic event (however unlikely it may be.)

Ok so I decided to give this thread a shot.. I have read every ones posts so far, And I have to agree with you guys to a certain point. I know we have the corrupt men and women running this state. And good ones too. Yet as I read all of this I see no proof of what you guys speak of. I mean this in no way of disrespect at all. I have spent a good time of my life to the study of science and so on, But in a polite way I am asking you guys to give me proof... Please? Prove to me and anyone else interested that it is safe.. links of journals or whatever you have come across to prove your point. I am intensely intrigued to see what and how you guys know for a fact it is safe to store the waste as they call it and the fact it is low levels.. is it?

Well if this stuff is mostly medical grade X-ray equipment then of course X-rays would be the primary radioactive threat. Without delving too much into nuclear physics X-rays are a radioactive threat and the main protection from them, as well as most other radiation, is time, distance, and shielding (via the DoE web page first responder guide). Time relating to exposure to the particular material you have, distance being how far you need to be so that the energy is reduced enough to not be able to penetrate the cells of the human body (or cells of plants and animals) and cause damage, and shielding being something to block or absorb the energy emitted from damaging cells.

Having said all that, if you have low level X-ray emitting med equipment encased in concrete (shielding) and buried deeply (more shielding) and far out in the desert well away from civilization (distance) in my opinion that is safety overkill but that's always a good thing in relation to this kind of stuff. With it being encased in concrete and buried deep in the ground, the threat is so low I personally wouldn't think twice about it. In time, I would think that it's half life would render it completely harmless. Of course I'm only arguing for the sake of arguing and only talking about the low level med equipment mentioned, I'm not a nuclear physicist, I just know the basics about nuclear safety as posted on any open source web site.

Here is a very informative link to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's safety and awareness page that talks about protection from radiation. I know in the containment section it says "to keep it out of the environment" but they are talking about when the radioactive materials are still in use, not the disposal of them. In the case of the topic at hand, containing them would mean encasing them in multiple layers of concrete.

http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/protects-you/protection-principles.html

Bury the stuff. It's safe, and if anyone has to worry about it it'll be thousands or millions of years from now.

The Feds also need to reopen Yucca Mountain. It was built for this exact purpose.

All I can say is don't dump it in Utah!

^^^It's a little more thorough than "dumping" it somewhere. And i would welcome the waste to this state. It's not dangerous, it isn't allowed anywhere else, and we could charge an arm and a leg so people have a place to put this stuff...

who cares about charging an arm and a leg when you can charge a left testicle and first born? theyd be willing to pay it because everyone freaks out about it.

i can honestly say that when i envisioned radioactive barrels i imagined goo inside ha ha. i was completely ignorant of the facts and what it exactly contained. this topic has opened up my mind to radioactive waste disposal in Utah. you make some very valid points that i never thought to question and its true that most of what we are told growing up, we believe. my parents are against nuclear power plants because of past occurrences like Chernobyl. our technology has advanced so much since then. the explanation on power plants using less enriched uranium was very insightful too. this has really open up my mind to nuclear power plants too. quite honestly i feel that if you don't like something that much, then don't live by it. if a nuclear power plant makes you uneasy at night, don't buy a home within so many hundreds of miles from it. thats just how i feel though....

there are things that you have to understand about chernobyl. The fact of the matter is that they PURPOSEFULLY disabled every single failsafe to run a "test" on the core. The problem is, the "test" was supposed to be carried out by experts in the field and engineers, but they had left for the day because preparations for the test were taking too long, and they decided that they would continue the next day. But the night shift had their own ideas, and carried out the tests that night, and had no idea what the hell they were doing. Things didn't work the way they were supposed to (according to their logic, which was flawed) and removed safety barriers to make them work how they envisioned they should work...

also: soviet russian engineering