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RICHMOND
Decades after the federal government agreed to build a permanent storage site for the nation's nuclear waste, temporary sites including one in southeastern Virginia continue to warehouse the radioactive material.
The Daily Press reports that nearly 1.9 million pounds of nuclear waste is stored at Dominion Resources' Surry Power Station.
The waste is contained in concrete casks that take up an area roughly the size of a football field. The material comes from the power station, Virginia's oldest nuclear plant.
Plans to build a national storage site in Nevada was fought by officials there. President Barack Obama later zeroed the project's funding, while setting up a commission to explore alternative sites. Findings from that panel are due in 2012.
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Nevada
The Nevada site is essentially ready to receive waste. This site was analyzed to death and construction funded by billions of taxpayer dollars. Obama, in order to fulfill a campain promise to Harry Reid decided to close it down and lay off the staff. Now what? We start over with more taxpayer funded studies and more years wasted while our nuclear waste sits in dozens of relatively low security sites around the country. Like right here in Surry.
Revised
I must revise my first sentence. The site is not ready to receive waste. Construction is not completed due to political and legal challenges which have waste billions of dollars and decades of time.
Nuclear folly
There is one geologic fault in Virginia and it is in Surry, Virginia. What thought went into the decision in the first place? The earth seems to be shifting a little all around the world. Just because an area has been calm for millions of years doesn't guarantee anything. We humans are so very smug.
loulouthia: According to the DMME, Virginia has more than one...
...geologic fault. The single biggest cause of this "fault" is Democrat Barack Obama stopping Yucca Flats. He's articulated an anti-energy policy since before winning the election. He's against fossil fuels and doesn't want America's own energy resources produced. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can," Obama said. "It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted." Barack Obama, January 17, 2008 interview with the San Franciso Chronicle. Democrats, particularly Barack Obama, indeed are smug about America's energy resources.