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“Outstanding service. They were extremely careful delivering the extra large container into our driveway.” -- A. L. GARNER
Scientists say they have more evidence that an increase in earthquakes on the Colorado-New Mexico border since 2001 has been caused by wells that inject wastewater from oil and gas production back underground, similar to human-caused quakes in Oklahoma and other states.A paper published last week by researchers at the University of Colorado concluded that the wastewater caused a big enough increase in underground pressure to make rock formations slip along fault lines.“You find that the pressures at any given depth are enough to trigger earthquakes,” said Jenny Nakai, the paper’s lead author and a doctoral student at the university.The paper, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, is the latest to link wastewater injection wells to earthquakes.Most oil and gas wells produce at least some wastewater that is too salty to use, so regulators allow energy companies to pump it back underground to get rid of it. Researchers have linked earthquakes in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas to wastewater injection.Oklahoma had only a few dozen ea... (The Denver Post)
The Energy Department promised to move an average of 2,000 cubic meters to a special dump in New Mexico, but it has missed that goal for several years, because of an underground explosion at the dump.The Energy Department declined to answer specific questions about the breeder waste cleanup, citing the sensitivity of nuclear technology. It blamed the slow pace of cleanup on inadequate funding but said it was still trying to meet the deadline.“When the implementation plan for the treatment of the [spent fuel] was developed in 2000, there was very limited nuclear energy research and development being performed in the United States,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.“The funding for this program has been limited in favor of other research and development activities. The Department remains strongly committed to the treatment of this fuel in time to meet its commitments to the State of Idaho.”Susan Burke, who monitors the cleanup at the laboratory for the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, said the statewill continue to demand that the waste be ready for shipment out of Idaho by 2035.“The Energy Department is doing the best it can, but our expectation is that they will have to meet the settlement agreement,” she said.Idaho watchdogs are sk... (Los Angeles Times)
The Energy Department promised to move an average of 2,000 cubic meters to a special dump in New Mexico, but it has missed that goal for several years, because of an underground explosion at the dump.The Energy Department declined to answer specific questions about the breeder waste cleanup, citing the sensitivity of nuclear technology. It blamed the slow pace of cleanup on inadequate funding but said it was still trying to meet the deadline.“When the implementation plan for the treatment of the [spent fuel] was developed in 2000, there was very limited nuclear energy research and development being performed in the United States,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.“The funding for this program has been limited in favor of other research and development activities. The Department remains strongly committed to the treatment of this fuel in time to meet its commitments to the State of Idaho.”Susan Burke, who monitors the cleanup at the laboratory for the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, said the state will continue to demand that the waste be ready for shipment out of Idaho by 2035.“The Energy Department is doing the best it can, but our expectation is that they will have to... (Los Angeles Times)
Oak Ridge is leaving the Transuranic Waste Processing Center for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Employees celebrate in the photo above. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management)For the first time since 2012, transuranic waste processed and treated in Oak Ridge is leaving the Transuranic Waste Processing Center for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico.The first shipment left Oak Ridge on August 9.Transuranic waste consists of materials and debris that are contaminated with elements that have a higher atomic mass and listed after uranium on the periodic table. The majority of Oak Ridge’s inventory originated from previous research and isotope production missions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.“Resuming shipments has been an important priority for our program due to the large inventory of processed waste that is stored in onsite facilities,” said Jay Mullis, acting manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management. “These shipments will remove risk from our site and help fulfill our commitments t... (Oak ... - Oak Ridge Today)
Nevada's Yucca Mountain, while also moving forward with a separate plan for a temporary storage site in New Mexico or Texas. Supporters said the bill represents a comprehensive package to solve a nuclear-waste management problem that has festered for more than three decades. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill, 49-4, Wednesday, sending it to the full House. The Trump administration has proposed reviving the long-stalled Yucca project 100 miles from Las Vegas. Nevada officials fiercely oppose the plan. Meanwhile, private companies have proposed state-of-the-art facilities in remote areas of Texas and New Mexico to temporarily house tons of spent fuel that has been piling up at nuclear reactors around the country.U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, released the following statement on H.R. 3053:“Any proposed nuclear repository site or storage facility should require the consent of the host state before it can advance. It is unjust and unfair to force Nevadans to live next to a nuclear waste dump that could harm both their health and ... (KTVN Channel 2 - Reno Tahoe Sparks News ... - KTVN)