Protecting forests could play a critical role in the fight against climate change. Many of the world's nations are banking on a scheme called REDD which puts a price on trees so they're more valuable standing than cut down. Living on Earth series "REDD Path to a Green Planet" travels to Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America to the people and places where the economic forces are driving deforestation.

Waste Not, Want Not

(broadcast February 26, 2010)

President Obama's decision to cut federal funds for the Yucca Nuclear Waste Repository leaves operators of the nation's reactors holding more than 120 million pounds of high level waste. Federal officials say that the waste is safe, but critics say spent fuel pools are vulnerable targets for terrorists. Several State Attorneys General are suing to change that. Senior Correspondent Bruce Gellerman investigates the Pilgrim reactor in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Solving Nuclear Waste

(broadcast February 26, 2010)

Now that the Yucca Mountain repository is all but shut down, where does the high level waste go? Host Jeff Young talks with Dr. John Garrick, chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, to find out what other nations are doing with their radioactive spent fuel.

Nuclear Money Meltdown

The Connecticut Yankee Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations. (Courtesy of Connecticut Yankee)(broadcast March 5, 2010)

President Obama has big plans for the future of commercial nuclear energy but the industry still has to deal with the waste it's generated over the past 50 years. The administration has pulled the plug on the Yucca Mountain repository so, today, half a century of radioactive waste remains at power plants. That's costing taxpayers and ratepayers billions of dollars a year. Living on Earth's Bruce Gellerman investigates the flow of federal funds and nuclear waste in the second story in our series.

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