How 2 Swedish towns vied for nuclear waste Civic competition is a deep and ancient force. Ever since towns were towns, they have found ways to assert their superiority over one another, through commerce, war and other, more sporting encounters. The thrill of outdoing a neighbour, the fear of losing to the rivals from along the shore, are apparently universal human urges and the world crackles with all kinds of local contests, from the town lantern competitions of the Philippines to America's "Best Tennis Town" and the tidy villages of Ireland. A few of these competitions are born of a culture so specific they can be hard to understand. In the Thai town of Phuket, temples founded by Chinese immigrants compete to produce extraordinary displays of human self-harm and mutilation, known as mah song. In Sweden, meanwhile, two municipalities, Östhammar and Oskarshamn, have spent the past seven years competing for the right to host the world's first high-level nuclear waste storage facility. Although it comes in many varieties, nuclear waste is short on what most people consider winning qualities. It is the downsides that catch our eye, and, of these, high-level nuclear waste has a peculiarly rich array. This kind of waste is normally "spent fuel", long rods of uranium that have been burnt in a nuclear reactor. No longer capable of supplying the steady chain reaction that a power station demands, the bundles of radioactive metal emerge at the end of their useful lives to become a terrifying hazard. (...) The people of Östhammar and Oskarshamn know all this - not that I heard anyone mention the necrotic jaw. Geologists and physicists have been convinced since the 1970s that high-level nuclear waste can be stored safely, as long as it is buried hundreds of metres underground in secure repositories. The problem has been convincing the rest of us. In the US, Germany, Switzerland and Japan, all attempts to designate geologically suitable sites or find communities willing to accept nuclear waste repositories have failed. Other countries, such as the UK, have given themselves long, mid-century deadlines for dealing with the question. Only Finland and France are at a similar stage as Sweden, with all three countries expecting to open repositories some time around 2025.
Civic competition is a deep and ancient force. Ever since towns were towns, they have found ways to assert their superiority over one another, through commerce, war and other, more sporting encounters. The thrill of outdoing a neighbour, the fear of losing to the rivals from along the shore, are apparently universal human urges and the world crackles with all kinds of local contests, from the town lantern competitions of the Philippines to America's "Best Tennis Town" and the tidy villages of Ireland.
A few of these competitions are born of a culture so specific they can be hard to understand. In the Thai town of Phuket, temples founded by Chinese immigrants compete to produce extraordinary displays of human self-harm and mutilation, known as mah song. In Sweden, meanwhile, two municipalities, Östhammar and Oskarshamn, have spent the past seven years competing for the right to host the world's first high-level nuclear waste storage facility.
Although it comes in many varieties, nuclear waste is short on what most people consider winning qualities. It is the downsides that catch our eye, and, of these, high-level nuclear waste has a peculiarly rich array. This kind of waste is normally "spent fuel", long rods of uranium that have been burnt in a nuclear reactor. No longer capable of supplying the steady chain reaction that a power station demands, the bundles of radioactive metal emerge at the end of their useful lives to become a terrifying hazard.
(...)
The people of Östhammar and Oskarshamn know all this - not that I heard anyone mention the necrotic jaw. Geologists and physicists have been convinced since the 1970s that high-level nuclear waste can be stored safely, as long as it is buried hundreds of metres underground in secure repositories. The problem has been convincing the rest of us. In the US, Germany, Switzerland and Japan, all attempts to designate geologically suitable sites or find communities willing to accept nuclear waste repositories have failed. Other countries, such as the UK, have given themselves long, mid-century deadlines for dealing with the question. Only Finland and France are at a similar stage as Sweden, with all three countries expecting to open repositories some time around 2025.
A very long article. Email me if you want it in full. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Or checking the date, it seems you were actually first. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
