Skip Navigation

The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

Clean Nuclear

By The Daily Dish
Jul 3 2009, 2:32 AM ET

David Frum explains why we create so much nuclear waste but France creates so little. He also visited a French nuclear storage facility:

This past week, I had an opportunity to visit French nuclear facilities as a guest of the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute. At the end of the trip, I was taken to the large concrete-lined below-ground chamber in which the French store the most hazardous of the nuclear wastes generated by reprocessing. The room in which I stood held something like one-third of the total of all the most hazardous waste produced in France since the 1960s. It was rather larger than a high school gym. I stood atop of a concrete disk with a numeric code. Beneath that disk was a cylinder of concrete perhaps 5 meters deep. Below that was 10 meters of empty space, and below that a stainless steel tube holding nuclear byproducts. After my visit to the room I was scanned for exposure to radiation. My dose? About half as much as I had absorbed on the flight from the U.S. to France, about the same amount as I’d have ingested from a small dish of mussels.

It seems a small risk to run to solve the climate problem.

Agreed. Nuclear now!



Presented by

More at The Atlantic

The GOP Primary Is Badly Wounding Mitt Romney Why a Long Primary Fight Will Hurt Mitt Romney
'Plug In Better': A Manifesto Plug In Better
Can Full-Metal jousting Become the Next Ultimate Fighting Championship? Can Full-Metal Jousting Become the Next UFC?
There's a 1 in 16 Chance Your V-Day Flowers Were Cut by Child Laborers V-Day Flowers, Cut by Child Laborers
In Memphis Classrooms, the Ghost of Segregation Lingers On In Memphis Classrooms, the Ghost of Segregation Lingers On
Special Report
Submit Your Photos of America at Work AP Submit Your Photos of America at Work
Send us your images of friends, family, and neighbors on the job. We'll publish the best. Read more ›

Just In

View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

Valentine's Day 2012

Feb 14, 2012

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)