Nuclear waste.
The worst type of garbage
for raccoons to get into.
Now, it's a substance
that we all know is dangerous
thanks to movies like this.
NARRATOR: They tormented him
 until he had a horrifying
 accident and fell into a bag
 of nuclear waste.
 Melvin became
 The Toxic Avenger,
 the first superhero born
 out of nuclear waste.
 -His face is so terrifying...
-(SCREAMS)
NARRATOR:
...we can't show it to you now.
 You'll have to see the movie
 for yourself.
Honestly, you really don't need
to see the movie, 'cause...
his face isn't really
that terrifying. This is it.
I mean it's bad, but its--
it's so ugly,
it's almost cute again.
It's like-- it's like someone
melted a candle shaped
-like a pug.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
But-- but the point here is
nuclear waste, the radioactive
and toxic byproducts
from making nuclear energy
and weapons is
a serious health hazard,
and America has a lot of it.
ANCHOR: There are more than
 71,000 tons of nuclear waste
 stranded
 at the nation's 104 reactors.
 Put all those
 spent fuel rods together,
 and you get a pile
 as big as a football field
 and more than 20 feet tall.
Or you could put them
in a pile as big
as two football fields
and ten feet tall
or half a football field
and 40 feet tall.
Or 20 football fields,
one foot tall.
The point is, we have a lot of
nuclear waste and it's very fun
-to play with.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And look, that is just the waste
from nuclear energy.
We also have more than
100 million gallons
of hazardous liquid waste
from producing weapons.
And you may live closer
to nuclear waste than you think.
One out of three Americas lives
within 50 miles
of high level nuclear waste.
Some of which, like plutonium,
is lethally dangerous,
and will be-- will be around
for an incredibly long time.
NARRATOR: Even microscopic
 amounts of plutonium,
 if ingested, are deadly.
One of the characteristics
of it is it has
an extremely long half-life.
Plutonium 239, for example,
has a half life
of about 24,000 years.
It's true, 24,000 years and that
just scratches the surface.
It takes ten half-lives
for plutonium to become harmless
so that's 240,000 years.
A unit of time more commonly
known as one English patient.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And as any adult with
an American girl doll collection
eventually finds out,
if you wanna keep something
around for a disturbingly
long time, you have got to find
an appropriate place to put it.
"I cannot live
with your murder dolls anymore.
Felicity stares at me
while I sleep!
She stares at me!"
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS, CHEERS)
-"She stares unblinking!"
And look,
I'm not the first person
to make this point.
Look at this news report
from 1990.
NARRATOR:
 Almost half a century
 after nuclear power
 was harnessed,
 there still is no agreement
 on where to store the waste.
 "We have built the house,"
 said one critic,
 "and forgotten the toilets."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-A home...
with no toilets. Or as a realtor
selling a Brooklyn loft
is calling it right now,
"artisanal composting."
Wait.
You're suggesting that
I shit in that potted plant
while you and I both know that
I will do that
'cause this is convenient
to public transport,
and has both northern
and eastern exposures.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
But look, it-- it has been
27 years since that clip
and our country still doesn't
have a nuclear toilet.
And that is
our subject tonight.
Why do we not have
a nuclear toilet?
And it's actually easy
to understand how we got
into this situation.
Because during World War Two,
we rushed to develop nuclear
weapons because we were trying
to defeat the Nazis,
who, fun fact, pretty much
all Americans agreed were bad
-at the time.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Anyway, the-- the thing is,
we didn't really have
a plan on what to do
with all the radioactive
byproducts that we produced.
And this initially led us
to some mind-blowingly
stupid solutions.
For instance, for years,
we actually did this...
MAN: They loaded the, uh,
radioactive waste and it was
in barrels, 55 gallon barrels,
of, uh, radioactive waste
with concrete poured over it.
It's funny, the ocean
don't glow out there
outside of Red Bank, New Jersey.
(CHUCKLES)
Really. 'Cause we dumped
a lot of barrels out there.
-(AUDIENCE GASPS)
-That is true.
We didn't just dump barrels
of radioactive waste
in the ocean, we did it
off the coast of New Jersey.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
That is so horrifying!
I'm surprised that Jersey Shore
was the title of a lighthearted
MTV series, and not the name
of a harrowing documentary.
An entire generation of children
was born without thumbs,
a phenomenon known
to locals as...
-"The Situation."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And, incidentally,
not all of those barrels sank.
In fact, in 1957,
when two barrels were
caught floating off the shore,
naval aircraft were summoned
to strafe them
with machine-gun fire
until they sank.
That's right.
They shot barrels full
of nuclear waste
with machine guns!
That's got to be one of the most
terrifying sentences ever said
out loud, right after,
"Donald Trump is
the president now,"
and, "Wait, wasn't Felicity
on a different shelf
when we went to bed last night?
Oh, my God!
Felicity is a waking nightmare!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Oh!
Well, the truth is, tossing
barrel-fulls of nuclear waste
into the ocean and shooting them
with machine guns is actually
preferable to at least
one genuine other idea
that was thankfully rejected,
and that was blasting it
into space.
A concept
with a pretty clear flaw.
WOMAN: Unfortunately,
 we don't have a great record
 with getting rockets
 out into the atmosphere.
 If any one of them blew up,
that would basically contaminate
 a large portion of the Earth
 with radioactive material.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
WOMAN: So that's probably
 not a great idea.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-Yeah.
You're right. That's probably
not a great idea.
I mean, a really great idea
would be also filling
the rockets up with confetti,
so at least that way
if there's a horrific accident,
there's also a party!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Now, over the years, we have
dumped nuclear waste all over
the country and in many places,
there've been frightening leaks.
Take the Savannah River Site
in South Carolina,
where waste from poorly-stored
material leaked
into the ground water.
And just watch this alarmingly
laid back man explain
the consequences of that.
MAN: There are radioactive
 alligators on the site.
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
MAN: Radioactive materials are
 in the sediments.
-(ALLIGATOR HISSING)
-(CLANGING)
MAN: It's gonna go
 up the food chain and...
 there's gonna be
 radioactive alligators.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-Yeah.
Radioactive alligators!
They even have names,
Tritagator and Dioxinator,
after two of the wastes
that poisoned them.
And that's actually very clever,
because if I had
to give them names,
I don't know, I'd probably
have gone with something like,
(SCREAMS) "Holy Shit! A Fucking
Radioactive Alligator!"
And, "Oh No, Fuck Me,
There's Another One!
What Nightmare
Hath God Wrought?"
And it's not just reptiles
who've been impacted
by nuclear waste.
Researchers are now studying
an area in North St. Louis
County, Missouri,
where tons of waste
from the Manhattan project was
improperly stored,
some near a creek
that winds through
residential communities,
and people who live there have
noticed some alarming trends.
JENELL WRIGHT: I got on Facebook
 in order to reconnect
with people from high school...
 And we all immediately
 started noticing that so many
 of us were sick.
 We've discovered that
 the Department
 of Veterans Affairs
officially recognizes around 21
cancers associated with exposure
 to ionizing radiation,
 and compared that list
 to what we had.
 We had all of those cancers,
 every single one.
That is an incredibly
depressing thing to discover
on Facebook and it's-- it's hard
to know how to respond.
I mean, you definitely
don't want to use
the "like" button, because...
then it looks
like you really like the fact
they just got cancer.
Now, there is
that new sad emoji,
which would really be perfect
if you hadn't already cheapened
it by using it to respond
to the news that Chris Pratt
and Anna Faris were separating.
I mean, it is sad. It is sad.
But it is not "21-cancer" sad.
It's "nine-cancer" sad.
Tops.
The point is, thankfully,
60 years ago,
our government
and the scientific consensus
came up with a solution.
In 1957, the National Academy
of Sciences issued a report
urging the creation
of a permanent storage facility
deep underground.
Basically, a nuclear toilet.
And while we did build
a repository
for lower-level waste
in New Mexico,
we still haven't built one
for the most dangerous,
high-level waste.
And, as a result, it's
essentially been left
wherever it was made.
Which is not good,
because those facilities
were not built
with the idea that they would be
storing waste indefinitely.
So, to continue the toilet
metaphor,
we've basically been shitting
in bags,
leaving them
all over the house,
and praying
that they don't leak.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And the most frightening
example of this is
the Hanford Site
in Washington state,
which created two third
of the plutonium
in the US arsenal
and is currently storing
56 million gallons
of highly toxic
and radioactive waste
underground.
And over the years,
there have been so many issues
at Hanford,
that they've achieved
a dubious honor,
as one local
new-station reported,
with an almost prideful tone.
ANCHOR: The most contaminated
 place in the entire
 Western Hemisphere isn't
 at a polluting factory
 or an old chemical plant.
 It's right here
 in Washington State.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Oh!
"It's right here!
We did it guys!
Washington State, home
to the most contaminated place
in the Western Hemisphere,
thousands of acres
of apple orchards,
and several of Ted Bundy's
grizzliest murders. We did it!
Right here!"
There have been a string
of problems at Hanford,
from explosions,
to toxic vapor releases,
to over a million gallons
of waste
leaking out of their tanks
over the years.
It has been so bad,
the government has had
to pay out nearly
one and a half billion dollars
in compensation to thousands
of workers for illnesses
stemming from exposure
to radiation
and toxic chemicals there.
A local news station has done
a series of reports
on Hanford, and after a tunnel
collapse this May,
they found some of
the infrastructure there is
almost comically badly
put together.
ANCHOR: Mistakes during
 construction are factors
 in the dangerous state
 of the tunnels.
 They're 55 and 60 years old,
 well beyond their expected
 life span.
In addition, wood beams holding
 up the tunnels are eroding,
and what corrodes timber beams?
 Radiation.
Yeah!
You can't build something
out of wood and expect it
to last forever. You're supposed
to have learned that
from the second dumbest
of the Three Little Pigs.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Hanford... Hanford is
a gigantic problem.
And even though it hasn't
produced anything for 30 years,
the Department of Energy
still spends
nearly two and a half billion
dollars a year
on cleaning it up, which is
close to ten percent
of its annual budget.
And it is pretty weird
to find out that a place
you just heard about
is getting that much
of the DOE's money.
It's like finding out that half
the Department of Agriculture
budget goes to this moose
named Gordon.
I mean, I don't know
the right amount,
-but that seems like a lot.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And in case you're thinking,
"Well I'm definitely glad that
I don't live near Hanford,"
remember there are nuclear
power plants storing waste
all over the country,
lots of it in so-called
"spent fuel pools."
That's where nuclear
fuel rods are supposed to be
temporarily placed to cool down,
and then put
into dry containers,
and then moved
to permanent
underground storage sites.
But remember,
we don't have one of those.
And in many places those pools
are just accumulating
more and more rods.
And while experts say
it's highly unlikely,
if a Fukushima-like accident
happens at one of those,
the results could be
catastrophic.
ANCHOR:
 The northeast has a number
 of nuclear power plants,
including the Indian Point plant
 just outside of New York City.
 If any one of those
 were to have
 a severe
 spent fuel pool accident,
 you're taking away
 a lot of big cities,
 a lot of farm lands,
 a lot of the United States,
for decades, perhaps centuries.
That's right,
lots of big cities.
New York, Hartford, Boston.
And that last one is
a real shame,
'cause as I understand it,
they only just got
un-racist yesterday.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-So...
I mean, at least they could get
to enjoy their new life.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-So...
So, look, it is pretty clear
we need to find
a permanent facility to store
our most dangerous waste.
And 30 years ago,
we actually settled on a site,
Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Congress passed a law
designating it
as our sole candidate
for waste storage.
Now since then,
we've spent 15 billion dollars
prepping the site,
as you can see
from this rather upbeat video.
NARRATOR: Located
 about 100 miles
 northwest of Las Vegas,
 Yucca mountain is the most
 thoroughly researched site
 of its kind in the world.
 Experts throughout the world
 agree that the most
 feasible and safe method
 for disposing
of highly radioactive materials
 is to store them
 deep underground.
That's right.
The best place
to put nuclear waste is
in a hole deep underground.
Much like Felicity.
Wait. Wait, if she's not there,
where is she?
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-Ah, Jesus fucking Christ!
Fuck me!
Jesus! Fucking--
Get the fuck away!
(PANTING)
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
(PANTING)
-(AUDIENCE CHEERS)
-It's alright. It's okay.
I'm fine.
It's fine.
The point is...
So, Yucca mountain
is our permanent storage site.
So the problem is solved,
right? Well, no!
Because while the site
has been deemed safe,
and the people
in the immediate area,
Nye County,
actually support the project,
many Nevadans elsewhere
in the state
really don't want it.
And their former senator,
Harry Reed, lobbied hard,
eventually managing
to get Yucca shot down.
Now, to be fair, he did have
an alternative plan
for all the states sitting
on their nuclear waste,
but to put it mildly,
it was not exactly
scientifically-sound.
Leave it on site, where it is.
Leave it where it is,
and dry cast storage containers.
If you were smart,
what you would do is, uh...
leave this...
leave it where it is.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
"If you're smart,
what you would do is leave
the thing where it is"
is terrible advice
for dealing with nuclear waste.
Although, it is coincidentally
the title of Britain's
bestselling book on parenting.
-But... But...
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Here... Here is the truth.
the scientific consensus
for decades
has been that leaving it where
it is is a really bad idea.
The shutted power plant
at San Onofre, in California,
is storing nuclear waste,
and it's on a fault line
right next to the ocean.
And that sounds like
something you learn
in the first scene of a movie
starring The Rock
that you watch on a plane.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-And look,
maybe Yucca is the best place
to store our growing supply
of radioactive garbage.
Maybe it's not.
I am not a nuclear scientist.
I just have the face of one.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-And... And our--
Our new energy secretary,
Rick Perry...
yes, Rick Perry...
has said that he is
optimistic about fixing
the whole problem,
which does sound great.
Although, he didn't exactly do
a great job
at dealing with this disaster.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(STUDIO AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Yeah, that was him
on Dancing with the Stars,
and on the basis of that,
managing volatile energy
is not really his forte.
But here's the thing.
We've been saying
that we are going to fix this
for decades now,
and we seem to be no closer
to a solution.
And let me show you something
that really drove that fact
home to us,
because we've
been researching this story
for a couple of weeks now,
and just yesterday afternoon,
we stumbled on a TV special
from 1977,
the year that I was born.
♪ (MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NARRATOR:
 NBC News presents...
Danger! Radioactive Waste.
Yeah, this problem is so old
they reported on it back when
the news was kept
in an America-shaped vault
that you had to open
with a crank.
As we watched that yesterday,
we gradually
and chillingly realized that
by pure coincidence
it hits every beat of the story
that we just told you.
It opens with footage
of sailors throwing barrels
into the ocean.
It looks at the facilities
at Hanford.
It talks about radiation's
impact on workers
and on families
who live nearby.
And while it doesn't have
a radioactive alligator,
it does have radioactive cows.
Which is-- which is still good.
Although,
I did prefer our alligator.
I liked it when he went...
(HISSES)
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
-But--
But the most chilling moment
in that documentary might be
the one where they sit down
with someone in authority,
and demand to know
exactly when this will be fixed.
NARRATOR: When you ask
when the problem will be solved,
 you get answers like this.
WOMAN: What's the realistic
time table?
Realistic time table
is scheduled to have
a repository in operation
by 1985,
with the selection of the sites
by the end of 1978
for detailed work.
Exactly.
Nuclear waste is a problem
we were supposed to have dealt
with in the 1980's
and still cannot solve,
much like this Rubik's Cube
that I always carry with me.
You are my Jean Valjean,
cube, and, one day,
-I shall defeat you.
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And at the end
of that special, remember,
40 years ago, the correspondent
delivers this special message.
The waste
increases every minute.
The solution of where
to put it is years away.
 And none of the previous
 solutions has worked.
 We are accustomed
 in this country to act
 only in times of crisis.
 But with nuclear waste,
 when the crisis comes,
 it will be too late.
And that was
from four decades ago.
We have already waited way
too long to resolve this issue.
And we are dancing
with trouble here.
So if any one says
the government
can just continue to wait,
they are much like
a house with no toilet.
Absolutely full of shit.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS, APPLAUDS)
