Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
All Articles
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Journalistic balance at Scientific American
OMFG. You have to read this note from the editors of Scientific American. It is a thing of beauty.
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Waste
On Energy Priorities, a short but interesting piece on France's struggles with nuclear waste. The good bit:
Every day, about ten shipping containers arrive on trucks at the Soulaines-Dhuys storage facility outside Troyes, in the province of Ardennes, 180 kilometers east of Paris. On board are barrels of waste that isn't radioactive enough to be stored at Marcoule. Every year, 15,000 cubic meters of waste contaminated with uranium, plutonium and tritium arrive here.
Is it smart to rely on a form of energy the byproduct of which requires 24,000 years of constant, careful monitoring? Honestly.The 350-acre site is like an above-ground Yucca Mountain. Construction cranes hover above a hundred bunker-like cement blocks already filled with barrels encased in concrete. In 60 years, the cranes' job will be done, the 400-bunker facility will be full, and the entire facility will be covered with a concrete lid. What then?
The Soulaines-Dhuys site will enter a 300-year surveillance phase. After that, the plan is to observe the site until the stored waste loses its radioactivity.
The initial 300 years is just the beginning. Even moderately radioactive plutonium retains hazardous for 24,000 years. Skeptics wonder if future generations will follow the plan -- or even remember where the site is located.
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More Wolfowitz, more oil, more looney-tunes
Gawd. Speaking of oil: It really is astonishing what some folks in this administration are willing to do to avoid breaking our petrol-addiction.
