Yucca Mountain, Open For Business

John Galt writes: "It seems the Feds have finally decided that Nevada will host the government's nuclear waste repository." The Yucca Mountain project has been in the works for a while. Here is a cutaway diagram.

Comments

Problems....

[ishark]

From the link:

Energy Department scientists contend those issues either have been resolved or can be dealt with as a final design for the facility goes through the licensing process.

I don't understand: if there still are issues which are not resolved, how can the decision to put the dump there be taken? What if the issues CANNOT be dealt with during the final phase? Does anyone believe that they will they be able to admit and back out?
I'm not surprised that the local politicians (and I suppose also the population) are NOT happy about it....

Also, in the post-9/11 world it'll be much harder to keep en eye on what's happening as "for security reasons" lots of stuff has been pulled from the Internet. For example, in France we have a recycling site at La Hague which used to give access to many webcams inside the installation (the new director's policy was "absolute transparency" to reassure citizens), but now they are offline....

Re:Problems....

[Mike Connell]

Perhaps they have in the back of their minds the fact that at the moment the waste is being stored all over the country in various temporary containment facilities.

I don't know for a fact, but perhaps even with the known problems for the new site, they still think it's better than the current situation.

0.02

At least the feds are giving full disclosure!

[pgpckt]

SECURITY NOTICE

The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management promotes the open review of documents by the public during the Yucca Mountain site recommendation consideration process. However, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, we have removed certain content from our Internet site to minimize the risk of providing potentially sensitive information that could result in adverse impacts to National security. The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management apologizes for any inconvenience that this action may cause. We appreciate your patience and understanding during these difficult times.

Translation:
We support open disclosure. Except to you. Or anyone else that might care about the safety of radioactive waste. I mean, not providing this info on the internet is to prevent terrorism! So that's good!

(sigh)
Will Sept 11th be the excuse for the de facto revoking of sunshine laws and intrusions on liberties? I think maybe.

Put it in a fast reactor

[morbid]

Much better idea:

Put the plutonium in a fast reactor and generate electricity while reducing the quantity of plutonium and creating shorter-lived daugter products. So, that's (1) reducing the amount of plutonium (2) getting electricity out of it (3) reducing the waste storage cost.
The problem is getting the screaming hedgemonkies in Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to let you do it since it impinges on their superstitious beliefs.

Not so fast

[foo fighter]

NPR is reporting this morning that the plan cannot go forward until Nevada has agreed to it. Their Congressional delegation is strongly opposing it, and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) is also against it. Until Nevada agrees to it, nothing will happen until Congress votes on it. And they won't vote for it while Daschle is in the driver's seat.

Nevada and Congress are aware of the issues involved in keeping this stuff in temporary locations, but there is a big NIMBY issue as well.

IMO, it can't hurt to be very, very, very sure this will be safely stored. A couple more years of study are not all that much when you consider this crap will still be radioactive 10,000 years from now.

Re:Shoot it into the sun?

[jamie]

Here's Robert Heinlein on nuclear waste. Expanded Universe, 1980, pp. 566-7. The President of the United States is speaking to one of her advisors:

She touched a switch. "Get me the head of the U.S. Engineers. How would you dispose of nuclear power plant wastes? Rocket them onto the Moon as someone urged last week? Why wouldn't the Sun be better? We may want to go back to the Moon someday."

"Oh, my, no! Neither one, Ma'am."

"Why not? Some of those byproducts are poisonous for hundreds of years, so I've heard. No?"

"You heard correctly. But the really rough ones have short half-lives. The ones with long half-lives -- hundreds, even thousands of years, or longer -- are simple to handle. But don't throw away any of it, Ma'am. Not where you can't recover it easily."

"Why not? We're speaking of wastes. I assume that we have extracted anything we can use."

"Yes, Ma'am, anything we can use. But our great grandchildren are going to hate you. Do you know the only use the ancient Romans had for petroleum? Medicine, that's all. I don't know how those isotopic wastes will be used next century ... any more than those old Romans could guess how very important oil would become. But I certainly wouldn't throw those so-called wastes into the Sun!