Court Orders NRC to Decide on Yucca Mountain Permit

(Proposed design of Yucca Mountain (Los Alamos National Lab)

On Tuesday, August 13th, the US Court of Appeals-DC Circuit ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate the application for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Dr. Bill Alley and Rosemarie Alley talk with us about the significance of the decision. The Alley’s just published Too Hot To Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste with Cambridge University Press. They were also our guests on August 13th’s How On Earth!

Host: Jim Pullen
Producer: Jim Pullen

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Too Hot To Touch

Today we’re joined by Dr. William Alley and Rosemarie Alley to learn about the nuclear waste crisis in the United States. Bill Alley, a distinguished hydrologist, was in charge of the USGS’s water studies at Yucca Mountain from 2002 until 2010, when the Obama administration ended the project. Rosemarie Alley is a writer and educator and is passionate about the nuclear waste issue. Together, they’ve written a highly readable and informative book published by Cambridge University Press in 2013: Too Hot To Touch: the Problem of High Level Nuclear Waste. The Alley’s also discuss the Ft. St. Vrain Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation near Platteville, where 15 MTHM (metric tons of heavy metal) are housed until a more permanent home can be found. We’ll be bringing you more on the Ft. St. Vrain facility later in the year.

Host: Jim Pullen
Producer: Jim Pullen
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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