Forty Years of No
Hightower Legacy
Forty Years of No
Texas residents have spent 40 years saying No to the Federal Department of Energy and No to greedy private corporations who think that Texas is a great place to park nuclear power toxic waste.
They want to store it just temporarily while the stuff become less radioactive. Talk about an unwelcome guest. Toxic fuel rods takes 10,000 years for the most dangerous elements and a leisurely 1,000,000 years for some of the isotopes to become a bit more friendly to human life.
That is a long dang time to play host.
Texas said NO in 1984 to the DOE proposal to make Deaf Smith County a national depository for high level nuclear waste. And they have said NO repeatedly to an attempt to make Andrews County a “temporary” storage site.
In Deaf Smith, the DOE proposed to drill through the Ogallala Aquifer and drop the toxic rods into a salt mine. They were never able to intelligently explain how that was going to be safe.
The current proposal is to use Andrews County, which is at the tail end of the Ogallala Aquifer, as a temporary storage site and just lay it on top of the ground. Well…it is a bit more involved than that…but who cares about the details. Everyone with a lick of sense knows that “temporary” means effectively 10,000 years.
Technically, companies can not store high level toxic waste anywhere until the Federal Government (DOE) chooses and approves of a permanent site. Which they haven’t done, because no one wants it and the DOE cannot guarantee its safety for 10,000 years…to say nothing of the million years for some of the isotopes to become not ridiculously radioactive.
So far, Texas and the courts have said NO. But the DOE just doesn’t seem to understand that No Means No.
President Joe Biden has recently announced plans to support the development of new nuclear power plants. It is part of the overall attempt to lessen the reliance on fossil fuels which are a major factor of the climate change concern. Nuclear power is indeed carbon free and the electric energy produced is indeed better for the environment.
However, the problem is…what do you do with the waste product?
What do you do with the spent nuclear rods?
In another recent development, John Sharp, of Texas A&M has promised to put several Small Modular Nuclear Reactors in Seadrift. He just wants to help prevent a repeat of the Texas electric grid screw-up of a couple of years ago during the great freeze.
The good news is the small modular nuclear reactors don’t blow up so easily and also don’t take as long to build. Theoretically production times for small modular nuclear reactors are 2-3 years. However, keep in mind that the nuclear power industry has a bad history of producing nuclear power plants on time and on budget. Historically, real production times are usually twice as long.
The bad news is that there is still no place to put the spent nuclear rods. And if they can’t get Andrews County to change its mind, the rods have to stay in house until there is an approved federal government approved depository.
Folks…Texas has been saying NO for Forty Years to being the permanent storage site.
Seadrift and, I imagine, Corpus Christi and Port Aransas, are not going to be happy with the thought of permanent storage at the Seadrift site.
PHIT is currently working on a short documentary of the Deaf Smith part of the toxic dump history as part of our Hightower Legacy Project. Stay tuned. It will be released soon.
Tonya Kleuskans who was instrumental in the grassroots efforts to block it 40 years ago is still involved. We devoted a substack to the protest a few years ago.
Tonya Kleuskans is still very much concerned and involved with toxic nuclear waster dumps. She hosts a Podcast. Lone Star Deep Dive. Give it a listen.
This one interviews Karen Hadden, who is involved with SEED . They discuss the issues involved and grassroots opposition which is combating the Andrews County toxic dump proposal.
Texas keeps saying NO. When will the DOE finally listen.