Yucca Mountain Approved for US Nuclear Waste Storage

Cephalien writes "As reported by Reuters (The link is from AT&T Worldnet -- No registration required, etc, etc), looks like congress has pushed this through against Nevada's objections (NIMBY, anyone?). Now all that's left is the licensing from the NRC. I dunno about you folks, but I'm glad I don't live in Nevada." After 20 years in the making and 4 billion in studies construction on the $58b facility can begin. It was this or Cmdrtacos basement.

Comments

Unfortunately...

[neksys]

The nuclear waste has to go somewhere. I sincerely feel horrible for the people of Nevada, but the fact remains that a decision had to be made. If it were left up to debate, the waste would continue to build up in unsecure storage facilities. It's a shame that we've let ourselves get to this point, but if not Yucca Mountain, then where? South Dakota? Florida? Canada? The fact remains that a permanent storage facility is desperately needed - and we've only ourselves to blame (or more specifically, our decision-makers) for our lack of foresight into the long term storage needs of our nuclear industry.

It's sad that tens of billions of dollars are going to this when there are millions of people who are dying of hunger.

Re:Unfortunately...

[thales]

"The fact remains that a permanent storage facility is desperately needed - and we've only ourselves to blame (or more specifically, our decision-makers) for our lack of foresight into the long term storage needs of our nuclear industry."

One of the major reasons this has been put off so long is the fear mongering tatics of anti-nuclear groups. They have constantly opposed any permanant storage facility, AND used the lack of permanant storage as a reason to go "Nuke Free".

10000 years

[iangoldby]

I'll admit that this site is probably about as good as any, but the idea that you have to keep 77000 tons of deadly radioactive material isolated for the next 10000 years just scares me. Civilizations rise and fall in such timescales. Who is going to know it is there, even 1000 years from now? What happens if some geologist of the future unknowingly takes a core sample in just the wrong place, to name just one of many not entirely unlikely scenarios.

For goodness sake, my local council doesn't even know where all its buried services are located under the roads and pavements. Do we really think we can preserve data and ensure political stability for 10000 years?

This has to be the biggest argument against nuclear power. Forget the operational safety aspects. We just can't guarantee the long-term safety of the waste.

Re:10000 years

[Cody Hatch]

And it's sure suck if a future geoligist accidentally falls into a long-buried septic tank too. Seriously, what's the MAXIMUM possible damage here? A geolgist knocks a few months off his life? While I have the greatest possible sympathy for the poor guy (or women/neuter/android/alien or whatever is digging stuff up 5000 years from now), I don't rank this problem as high as, say, deciding what to have for lunch tomorrow.

Really, you raise one of the WEAKEST arguments against nuclear power. Weigh the benefits against the possible negatives, and it's obvious that the health of future lost geologists (yeah, 5000 years from now and they're not going to use sensors we haven't even DREAMED of yet?) is a small problem.

Actually, as far as I'm concerned, the biggest argument against nuclear power is that it's mostly too damn expensive (yeah, even when you factor in the cost of the damage of burning fossile fuels). I suppose it might be nice to have some capacity on reserve in case foreign oil imports are cut, or something, but it'd probably still be cheaper just to stockpile a few years worth of oil. :-P

Re:10000 years

[thales]

"Consider finding the ruins of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, even... they're going to be dangerous for a lot longer than the cities will be there"

I Have visited Nagasaki. It's a thriving modern city and the only "ruins" are the walls of an old fortress that were left in place as part of Peace Park a memorial to those who died in the bombing. The Park is 600 meters from ground zero, and is visited by thousands daily with ZERO danger from radiation.

However your post does serve as an excellant example of the mindless fear mongering that that antinuclear people use in place of facts.

Re:10000 years

[Soulslayer]

Excuse me?

Actually half the reason we have as much waste as we do is because of the moratorium on breeder reactors. The U-238 (nuclear waste/depleted Uranium) coming out of traditional Light Water Reactors can be used in Breeder Reactors to generate more power (and reducing the need to store waste materials). This end product of the process, however, is weapons grade Plutonium-239 and some more U-238 (a smaller amount of U-235 is required as an initiator for the reaction).

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/ fasbre.html

What alarmists also fail to note is that the resulting Plutonium can be used to fuel yet another form of nuclear reactor. Plutonium Pellet based reactors are not only very efficient, but also one of the safer forms of reactor.

Unfortunately concerns about both weapons grade and reactor grade plutonium (the latter produced in small amounts by standard reactors) being potentially used in nuclear weapons has prevented the widespread construction of breeder reactors and a number of moratoriums for such projects came into being.

Most of the problems occurring in areas such as Iraq caused by depleted uranium dust are related to children ingesting it from untreated drinking water that has become contaminated by UN/NATO forces spent ammunition.

The "military" aspect is also at the root of the public's biggest misconception about plutonium; that the radiation off of plutonium is the "strongest". Plutonium in fact gives off mostly alpha particles which can be stopped by shielding as weak as a piece of normal writing paper or the layer of dead skin cells that covers your body.

Plutonium is however very toxic and radioactively hazardous if ingested or placed on open wounds/etc.

http://www.vnh.org/BUMEDINST6470.10A/Plutonium.htm l

Something else that bothers me about everyone screaming bloody murder over the Yucatan and similar storage facilities is this bizzare belief by people that these materials are somehow magical evil concoctions that were given form in a lab. Most people honestly do not understand that uranium is mined from the ground like any other ore. And that the danger posed by nuclear waste is less one of radiation than of toxicity (radioactive damage stems mainly from consumption or absorbtion into the bloodsteam). The concept of shorter half-lifes being more radioactive also seems to elude people.

You are in far far more danger from walking into your house then you are from nuclear storage.

Most people in the US that are getting into a panic over relatively safe nuclear materials being stored in secure facilities many miles away are not even aware of how near they live to a superfund site. Most superfund sites revolve around heavy metals and other exceedingly toxic substances and are far more common than people think.

Nuclear power is (right now) one of the cleanest and safest power sources available. Too many people are stuck in some sort of a terrified cold war stupor and have been failing to do enough research.

And everyone reading this has to go read Zodiac

alt.nuclear.power

[selderrr]

I know this is an old debate, and you might consider it a troll, but if we had invested 58 BILLION DOLLARS (falling over backwards here ...) propermy 20 years ago, we might have had an alternative for nuclear power by now. I recently heard a radio interview with a nuke expert who said that, with a bit of luck, they might have an experimental FUSION reactor by 2030. Right now they do have the capabilities of warming deuterium plasma to 150million degrees celcius, which is sufficient to start fusion. Now they have to invest 17billion dollars to build a reactor. Dollars they don't have...

silly, isn't it ?

Re:*sigh*

[neksys]

Good point.

More importantly, I would suggest that the shipments will not become targets for terrorists for the simple fact that it will be tightly controlled and secured. Any terrorist in need of nuclear waste for any sort of weapon would simply visit Russia or any of the other nuclear countries less-secure storage facilities and transportation. I can guarantee that grabbing some nuclear waste from norther Siberia would go largely unnoticed - and it's certainly a lot safer than trying to attack an armed convoy on US soil.

Re:*sigh*

[Happy go Lucky]

More importantly, I would suggest that the shipments will not become targets for terrorists for the simple fact that it will be tightly controlled and secured.

Yep.

I don't know how many people here have actually met/worked with DOE guards. Trust me on one thing: They're not the rent-a-cops at the mall. DOE security is where Navy SEALS go when they leave the Navy. They tend to be better trained and equipped than my department's SWAT team.

I'm in reasonably-good shape. At 35, I still run a 24-minute 5K, bench my own weight for seven, etc. And from duty gear, I can put two into an index card, two seconds at five yards. And the DOE guys I've met pretty much all run, lift, and shoot circles around me.

I pity the dumb-assed terrorist who tries to hijack one of these convoys. It'll be a quick trip to Allah, is for damn sure.

We *have* to have a place to dump used nuclei

[po8]

I'm glad I don't live in Nevada.

I would gladly locate the national nuclear waste repository within 1/2 mile of my home if the alternative is to leave it where it is. My home town of Portland, OR is about 30 miles from the Trojan nuclear power plant, a now-defunct power reactor whose pool is being used as its spent-fuel storage facility. The pool is a few hundred yards from the Columbia river. Given that situation, IMHO almost any sensible thing one could do would be an improvement.

Nope...

[cirby]

It'd have to be a helluva big car, with some really bad-ass explosives. Six inches of Very Hard Steel, with a lead liner and a thick energy-absorbing outer casing. A simple bomb would just push the thing over. You'd need a shaped charge just to poke a hole in it, and all that would do would be to let some nasty stuff out (which would contaminate a few hundred meters of ground). Collisions? They tested the cask design by running a locomotive into it at 60+ MPH, and all it did was bounce the thing along the track.

Meanwhile, several thousand tons of extremely nasty chemicals of all sorts (from caustics to poisons to explosives) are running down roads and railroad tracks at speeds of up to 100 MPH.

And at this very moment, over two BILLION gallons of a horrible chemical (poisonous, explosive, and carcinogenic) are currently being transported around the US in vehicles, and normal folks are allowed to handle the stuff with little or no formal training (at places they call "gas stations").

But we *need* nuclear energy

[ch-chuck]

to run my electric air conditioner to keep me cool from the global warming caused by all the fossle fuel emissions from conventional power plants because of the enviro idiots who won't permit more safe, clean nuclear power plants to be built. There's still way too much irrational fearmongering about nuclear materials, most of it second hand propaganda spread by entertainers w/o a clue looking for some 'cause celeb' to vent about and completely misleading the public. People who are steadfastly opposed to anything associated with nuclear to such a degree that they tremble with fear over getting a completely safe "nuclear magnetic resonance imaging" scan really should do the intelligent world a favor and study the enemy and get over their misconceptions - get a damn geiger counter and /measure/ what the heck your afraid of, get some low level uranium glass or pitchblende samples and play with it, notice the everpresent background radiation that occurs in nature, measure how fast radiation falls off when you get just a few inches away. Read about the history of radioactivity, Mme Curie, prospecting, etc. Otherwise you're just a clueless puppet of an even more ignorant leadership that show your lack of knowledge with every empty-minded protest. Democracy only works with an educated public - that's why people who know what they're doing are so frustrated by an ill informed public who start wearing black skeleton suits and mushroom clouds at the mere movement of a railroad car.

Here you have over 40 thousand people perish in the US 'automobile holocaust' every friggin year and nobody ever protests that - but take an industry with an incredibly safe track record and the mere mention of some activity brings out the placard waving idiots in droves.

Re:But we *need* nuclear energy

[thales]

The real irony is Coal burning power plants emit MORE radiation than the Nuke plants! Coal contains traces of uranium. When it's burned the Organic matter is converted into CO2 concetrating the Uranium in the ash. Fly Ash from a Coal fired power plant results in a slight rise in the background radiation. Do a google search for radioavtive ash to check this out.

Re:But we *need* nuclear energy

[edremy]

Have you ever heard of a place called THREE MILE ISLAND?

I lived downwind during the accident. Number of deaths: 0 Number of injuries: 0

CHERNOBYL?

A bad reactor design that exists in only one place in the US (Hanford), now shut down. No containment vessel, and the accident was the result of utter stupidity on the parts of the operators.

Yes, we do need to be an informed public. That does not mean we need to blatantly disregard the very real dangers of nuclear energy.

Fine. What's your solution to the need for power?

• Fossil fuels? Dirty, cause global warming+acid rain, spreads radioactivity (Coal contains various radioisotopes), etc. Don't forget the *huge* number of deaths and injuries due to coal mining every year.
• Hydro? We've dammed every river we can, destroys wilderness
• Wind, geothermal, tide? Great for the 5% of the world where you can use them.
• Solar? Don't make me laugh.

Yeah, nukes aren't 100% safe. Nothing is.

Re:Finally.

[nathanm]

90 miles from a city of 1+ million is as desolate as you can get? Hardly.

Sure it is. It's the middle of the desert, near where they used to test nuclear detonations. There are lots of mountains between Las Vegas & the Yucca Mountain site.

I worked at a nuclear power station...

[FreeUser]

When I was in college I worked a couple of summers as an intern at a nuclear power station.

At the time, I naively bought into the propoganda of "clean energy, more radiation comes from the sun than a nuclear power plant," etc.

Even then, though, I'll never forget the response of one of the managers when someone asked "what about the waste?"

The reply was (paraphrased) "We can store about 20 years of waste here, on-site, but it's the government's job to find a perminent solution."

Unbelievable. An entire industry, creating some of the most toxic materials ever created by man, whose attitude was basically "don't worry, the government will clean up our mess." These are probably the same people who bitch and moan about "big government" and want less regulation, and frankly the entire nuclear storage facility is a huge government subsidy of a dangerous and economically unviable industry, demanded by said industry at the point of a radioactive gun.

As you might have guess, over the years as I've grown older, and wiser, my opinion on nuclear power has changed 180 degrees.

You are right, we have only our "decision makers" to blame for this, but lets not forget that most of those decision makers are not government politicians so much as CEOs of large utility companies that have neglected their own, most basic responsibilities throughout this entire process.

Re:I worked at a nuclear power station...

[thales]

"it's the government's job to find a perminent solution"

Well since the government has been collecting a waste disposal fee from the plants for years, it's hardly unreasonable for the nuclear industry to expect the government to spend the money on the disposal they have already charged for.

The anti-nuclear activists are the ones who originally said the nuclear industry couldn't be trusted to dispose of the wastes, and the government should handle it. Now that it's time for the government to live up to it's end of the bargain, suddenly we have anti-nuclear activists urging that the people they wanted to handle the waste refuse to do so.

Re:I worked at a nuclear power station...

[shimmin]

The reply was (paraphrased) "We can store about 20 years of waste here, on-site, but it's the government's job to find a perminent solution."

This isn't, as you frame it, blatant irresponsibility. According to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, it is the federal government's job to construct a permanent storage site, and to have it operational by the end of 1997.

When the government passes a law binding itself to do something, it may be a little bit naive to assume it will come through on its end of the deal, but I don't think it's too much to ask of Congress to actually build infrastructure their own laws say they will build.

Re:So..

[uncleFester]

Wow, what a nice step one towards fixing that whole "hated on a global stage" thing.

Right, okey. So, we'll keep all the monentary outlays to ridiculous notions such as the World Court and the United Nations.

It's funny how the US is so 'hated on a global stage' until you need US funding for some earthquake, natural disaster, peacekeeping mission, etc etc... but if you don't want our help, that's fine. Stop asking for drugs. Stop asking for aid. Stop asking for money. I'm tired of subsidizind your asses anyway.

10000 years in NOT the half-life for plutonium

[wazzzup]

The current issue of National Geographic has a nice article on nuclear waste. I'd provide the link but for three times in a row, my Win2000 box here at work has bluescreened when I click on the link. Hmph.

Anyhow, I see people getting moderated up for saying that the 10000-year life span of the Yucca mountain facilities was determined by half-life.

Not true!

The 10000-year service life of the Yucca Mountain facilities was decided upon by the fact that there likely won't be a DOE to monitor the site or a government, as we know it, to control it. In a nutshell, "After 10000 years all bets are off" was the decision.

As a rule, a radioactive substance has to go through 10 half-lives to become harmless. The higher the radioactivity an element has the shorter its half-life. The converse is true as well. Plutonium has a half-life of 24000 years. 24000 x 10 = 240000 years before it becomes harmless. Uranium is less radioactive than plutonium (but still incredibly deadly) so it has a much greater half-life.

So really, for plutonium were looking at an additional 230000 years after the facilty might/will fail before its contents are harmless. Longer for the uranium.

Don't fool yourselves into thinking the facilty will be safe after its design life has expired. In fact, the Yucca Mountain facilty is only designed to last for 4.17% of the time period when the plutonium stored there will be deadly.

Re:damn, get over that illusion

[overunderunderdone]

You don't have the worlds largest GNP

Out of curiosity who does? I can't find any country that even comes close to the USA's $9.6 Trillion (year 2000 current US$). Japan comes closes with $4.5 Trillion (which is larger than Germany, France and the UK combined). Even the combined total of the European Monetary Union is only $6.6 Trillion.

you're not the leading edge in science or economics any more.

Well I think we have settled the economics side of things so I'll be generous and grant you the scientific leading edge since I'm not exactly sure how to measure that. I'm still not sure who IS on the leading edge though. Europe taken as a whole seems the only likely contender - still it seems that Europe and the US are peers in terms of scientific research and advances rather than one dominating the other.

Except for your oversized bloated miliary you're just an average western industrial nation.

I'll grant you we have a bloated military, in fact we account for about 37% of ALL military spending in the entire world. Then again we can afford it - we only spend about 3% of our GDP on the military which is less than the worldwide average of 3.8%. and significantly less than Russia's 5%. In terms of sheer numbers our military (1,369,000 men under arms) is dwarfed by china (2,310,000) and even Europe's combined total is larger (3,459,000) so despite our massive spending we don't have an inordinately large military just a spectacularly well equipped one ;).

The problem (if it is a problem) is America's hegemony is a fact that flows naturally from the vast size of it's economy. Despite all the resentments and sour grapes this engenders elsewhere in the world we are probably all lucky that it is the USA that weilds such an unbalanced economic (and thus military and cultural) power. There are other nations and other cultures that would not have been so restrained in the use of such dominance. Considered through the lense of history America has been remarkably restrained, if she wanted she has the resources to be an actual empire in FACT not just in her opponents rhetoric. All the weight that is thrown around is only a fraction of what it could be - with military spending only 3% of GDP it could double or even triple without much effort (It was 6% in 1985, at the same time the soviet Union was spending better than 12% of their GDP on the military). Fortunately American culture ISN'T militarised or imperialistic.