The Permian Basin Is Not a Good Area To Store Nuclear Waste
A swarm of earthquakes that appears fairly suddenly adds to the uncertainty of predicting the safety of a proposed nuclear waste storage in an oil and gas field, especially a giant field like the prolific Delaware basin in New Mexico.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham’s Letter To NRC
In an opposition letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham expressed major concerns with the proposed nuclear waste site in Lea County. The NRC recommended the site even though their preliminary research did not take into account several key issues. The geological makeup of the area is not suitable for spent nuclear fuel to be stored.
Why The Timescales Of Nuclear Waste Disposal Are Shocking
Yet existing and planned nuclear waste sites operate on much shorter timeframes: often 10,000 or 100,000 years. These are still such unimaginably vast lengths of time that regulatory authorities decide on them, in part, based on how long ice ages are expected to last.
