Re: events! Reply

[marylia@earthlink.net]

Hello. Just to keep the record straight: Tri-Valley CAREs' call-in day to
VP Al Gore to ask him to support immobilization of plutonium from "pits"
(bomb cores) for U.S. and Russian dismantled weapons will not -- and could
not -- result in shipments to WIPP. The WIPP facility is not an intended
destination for plutonium pits, in a ceramic matrix or not. That material
would be considered a "high-level" waste, not a TRU waste, according to
current definitions. That material would need to be stored safely, in
order to keep the plutonium out of the biosphere, for the next 240,000
years (ten half lives -- as a rule of thumb, a radioactive materials
hazardous life is considered to be ten half lives). That safe storage need
not be (and probably should not be) deep underground where leaks cannot be
discovered until it's too late. By the by, the MOX alternative, besides
its other serious drawbacks, would still involve the need to store the
spent nuclear fuel rods for about the same time frame. (The rods would
also be a high-level waste and thus not be destined for WIPP either.)
Peace, Marylia