RESEARCH

Keep An Eye Out For…

Allison MacFarlane’s upcoming book, tentatively titled Uncertainty Underground: Dealing with the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste. Slated for release early next year, the book looks at the unresolved scientific issues at Yucca Mountain — the spot chosen to be the nation’s long-term geographic depository of spent nuclear and radioactive waste. Located on “throwaway” land northwest of Las Vegas once used during the 1950s to test nuclear weapons, the site has had its share of controversy. President Bush signed a resolution approving the site which could begin accepting waste as early as 2010. MacFarlane, a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, says her book asks some of the basic questions that have plagued the project since it was first conceived: Will it be safe to store nuclear waste for millennia? If not, what do we need to know?

Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy, Yucca Mountain Project