Persuasive Essay Against Nuclear Waste

Debated.”). To lower its volume, it is often condensed before disposal. It packs some 90% of the volume, but only 1% of the radioactivity of all radioactive waste. High-level waste is from the burning of uranium fuel in a nuclear reactor (Dixon). It contains the dividing products and trans elements generated in the reactor. It is highly radioactive and hot due to excess heat, so it requires shielding and cooling. It has thermal power and can be considered as the ash from burning uranium. The radioactive waste problem is not a new safety and health concern. It has been mixed with radioactive materials throughout the twentieth century (Dixon). Such concerns have existed almost from just the discovery of radioactivity in 1895, when a German physicist,
It had radioactive properties. Radium, like x-rays, was adopted for many industrial uses. For example, workers in the 1910s and 1920s painted watch dials with radium so that it could be able to glow in the dark (Dixon).
Currently, with the system of storing, the government just wants to have it be stored underground. It is starting to get overcrowded from all of the other casks the government has just been putting down there. The government just has only a short term solution for right now (“Nuclear Waste” ). They put all the nuclear waste in casks, and is taking much time to do so, which causes more hazards for everyone else. The government still wants casks, and want them to work long-term, but they said it needed to be a lot quicker transition from out of the rector, right into the casks (“Nuclear Waste” ). It is kept underwater for a span of five to ten years until the radiation goes down to levels that can be recovered and brought up by large storage concrete casks. The final disposal of spent fuel is a often topic, and is often an argument against the usage of nuclear reactors (“Nuclear Waste” ). The options that are included are either deep geologic storage, or recycling. The sun will consume it