#litière_pour_chat

Deux milliards de dollars : ce que coûte l’éclatement d’un seul fût de #déchets_nucléaires
▻https://reporterre.net/Deux-milliards-de-dollars-ce-que-coute-l-eclatement-d-un-seul-fut-de-dec

Dans son numéro du dimanche 25 septembre 2016, le Los Angeles Times fait le point sur les coûts associés à un #accident dans le #centre_ de_stockage_géologique de déchets nucléaires de #Carlsbad, dans l’État du Nouveau-Mexique, aux États-Unis. En 2014, un fût de déchets y a éclaté. Un seul. Et la remise en état du site coûtera plus de 2 milliards de dollars tandis que les opérations d’enfouissement ne pourront pas reprendre avant 2021 .

Le #Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant, ou #Wipp, est un centre destiné à l’enfouissement définitif de déchets nucléaires à vie longue issus du programme d’armement nucléaire états-unien. Plusieurs centaines de milliers de fûts peuvent y être stockés dans des cavernes de sel à 640 mètres de profondeur. C’est le seul centre de stockage de ce type aux États-Unis après que la construction d’un autre centre, celui de Yucca Mountain, au Nevada, a été stoppée par l’administration Obama en 2011.

#nucléaire #bure

Nuclear accident in New Mexico ranks among the costliest in U.S. history - LA Times
▻http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-mexico-nuclear-dump-20160819-snap-story.html

When a drum containing radioactive waste blew up in an underground nuclear dump in New Mexico two years ago, the Energy Department rushed to quell concerns in the Carlsbad desert community and quickly reported progress on resuming operations.

The early federal statements gave no hint that the blast had caused massive long-term damage to the dump, a facility crucial to the nuclear weapons cleanup program that spans the nation, or that it would jeopardize the Energy Department’s credibility in dealing with the tricky problem of radioactive waste.

But the explosion ranks among the costliest nuclear accidents in U.S. history, according to a Times analysis. The long-term cost of the mishap could top $2 billion, an amount roughly in the range of the cleanup after the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
[…]
The dump, officially known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, was designed to place waste from nuclear weapons production since World War II into ancient salt beds, which engineers say will collapse around the waste and permanently seal it. The equivalent of 277,000 drums of radioactive waste is headed to the dump, according to federal documents.

The dump was dug much like a conventional mine, with vertical shafts and a maze of horizontal drifts. It had operated problem-free for 15 years and was touted by the Energy Department as a major success until the explosion, which involved a drum of of plutonium and americium waste that had been packaged at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The problem was traced to material — actual kitty litter — used to blot up liquids in sealed drums. Lab officials had decided to substitute an organic material for a mineral one. But the new material caused a complex chemical reaction that blew the lid off a drum, sending mounds of white, radioactive foam into the air and contaminating 35% of the underground area.