Great article. The site selection process seems pretty ethical. For me, burying nuclear waste has a sci-fi feel to it.
For the repository to be built, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization will have to embark on what Wabigoon Lake describes as “the largest and most strenuous impact assessment in Canadian history” to ensure the project poses minimal human and environmental harm.
A big concern here is ground water. If a tectonic plate movement damages the underground storage, the waste could contaminate ground water and it would be pretty much impossible to clean it up. One of the hardest challenges in my opinion of nuclear waste storage is the generational responsibility to keep it stored safely, although you could argue the same responsibility exists for landfills already.
These aren’t bins of glowing green ooze like in the cartoons. Most waste products are solid and are stored in heavy duty, shielded bins. Kyle Hill on YouTube created a really good video that demonstrated walking through a storage facility and literally hugging one of the bins. His rad meter was perfectly normal the whole time. He also examines other risks as well as the risks of other methods of power generation.
Video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aUODXeAM-k
Here’s the one where he hugs the waste casks:
Jesus fucking christ. Even if Ontario decided to put nuclear waste 500m below Young and Dundas Square it would still be a non-issue for thousands if not tens of thousands of years. Anti-nuke propaganda is insane, let’s just go back to burning coal!
For some reason when I see Lake Wabigoon I think of Garrison Keillor….
