Mothers for Nuclear Informational Flyer

In the absence of a federal geologic repository or consolidated, interim storage in the United States, commercial spent fuel will remain stranded at some 75 sites across the country. Currently, these include 18 “orphaned sites” where spent fuel has been left at decommissioned reactor sites.

With the termination of the Yucca Mountain project, which was proposed to be our nation’s first repository for the disposal of military and civilian spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, the future of nuclear waste management and disposal in this country became increasingly uncertain. Interim storage has been advocated by many as a temporary solution while a permanent solution is studied for potentially several more decades to come.

In November 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or Department) re‐established its Environmental Justice (EJ) Task Force to review and update the 1995 Environmental Justice Strategy and develop an Environmental Justice Five‐Year Implementation Plan.

The Department of Energy (hereinafter DOE or the Department) is responsible for ensuring the Nation’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. DOE maintains the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, reduces the threat of nuclear proliferation, oversees the Nation’s energy supply, leads the Nation in areas of federally sponsored basic research critical to U.S.

Studies indicate that the energy burden — energy costs as a percentage of annual family income — on low-income families is inordinately high, compared to that of the rest of the population. Rising fuel costs exacerbate this problem. Residential solar energy systems can help address this situation by furnishing a price-stable energy source with the added benefit of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However, without appropriate incentives, these systems are prohibitively expensive for low-income families.

Introduction

A. The Biden-Harris Administration’s Commitment to Environmental Justice 

Mainstream approaches to energy democracy and public engagement with energy transitions tend to adopt specific, pre-given meanings of both “democracy” and “publics.” Different approaches impose prescriptive assumptions about the model of participation, the identity of public participants, and what it means to participate well.

The goal of this literature review is to bring together the different concepts, respective definitions and perspectives that have been used to study the participation of non-professionals in scientific activities. We start by presenting a short definition of citizen science and the perceived benefits of such approaches to the production of scientific knowledge. We then clarify the difference between today’s citizen science projects and their ancestors in the field sciences by highlighting technological and social changes.

The U.S. nuclear waste management program has labored for decades at a cost of billions of dollars each year, and yet there is still no active disposal program either for spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors or for the high-level radioactive legacy waste and spent nuclear fuel from defense programs.

About the WHEJAC:

Although different policies for radioactive waste management, including nuclear fuel waste (NFW), have developed in different countries, the basic challenge is the same everywhere: finding a method and a place for isolating the radioactive waste from the biosphere. During the last decade, this issue has moved to a new phase where responsible authorities and companies are now facing the task of implementing waste disposal or management strategies. A number of countries (e.g.

With the termination of the Yucca Mountain project, which was proposed to be our nation’s first repository for the disposal of military and civilian spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, the future of nuclear waste management and disposal in this country became increasingly uncertain. Interim storage has been advocated by many as a temporary solution while a permanent solution is studied for potentially several more decades to come.

In October 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (Board or NWTRB) published Survey of National Programs for Managing High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel.  For each of the 13 national programs studied, the report catalogued 15 institutional arrangements that had been set in place and 15 technical approaches that had been taken to design repository systems for the long-term management of high-activity radioactive waste.