Nuclear Waste Muller Summary

In “Nuclear Waste”, Richard A. Muller, a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, discusses the dangers of nuclear waste and criticizes how important figures are handling the situation. To put it another way, Muller’s main intention of this article is to inform any future president about the reality of nuclear waste and power by reinforcing the fact that nuclear waste is intractable. Besides, Muller points out that it is impractical to focus on the absolute containment of nuclear too much, for it is impossible to keep it permanently. Nevertheless, the public, scientists, politicians might object to Muller’s assertions because they believe it is a political, scientific issue and the public wants absolute security to feel safe. Whereas Muller is probably wrong when he claims that waste leakage from Yucca
The reason being is that focusing on nuclear waste leakage is impractical. To support the claim, Muller provides an evidence of Yucca Mountain, a region where nuclear waste is stored being “seismically active. More than 600 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 and higher have occurred within 50 miles in the last decade alone” (253). This example illustrates that the possibility of nuclear contamination is so small as it is impossible to predict another eruption. In other words, Muller denounces people who do not consider the effect of storing nuclear waste in the deepest part of the Yucca Mountain. Moreover, Muller’s evidence of Colorado River is a powerful example which fortifies that people should not just focus on absolute containment. This is because in the Colorado ground where much of the uranium is obtained, amount of radioactivity in this region is not lethal enough. It is clear that it is better to focus on guaranteeing leakage every 300 years for it is unacceptable for people to waste time on storage and security of nuclear