Theres a field in Wiscasset, Maine (Population 3,742) protected by armed guards.
On the field is a chain link fence surrounding a pad of concrete.
The containers are full of nuclear waste.
Dry cask storage is used to store spent fuel at the Entergy Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, VT on Oct. 20, 2015.© Photo by Don Ramey Logan
The locals dont love it, but theres nowhere for it to go.
That means theres going to be more nuclear waste than ever before.
Where will it go?
© Photo by Gabe Souza/Portland Press Herald via Getty ImagesAerial photographs of the old Maine Yankee site in Wiscasset taken Wednesday, February 6, 2013, showing the steel-lined concrete containers that hold spent fuel assemblies.
If the current system holds, itll be stored near the reactors.
Dry casks are, by all accounts, remarkably safe.
If theyre undisturbed, they could remain so for centuries.
© Photo by David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images A test nuclear waste load, heated to 400F to see the reaction of the surrounding rocks deep inside the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada. | Location: Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA.
But the world is not static.
The climate is changing.
Wildfires, earthquakes, and rising ocean levels pose a threat to those dry casks.
An earthquake, flood, or fire swallowing up one or two dry casks might not cause a problem.
But theres about to be more of them.
Big Techs nuclear push
Americas nuclear waste is piling up.
Its a political problem, not a scientific one.
Other countries with nuclear infrastructure bury their waste deep underground in specially designed storage facilities called deep geological repositories.
We could do that in America.
We even started building one.
The problem is that no one wants a giant cave filled with nuclear waste in their backyard.
Its hard to blame them.
The U.S. has a terrible track record when it comes to handling waste.
For years, wed store it in barrels and dump itinto the sea.
Waste leftover from the Manhattan Project isstill poisoning people today.
In South Carolina,radioactive alligatorsonce roamed the Savannah River Site where pieces of nuclear weapons were made.
The Hanford Site in Washington state is sitting on54 million gallons of wastethat may never be cleaned up.
To meet Big Techs energy demands, well add more to the pile.
2024 was the year Big Tech went all in on nuclear energy.
To solve the problem, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are allbetting on nuclear energy.
Google announced a partnership with Kairos Power aimed atbuilding multiple small modular reactors(SMR) in October.
Amazon alsoannouncedit was building SMRs in cooperation with Energy Northwest, X-Energy, and Dominion Energy.
Nuclear power is hard to do.
Its fuel sources are rare and heavily regulated.
When it works, it provides clean and efficient fuel for millions of people.
When it goes wrong, its a disaster that can help topple governments and give cancer to millions.
Traditional reactors require billions in investment and decades of construction time.
But Big Tech isnt looking to go the traditional route.
Theyre talking about new kinds of reactors.
Theres been a talk of a renaissance for decades.
Vestergaard is a nuclear supply chain expert who focuses on nonproliferation.
When people think of nuclear power they often picture the enormous cooling towers and sprawling complexes filled with scientists.
The dream of SMRs is that they could do away with much of that.
A lot of these designs have been around for decades, Vestergaard said.
Its just that the economic incentives didnt exist to make them a reality.
Thanks to climate change and the demands of Big Tech, thats changed.
Solar and wind are great in many ways, but they need to be supplemented.
Big Tech may understand business, but energy companies are a whole different thing.
The pitch for many of these SMRs is also that theyre safer and theyll produce less waste.
Vestergaard isnt so sure.
We hear oh, theyre safer, theyre more efficient.
Well, we dont know that.
We have to test and demonstrate this.
Meta and Microsoft referred me topostson their websitesabout sustainability.
Amazon told me to reach out to its energy partners.
Of Big Techs partners, only TerraPowerwho is working with Microsoftgot back to us.
TerraPower identified the core problem of nuclear waste in the U.S.
The government needs to identify a permanent geologic repository.
Its having trouble doing that.
The local populations pay billions into these huge infrastructure projects, she said.
Thats another thing where theyre going to have to learn, and adjust, and adapt to public hearings.
People come out when nuclear waste enters their backyards.
The risk of cancer, radioactive animals, and environmental destruction is real.
And people know it.
These reactors will be built insomeones backyard.
Several of the companies are talking about building them on-site, next to data centers.
Taxpayer cash will go towards these reactors and itll expect to get something in return.
Not all the power can go to the data centers and large language models.
Itll all generate waste.
Waste with nowhere to go.
Its solution was to build a deep geological repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
It even started construction.
In the United States, theres never really been public consent.
Its not like they went to Nevada and said What if we put it here?
What do you guys think about it?
So even if Yucca Mountain was still a viable option, it isnt.
Particularly for new nuclear reactors that would be coming on board, she said.
Opponents called the law the Screw Nevada Bill.
Created in 1987, the position wasnt filled until 1990.
It was eliminated in 1995.
And no one wants it.
The attached pictures show her kissing a dry cask filled with nuclear waste.
Boemeke is one of a number of nuclear influencers who use their platform toagitatefor more nuclear power.
Yes, dry casks are incredibly safe, Vestergaard said.
I put my hand on them as well and stood by them.
Boemekes pic was at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California.
The plant is Californias last operational nuclear power site and the state planned to shut it down.
ThenBoemeke and Grimesstarted making PSAs online about why it needed to remain.
Regulators voted to extend the life of Diablo Canyonto at least 2030.
That means the site will generate more nuclear waste.
Waste which will remain on site.
Diablo Canyon is next to major fault lines.
Its near San Luis Obispo, a community now perennially threatened by wildfires.
The San Onofre nuclear power plant south of Los Angeles sits on a major faultline.
Its also sitting on3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste.
Small volumes of spent nuclear fuel can be contained safely in dry cask storage for century+ time scales.
We burn billions of tons of fossil fuels EVERY YEAR, Jenkins said.
That means the entirety of spent nuclear fuel fits in less than 10,000 dry casks…Thats it.
And this is the nuclear waste problem that means we should supposedly eschew this proven source of emissions-free electricity?
I am not arguing that we shouldnt adopt nuclear energy.
Jenkins and others are right.
Dry casks are mostly safe.
But I do think nuclear waste is a problem.
A 2024 report from the Government Accountability Officeuncovered something shocking.
When the GAO interviewed officials at the Commission, they told investigators that they had it under control.
However, NRC has not conducted an assessment to demonstrate that this is the case, the report said.
The report detailed the hazards facing nuclear power plants.
Big Tech is going to build more nuclear power plants.
Oil and gas are dirty sources of power.
Nuclear has the potential to be much cleaner and more efficient.
Nuclear energy is also mostly safe, the problem is that when things go bad they go catastrophically bad.
More reactors mean more points of failure and more waste.
Waste thats in need of a permanent home.
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