front cover of Fuel Cycle to Nowhere
Fuel Cycle to Nowhere
U.S. Law and Policy on Nuclear Waste
Richard Burleson Stewart
Vanderbilt University Press, 2011
For twenty-five years, the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada was designated as the sole destination for disposal of the nation's accumulated stockpiles of highly radioactive nuclear power and weapons wastes. Now the Obama administration has abandoned Yucca, and Congress must pass new laws to solve the resulting disposal crisis. Even as the federal government seeks to expand nuclear power, local communities and states are demanding a credible program for disposal of the wastes that we already have. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, appointed by the Obama administration to develop a plan, is currently conducting hearings.

The first comprehensive history and overview of U.S. nuclear waste law and regulation, Fuel Cycle to Nowhere traces sixty years of nuclear weapons programs, the growth of nuclear power, and their waste legacies, the rise of environmentalism, and the responses of federal agencies. Richard and Jane Stewart expertly analyze the changing policies for storing low-level waste, transuranic waste, spent nuclear fuel, and high-level waste and for regulating their transport by rail and by truck. They also chronicle "a tale of two repositories"--one, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, known as WIPP, the world's only operating deep geologic nuclear waste disposal facility, which emerged from a contentious but ultimately successful struggle between federal and state interests; the other, Yucca Mountain, mandated top down by Congress and a failure.

Fuel Cycle to Nowhere provides the critical information and analysis on the waste disposal issues and solutions that the commission, Congress, the administration, journalists, policymakers, and the public so urgently need.

This book is a project of the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), a Vanderbilt University-led, multi-university consortium supported as a cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental This book is a project of the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), a Vanderbilt University-led, multi-university consortium supported as a cooperative agreement by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management to support safe, effective, publicly credible, risk informed management of existing and future nuclear waste from government and civilian sources through independent strategic analysis, review, applied research and education.

[more]
front cover of Public Reactions to Nuclear Waste
Public Reactions to Nuclear Waste
Citizens’ Views of Repository Siting
Riley E. Dunlap, Michael E. Kraft, and Eugene A. Rosa, eds.
Duke University Press, 1993
Nuclear waste is going nowhere, and neither is the debate over its disposal. The problem, growing every day, has proven intractable, with policymakers on one side, armed with daunting technical data, and the public on the other, declaring: not in my backyard. This timely volume offers a look past our present impasse into the nature and roots of public viewpoints on nuclear waste disposal.
A much-needed supplement to the largely technical literature on this problem, the book provides extensive studies of the reaction of citizens--whether rural or urban, near-site residents or prospective visitors--to proposed nuclear waste sites around the nation, particularly Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Conducted by distinguished sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and economists, these studies constitute the most comprehensive account available of the impact of public perceptions and opinions on the nuclear waste policy process in the United States. As such, the collection will clarify the politics of nuclear waste siting and will give impetus to the stalled debate over the issue.

Contributors. Rodney K. Baxter, Julia G. Brody, Bruce Clary, Lori Cramer, William H. Desvousges, Riley E. Dunlap, Douglas Easterling, Judy K. Fleishman, James Flynn, William R. Freudenburg, Michael E. Kraft, Richard S. Krannich, Howard Kunreuther, Mark Layman, Ronald L. Little, Robert Cameron Mitchell, Alvin H. Mushkatel, Joanne M. Nigg, K. David Pijawka, Eugene A. Rosa, Paul Slovic

[more]

Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter