by James Glaser
June 27, 2005

No one or no group argues with the fact that radioactive waste from nuclear power plants must be safely stored for at least 10,000 years. The nuclear power industry has been pushing for a new expansion in the number of power plants in America and the have George Bush on their side, but they still have no answer to the waste storage problem.

George Bush is trying to get the nuclear industry billions of dollars in subsidies, so new plants can be built, but we still haven't answered the problem of storage created by existing plants.

10,000 years has never been planned for. Washington has a hard time planning for a few decades and it is not uncommon for new Congresses to change the plans of past ones.

One thing for sure is that any languages used now to warn future generations of the danger of exposure to stored fuel rods will be lost and like anything found today from the past, that man has tried to keep safe, will be opened thousands of years from now.

People in the future could think our storage facility is either a tomb with treasures, or some weapon they can use. Either way that radioactive waste will endanger future generations. Remember we have no proven way to store anything safely for thousands and thousands of years.

Right now, today, we have the technology needed to create safe renewable energy. It may cost more, but we are not putting future generations at risk by using it and with continued use, that price will come down.

How mach has the earth changed in the last 10,000 years? All you have to do is look at the Pyramids and think about how the technology of that day did everything it could to keep everything in them safe from prying eyes. Today, even with modern technology, we have a hard time understanding what Egyptian hieroglyphics said and any warnings given and recognized, were said to be the warnings of primitive people, so every tomb has been opened.

Do we think the lust for riches or the desire for scientific exploration will be any less eight or nine thousand years from now? Until we know how to make nuclear waste inert, we should not expand this field of energy production and we should start thinking about shutting down the plants we have right now.

We have to face the fact that we don't know what we are doing with a poison that man will have to deal with for another 333+ generations. As an example, Christ died less than 66 generations ago. I don't trust that Washington is up to the task of holding anything 10,000 years safely, are you?