[NukeNet] Highway fire raises nuclear waste concern

[MoJo]

Of course, "Federal authorities say a chance of a shipment of nuclear waste being caught
in such a fire. . .are remote"  They always say something like that.  "There's been an accident but there is no chance of harm to the public"  I do believe a total melt-down could occur and they'd say the say thing!!!  MoJo
   
  Highway fire raises nuclear waste concern
United Press International
May 2, 2007

http://www.upi. com/Energy/ Briefing/ 2007/05/02/ highway_fire_ raises_nuclear_ wa
ste_concern/

OAKLAND, Calif., May 2 (UPI) -- A long-lasting inferno on a California
highway raised concerns over nuclear waste shipped by truck, and the threat
to public safety.

  Federal authorities say a chance of a shipment of nuclear waste being caught
in such a fire -- which burned for two hours Sunday and reached 3,000
degrees on Oakland's MacArthur Maze freeway -- are remote.

A full fuel tanker en route to a gas station hit a guardrail and exploded,
melting the steel holding the highway overpass, which collapsed, the San
Francisco Chronicle reports.

Bob Loux, director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects (and adamant opponent
of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project in Nevada),
said the incident shows moving nuclear waste is vulnerable to accidents as
well as terrorist attacks. Some of the waste that could be sent to Yucca
Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, could travel via truck, though
most would be shipped via rail.

Al Stotts, spokesman for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration,
said federal agents travel with the shipments in case of an attack.

If such an incident involves nuclear waste, however, the results aren't
clear. The containers are tested to withstand fires lasting only half an
hour and at 1,475 degrees.

Transuranic nuclear waste is shipped from Washington, Idaho, Colorado, South
Carolina and Los Alamos, N.M., to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in the
deserts of New Mexico.

The U.S. Energy Department has sent 5,600 shipments of such waste --
generated from U.S. research and weapons programs -- since 1999.



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"Switching from coal to nukes," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming program, "is like giving up smoking and taking up crack." 
   
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