美国国家公共电台 NPR As Nuclear Waste Piles Up, Private Companies Pitch New Ways To Store It

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The Trump¹ administration wants to reopen a controversial storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which is not something the local population supports. Now, after years of political stalemate on this, private companies are proposing their own solutions. NPR's Jeff Brady explains the problem and one idea to address it.

JEFF BRADY, BYLINE²: The Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station sits along the Susquehanna River in southeast Pennsylvania. To get inside, you walk past concrete barriers, armed security guards and air-puffer machines that detect explosives.

(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE BEEPING)

BRADY: Up an elevator and through hallways is a room that looks like a warehouse³.

MARK PARRISH: Welcome to the Peach Bottom Unit 3 fuel floor. What you see here is the spent fuel pool.

BRADY: Mark Parrish is the reactor⁴ engineering manager and says the pool is the first place spent nuclear fuel is stored after it's removed from the reactor. The pool is surrounded with a bright-yellow plastic barrier and signs that read, caution radiation area. Parrish says the spent fuel will stay in the pool for up to 10 years.

PARRISH: There's about 2,800 fuel assemblies still in that pool. They are under about 22 feet of water. And they're continuously being cooled, as they still have some amount of decay heat even after they've operated in the reactor.

BRADY: Around the country, pools like this are filling up so operators move the spent fuel outside once it's safe to store there. Pat Navin oversees⁵ operations at Peach Bottom and points to a concrete pad against the hillside where there are white metal casks lined up. They look like big hot-water heaters.

PAT NAVIN: That is 40 years' worth of spent fuel stored over there currently. And it's less than the size of a football field, that's for sure. About probably half a football field there.

BRADY: It's not much waste when you consider that's enough spent fuel to produce about 10 percent of Pennsylvania's electricity over four decades. But without permanent storage, Navin says they're running out of room. That's why an expansion is underway.

(SOUNDBITE OF CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT DRILLING)

BRADY: A construction crew is working on the foundation. Navin says eventually the site will store 60 years of waste. Meantime, Navin says this storage is safe for now. The metal containers are sturdy enough to withstand an earthquake and - eventually - a move.

NAVIN: When the opportunity comes for these to be sent somewhere else. And these will double as a shipping⁶ container, as well.

BRADY: They're packed and ready to go, but with no destination. One company is proposing a temporary storage site in New Mexico. But Edwin Lyman, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the country needs a permanent site that doesn't require humans to manage it because...

EDWIN LYMAN: Institutions go away. There's no guarantee the owner will still be around for the duration of time when that waste remains⁷ dangerous, which is tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

BRADY: A California company called Deep Isolation⁸ says it has a permanent solution. The firm wants to store spent nuclear fuel in holes drilled at least a thousand feet underground in stable rock formations. CEO Elizabeth Muller says the waste would be separate from groundwater and where it can't hurt people.

ELIZABETH MULLER: I like to imagine having a playground at the top of the Deep Isolation bore hole where my kids and I can go play.

BRADY: Muller promotes her company's technology through events like this recent webcast. Last November, the firm conducted a test in Texas. Crews lowered an 80-pound canister into a drilled hole. It was a simulation. So no radioactive substances. The goal was to determine whether they could retrieve⁹ the canister later.

(SOUNDBITE OF WEBCAST)

MULLER: Is that it, right there?

(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)

BRADY: This successful test was important. Regulators want the ability to retrieve waste, in case new technology develops to better deal with the spent fuel. And the public is more likely to accept disposal programs that can be reversed. The technology may be the easy part. The bigger hurdle¹⁰ is federal law, which doesn't allow private companies to permanently¹¹ store waste from nuclear power plants. It also says the spent fuel will go to Yucca Mountain. Deep Isolation's proposal would store waste around the country. Again, Edwin Lyman at Union of Concerned Scientists.

LYMAN: I just don't see how there would be political support from every other state other than Nevada for changing the law so that spent nuclear fuel could stay in your state forever instead of being shipped out of your state.

BRADY: But for now, despite the law, spent fuel does continue to pile up at nuclear power plants around the country. Jeff Brady, NPR News.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 warehouse   

n.仓库；vt.存入仓库

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck.我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• The manager wants to clear off the old stocks in the warehouse.经理想把仓库里积压的存货处理掉。

4 reactor   

n.反应器；反应堆

参考例句：

• The atomic reactor generates enormous amounts of thermal energy.原子反应堆发出大量的热能。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules.在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

5 oversees   

v.监督，监视( oversee的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• She oversees both the research and the manufacturing departments. 她既监督研究部门又监督生产部门。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Department of Education oversees the federal programs dealing with education. 教育部监管处理教育的联邦程序。 来自互联网

6 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

7 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

8 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

9 retrieve   

vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索

参考例句：

• He was determined to retrieve his honor.他决心恢复名誉。
• The men were trying to retrieve weapons left when the army abandoned the island.士兵们正试图找回军队从该岛撤退时留下的武器。

10 hurdle   

n.跳栏，栏架；障碍，困难；vi.进行跨栏赛

参考例句：

• The weather will be the biggest hurdle so I have to be ready.天气将会是最大的障碍，所以我必须要作好准备。
• She clocked 11.6 seconds for the 80 metre hurdle.八十米跳栏赛跑她跑了十一秒六。

11 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。