Yucca Mountain in Nevada was designated to be the long-term underground repository for storage of nuclear waste from over 100 nuclear power plants currently operating in the United States.
According to recent reports, after 30 years of preparation, scientific studies, and federal funding, the current administration has concluded that concerns for cost and safety make the Yucca Mountain site unsuitable for storing nuclear waste.
After three decades, the country is back to square one on the construction of a national nuclear waste long term storage facility.
This is an unfortunate development, since President Obama announced last month that funding has been appropriated to begin the construction process for two nuclear power plants in Burke, Georgia.
Dresden Nuclear Power Plant in Illinois was the first privately financed plant to be constructed. The plant is forty years old, with twenty years left on the traditional decommission time of a sixty year maximum for the current slew of old power plants around the country.
The news of abandoning plans for Yucca Mountain, have caused a great deal of concern for the future of safely storing waste at a time when permit applications for nuclear reactors are increasing.
The Hanford Reactor in Washington State still has 53 million tons of nuclear waste to clean up, although the site was decommissioned decades ago.
On Thursday, March 04, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) angered by the Yucca Mountain decision aggressively questioned the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu during a hearing of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Committee. Murray asked him to provide real scientific evidence for the Obama Administration’s reversal of a plan that had been in progress for 30 years. Murray repeatedly pressed Chu for specifics.
Secretary Chu admitted that DOE did not consult nearby communities or nuclear clean up sites, before issuing their decision. He was also lean on facts for the scientific rational behind the current administration’s expedient effort to defund the Yucca Mountain plan.
Yucca Mountain was chosen originally for its unique volcanic residual properties created millions of years ago, that lend to a natural storage site, due to its suitable materials for entombing tons of radioactive waste for 10,000 years, which is required for the material to become safe and inert.
The reasons for the change in direction have been rather vague. Concerns about the safety of transporting dangerous radioactive waste cross country by rail have been cited. But, there have been transports of waste going on for years without an accident or terrorist threats.
In addition, questions have been raised about earthquake faults near the Yucca site, but previous DOE scientists have said that tectonic and seismic activity would not affect the natural systems. The ongoing tectonic deformation happens at such a slow rate, it would not affect the area for the 10,000 year duration of compliance.
“Over the last 30 years, Congress, independent studies, and previous administrations have all pointed to, voted for, and funded Yucca Mountain as the nation’s best option for a nuclear repository,” said Senator Patty Murray said at Thursday’s hearing. “And in concert with those decisions, billions of dollars and countless work hours have been spent at Hanford and nuclear waste sites across the country in an effort to treat and package nuclear waste that will be sent there. Without a repository, those sites and the communities that support them have been left in limbo.”
“I believe that it is irresponsible for the Department of Energy to discontinue the Yucca program altogether, its funding, licensing and design,” Murray said. “I believe that this has to be a decision that should be based on science and the moral responsibility we have to clean up this waste. We can’t just unilaterally take one site out of the equation.”
If Yucca Mountain remains an unviable repository for the country’s radioactive nuclear waste, the material will have to be stored on the site of each nuclear power plant. It would not be an immediate problem for newer designs and future plants, which would have time and storage capacity to wait out the development for a new repository plan. But older facilities like the Dresden Nuclear Power plant, could inevitably have to store its waste well past the 60 year decommission time.
Senator Murray and many power plant operators believe that Yucca Mountain is the best answer to current and future storage needs and there has not been enough scientific evidence presented to eliminate it from consideration.
***Jean Williams 2010
Comments
A court decision changed the period of compliance for storage of spent fuel and other high-level waste in the Yucca Mountain repository from 10,000 years to 1 million years. The reason for this is that this waste contains Neptunium-237, with a half-life of two million years and other long-lived isotopes.
Hey, Susanne, is there a source link to this information? This was not reflected in any press release or research on the subject. Even Wikipedia still has it at 10,000 year compliance. If you could steer me in the direction of your source, I would be glad to check it out and make adjustments, but I need proof.
Jean: Here are some sources:
Chapter 10 of Nuclear Waste Stalemate: Political and Scientific Controversies by Robert Vandenbosch and Susanne E. Vandenbosch
(University of Utah Press 2007).
Federal Register 73, 61526, Oct. 15,2008
"The Revised Radiation Protection Standards for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository" by Robert Vandenbosch and Susanne E. Vandenbosch, Physics and Society,January 2009.
Jeanne:
Here is a correction for the Federal Register reference I just gave you.
Federal Register 73, 61256 Oct. 15, 2008
This shows Obama lies and talks out both sides of his mouth.
He has no intentions of allowing any new nuke plants.
Thanks Susanne, I will check out this information tonight. Wiki is usually pretty good at updating this kind of information.
Okay, Susanne, I did a search on the Federal Register by posting "Federal Register 73, 61256, Oct. 15, 2008" and it gives me 40 hits, but this one is not among them. Any other ideas? Thanks!
Just Google "million year standard for yucca mountain" and you will get lots of discussion of this standard and how it is addressed. The Yucca Mountain license application (the one being withdrawn) addressed both the 10,000 year and the million-year period and suggested the repository was likely to be safe for both time periods.
The charge that somehow it was transportation that was so dangerous poisons the water for ANY future solution to the spent fuel problem, all solutions involve transportation. The National Academy of Sciences published "Going the Distance" to lay to rest the idea that somehow nuclear fuel transport was less safe than the transport of other commonly moved hazardous materials. They showed it was orders of magnitiude safer than transporting some chemicals commonly shipped through the nation (and through Las vegas). Yucca Mountain was not perfect, but promised to be safe. Your car is not perfect, but likely safe enough to use within prescribed limits.
I just tried the Google search engine. I entered "final radiation standards Yucca Mountain". There were a number of topics listed. I clicked on News Brief EPA Issues Final Radiation Standards and obtained information on the 1 million year period.
His boss goes out and about LYING that he supports nuclear energy while in the backroom he tells his people to PULL ALL FUNDING for Yucca.
The man who calls himself President is a pathological liar.
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