By Jarret Adams
About a dozen members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future yesterday toured the Department of Energy’s Hanford site near Richland, Wash. This panel, which is charged with developing a recommendation on managing the nation’s nuclear waste, heard testimony from local government officials and American Indian tribes during the course of its third public meeting.
The message to the panel from the local speakers was that the government must develop a plan for moving waste from the Hanford site now that Yucca Mountain has been “off the table.” Others called for reviewing the decision to stop the Yucca Mountain project.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire echoed that sentiment in her testimony today and encouraged the panel “to base any recommendations on science and technology, not politics.”
Whether or not the government restarts the Yucca project, the nation ultimately will need a repository. However, if we recycle our nation’s used nuclear fuel we could divide by at least four the volume of waste bound for repository. We also would avoid the need to develop additional repositories, perhaps indefinitely. For more on the potential for recycling, click here.
AREVA is active in several projects related to the remediation of the Hanford site, employing its state-of-the-art technologies for chemical clean-up and vitrification of the radioactive waste.
In addition, we manufacture high-quality fuel for nuclear plants at our facility in Richland, adjacent to the site.
Share TAGS: Blue Ribbon Commission, Hanford, Richland, WA
Posted in: AREVA News, Environment, Government & Policy, News, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power Plants, Policy, Recycling, Used Fuel | View Comments
