After decennium of planning and $ 12 billions of investing , the United States grand programme to dispose of the nation ’s atomic dissipation in Nevada ’s distant Yucca Mountain melted down in political rancor like … well , kind of like a atomic plant run down . The Obama Administration pulled the cud on fund the labor without specifying any technical problem , leaving the Government Accountability Office to close it was done for strictly political reasons .
Agreat clause in Popular Mechanicssuggests that our problem with nuclear waste are n’t just political but philosophical . Where the American plan is grandiose , overblown , and overbuilt , the Finnish one — the Onkalo quickness currently being built on Olkiluoto Island — is clever , round-eyed , and realistic .
To keep away succeeding humans who may or may not speak English , the plan [ for a US disposal site ] call for a 2 - mile - long berm , 98 feet broad and 33 foot tall , ring the quickness . Huge magnets and microwave radar deflectors would be bury in the berm , intended to make its serviceman - made nature and seriousness of purpose obvious to any succeeding investigator . Forty - eight stone pillar , carve with warnings in seven languages , would be erected Stonehenge - style around the internet site … The plan , of grade , assumes that humanity ’s capacity for logical system and instinct for self - preservation outweigh its natural peculiarity - on evidence , a dubitable assumption . in earnest , who would n’t desire to dig out in a place so baroquely decorated , deathly warnings be imprecate ?
Meanwhile , the Finnish disposal site ( again , actually being manufacture ) is the accurate antonym :
Olkiluoto is at best mundane , and at worst unpleasant . And that ’s why Finland think it ’s the thoroughgoing place to hive away atomic waste . There may be no penury to produce elaborate ways to prevent unsuspecting people of the futurity from breaking into the dissipation repository , because nobody would ever want to visit this island in the first place .
In 2120 or so , Onkalo will be seal , and if some technologist have their way , that will be it . No signs saying keep out , no skull - and - crossbones icons , no curl on the door . No door at all . Why draw unnecessary attention ?
The Pop Mech articlehas lots of serious details on the clever excogitation of the Onkalo facility ; check over it out .
Image of Onkalo storage facility : Posiva
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