The "Scientization" of Yucca Mountain

Harperdog writes "This is a nice piece by Dawn Stover on how science has had little to do with the choice, and blockage of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. This article doesn't go where you think it will; it isn't too long but is a thorough exploration of the process. Here's a quote: 'Government officials are often guilty of politicizing science. Egged on by business or religious interests, they cast doubt on the scientific evidence for a connection between tobacco and lung cancer, or between fossil fuels and climate change, or even between humans and our primate ancestors. Some scientific findings are suppressed, while others are manipulated or distorted beyond recognition. But in the case of Yucca Mountain, the reverse happened: Government officials "scientized" politics. They made decisions that were largely political but cloaked them in the garb of science.'"

Comments

Wha?

[eln]

How is that not exactly the same thing? In either case, you're manipulating or misrepresenting scientific data in order to achieve political goals.

Re:Wha?

[i kan reed]

Yep, you are exactly correct. Making up fake science, or using it selectively is politicization in true form. Scientization would be taking a politically contentious topic and limiting its policy to what is determined to be most effective by the scientific method. Luckily we already have that to some extent in the field of medicine, but we could do with more.

Re:Wha?

[Samantha Wright]

It's almost completely disappointing that someone thought this was a novel or fascinating enough point to base a paper on. Even (mature) creationists claim to be "on the side of" the scientific method, they simply reject particular theories by claiming them to be unscientific, and then invoke the same old appeal to authority.

I mourn the day when the average scientist was someone with a clear grasp of the world outside of the tangibles and theoreticals of their chosen specialization. This "scientization" rubbish, proferred as noteworthy, would not have survived the barest scrap of journalistic scrutiny had it been submitted to a publication with non-scientist editorial staff; instead we would have a nice, straight-forward piece about politics mucking up science, as with everything else.

Re:Wha?

[Obfuscant]

Luckily we already have that to some extent in the field of medicine, but we could do with more.

Do you mean like a full study of the effectiveness of specific medical treatments and the probabilities of success and such, so that each member of society will have only the most likely to succeed and best rate-of-return procedures paid for?

Or like as soon as a scientific study shows that something is bad for people (like eating too much ice cream) it is made illegal?

Politics and government shouldn't be about enforcing scientific results, it needs to take into account people and their odd quirks, like a desire to be able to make their own choices about things and exhibit some level of freedom.

Re:Wha?

[vadim_t]

I suppose it's a matter of perspective.

I think the idea is that in politization you bring up arguments like "but what about the economy?", trying to distract people from reality with emotional arguments.

In "scientization" you do the contrary: you bring up scientific sounding arguments, trying to distract people from the real political motivations.

In the end it comes down to the same thing, it's just that the angle is different. In one you emphasize politics, in the other you attempt to present a facade of rigor and impartiality.

Re:Wha?

[spads]

Yes. This is not scientization of anything. This is just lying about the scientific findings, saying the science said no, when the science said yes. If anything, the descientization.

I guess the (journalistic method) more remarkable the revelation, the less closely you are supposed to examine it.

Discovery: "My goodness, we've discovered birds flying upside down under water!"
Appropriate response: "Hmmm, remarkable!"

Re:Wha?

[demonbug]

Yep, you are exactly correct. Making up fake science, or using it selectively is politicization in true form. Scientization would be taking a politically contentious topic and limiting its policy to what is determined to be most effective by the scientific method. Luckily we already have that to some extent in the field of medicine, but we could do with more.

The problem with science is that it rarely gives black and white answers to complicated questions, so your results often depend a lot more on what you ask than the actual science behind the answer. Yucca Mountain has been extensively studied, and there is ample scientific evidence to argue both for and against a nuclear waste repository there - the answer depends entirely on how much risk you are willing to accept. Choosing an acceptable risk level is almost purely political in nature, and can change with the political tide. Looking at the acceptable risk when the project started, the scientific investigations conducted since then suggest that Yucca is probably an appropriate place to store waste. Looking at the acceptable risk now, with a more politically powerful Nevada that fought to decrease the acceptable risk level, the scientific evidence suggests that Yucca is not feasible. The science hasn't changed (well, actually it has quite a bit since the beginning of the project, but that isn't really relevant here), it isn't being used selectively, the thing that has changed is the politically-determined acceptable risk. It is quite valid to say that the science doesn't support building a waste repository at Yucca - the science doesn't support it (at a given acceptable risk level).

The thing that is problematic about this is that the politicians increasingly use this to hide the political decision. They focus on saying that the science doesn't (or does) support X or Y, when really they should be saying that the science doesn't support it at our chosen risk criteria. They do their best to avoid discussion of the risk criteria, which is what the political discussion should be about.

Re:Wha?

[mcguiver]

One of the problems with Yucca Mountain is that the government is doing so much research that you are bound to find scientists who disagree with the majority of the findings and are always raising concerns. The public gets wind of these concerns and refuses to allow Yucca Mountain to progress until the concerns are addressed. Said scientists gets another grant, does more research, finds another "problem", and the cycle continues. There is research done regarding Yucca Mountain the flies in the face of our understanding of the oxidizing behavior of Uranium. Yet it is done by a scientist and opponents grab onto it and use it. Though Yucca Mountain is a great place to store the waste, it will never open thanks to the current regulations surrounding it.

Re:Wha?

[ColdWetDog]

" scientific evidence to argue both for and against a nuclear waste repository there "
false. The evidence shows it's reasonably safe. The opposition keeps making up strawmen to make it seem like the data was gather incorrectly.

You just agreed with demonbug. "Reasonable" is a word that can be used to push both sides of the argument. Reasonably safe also means reasonably unsafe - it depends on your acceptance of risk.

The exact arguments can be made for most medical procedures, especially screening tests, like the current controversy surrounding prostate and breast cancer screening. In fact, if you took demonbug's paragraph, substituted PSA, prostate cancer and urologists in the appropriate places, you would have a pretty good explanation of the current controversy.

Re:Wha?

[blair1q]

You don't have to enforce scientific results; they have a tendency to do that by themselves.

No, they don't.

You have to keep testing them and showing the results. Because the people on the other side will keep repeating the same lie over and over, and inventing new lies, and putting them out in every new medium, making them look like the current state of human knowledge, while the facts you thought were enforcing themselves are gathering dust in a journal on the back shelf of a library nobody visits any more.

Science isn't animate. People have to sell the truth at least as hard as other people sell the lies.

Re:Wha?

[Obfuscant]

You don't have to enforce scientific results; they have a tendency to do that by themselves.

No, they don't. There is nothing coming out of a scientific study of the effects of, say, tobacco, that prevents anyone from smoking. If that were true, nobody would be smoking today. They'd all have been prevented from doing so by the scientific studies that tell them it is bad for them.

To get the enforcement, you need laws and someone who comes arrest you if you break them. Laws come from politicians.

It would be a BAD thing if scientific studies resulted in laws without any concern for anything else, like this "emotional" economy or freedom or rights or any of the other human considerations. Not only when the scientific studies are wrong, but when they are right, too.

For Yucca, let's suppose that every study says "this is a safe place to bury wastes". Should you ignore every other concern and forge blithely ahead building a nuclear waste dump there? Suppose there was a study that said that your back yard was a safe place to bury nuclear wastes, and a backhoe will be around tomorrow at 8AM to start digging. Would you be happy?

Did you realise that scientific studies have shown that eating ice-cream...

Did you realize that that was only one small example of the bigger picture, and that by poking holes in ice cream you've not actually dealt with the bigger issues involved?

The only problem with Yucca MTn

[geekoid]

is that people have no clue what nuclear waste is, what it looks like, or how it's stored. Yucca Mtn. is a fine place for nuclear waste. Nuclear waste that should be used in modern nuclear plants as fuel, BTW,

The science community does the same thing.

[swan5566]

Never mention the words "intelligent design" if you ever plan on getting tenure at a public university. I'm not talking about supporting it, I'm talking about even seriously investigating it at all. Then there's all the politics involved for each discipline for publishing in journals. Hardly scientific.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[Oh Gawwd Peak Oil]

Exactly. Just like if you mention you are "seriously investigating" the possiblity that 2 + 2 = 5, you probably won't get tenure either. They will think you are a crackpot. And justifiably so. Intelligent Design is similar.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[Misanthrope]

You can't seriously investigate intelligent design, it's not science. Any sane university should run anyone who thinks it is out on a rail.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mention the words "intelligent design" if you ever plan on getting tenure at a public university

Funny, people get all sorts of grants to hit amino acids with lightning and to make artificial life forms.

Oh wait, that's not what you were talking about, huh?

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[AK Marc]

From an academic's perspective, UFO investigation is more reputable than ID masturbation. There has never even been a single argument for ID that wasn't circular. "Irreducibly complex" is a red herring invented by ID to mean "we don't understand it, which is proof we can never understand it" which is provably false, as our understanding continually expands.

ID *should* be a kiss of death to university tenure because it is inherently anti-academic.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[mcgrew]

How could one possibly study intelligent design? ID is an untestable hypothesis. You can't know God unless he wants you to know him. ID and creationism aren't science, and unless something earth-shaking happens, never can be.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[Oh Gawwd Peak Oil]

I don't think scientists have an anti-religion bent. Many scientists are religious themselves. But they do have an anti-dishonesty bent, or an anti-politicising things that should have nothing at all to do with politics bent.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[Chris Burke]

Please state a testable hypothesis given by intelligent design.

"People who believe ID is a scientific hypothesis on average have a poor or selectively blind understanding of science and what it means to be testable."

Or does that not count? I guess it's more a hypothesis about Intelligent Design.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Domesticated livestock and food crops have been intelligently designed by farmers over the past few centuries. Are there measurable numerical long term genetic effects of intelligent design actions, which I'm predicting would show up in modern Holsteins but not modern Humans?

That's actually a reasonable question, and speaking as someone who's worked on both cow and human genetics, I'll say: no, probably not. A comparitive analysis of the genomes of various breeds of domestic cattle certainly shows selective pressure toward certain phenotypes (milk production in some breeds, meat production in others, etc.) but the only way to say that selection has beeen "intelligent" is to know the history -- which, in the case of cattle, of course we do. We see similar pressures in comparitive genomic analysis of human populations WRT disease resistance; sometimes we know the history, sometimes we don't. IOW, genetic variation in cattle looks remarkably like genetic variation in human beings, and the distinction between design and natural selection is based on knowledge that can't be obtained by looking at the genome alone.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[LordLucless]

"Irreducibly complex" is a red herring invented by ID to mean "we don't understand it, which is proof we can never understand it" which is provably false, as our understanding continually expands.

I see you don't understand the concept of irreducible complexity at all. Most of the structures that are claimed as irreducibly complex are well understood. The idea is that if you can find a structure in which certain formations couldn't have developed without the present of other formations which also relied on the first, then you've identified a structure which couldn't have plausibly evolved - it's like finding a circular dependency, and it is a logical argument.

Of course, the fact is that we've been able to determine plausible evolutionary paths for all the formations suggested as irreducibly complex, so the irreducible complexity argument doesn't support ID, but that doesn't mean that the argument itself is illogical - just that there's no evidence to suggest that it's true.

If you look at a candidate for irreducible and complexity, and respond with "well we just don't know how it evolved yet", then you are begging the question, and it is you being illogical.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[LordLucless]

Given that I said nothing about it

"Irreducibly complex" is a red herring invented by ID to mean "we don't understand it, which is proof we can never understand it"

You most definitely said something about it.

"An eye without a lens or without rods and cones would be useless, thus God Must Exist (and designed us)." is a misrepresentation, and a fairly obviously facetious one at that. The argument would more properly run "An eye without a lens or without rods and cones would be useless, thus it could not have evolved one component at a time, thus there must be another mechanism for its existence." Even if irreducible complexity were demonstrated by the evidence, it wouldn't say anything about the existence of God, or the lack thereof.

I'm stating that I've had ID preached to me in that manner, and I believe it to be illogical (as you apparently do as well), like all arguements ever made for ID.

You made no such qualifications in your original post - nothing about how it was "preached" to you, or "in your experience", or "you believe". You made flat-out assertions. You also make a sweeping generalization about every argument ever, which is also quite unscientific.

You don't listen to the facts, but use slight of hand to try to frame the discussion into an argument you think you'll win

You reframed irreducible complexity as "we don't understand it, which is proof we can never understand it", then proceeded to demolish the strawman you'd just constructred, before claiming victory in the name of logic and science. I think someone in this conversation is guilty of what you say, but it's not me.

You seem like a proponent of ID.

And you seem like a "new atheist" Dawkins-worshipper - preferring to vilify your opponents with rhetoric rather than actually debate them.

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[AK Marc]

And with that, you avoided every question I asked of you. Do you believe in ID? Or do you believe in it, but you know it's stupid, so you refuse to publicly admit to it? After all, why else would you have tiptoed around the question multiple times?

Re:The science community does the same thing.

[LordLucless]

Why? What possibly impact do my beliefs have on my argument? If my argument is logical, it should stand on its own, regardless of what I believe. Contrariwise if it doesn't.

For someone whose accusing others of changing the topic, you're fairly insistent at changing it away from the topic at hand, to my beliefs.

Re:Reprocessing

[AK Marc]

The vast majority of the waste is not capable of producing energy. The majority of the volume of waste is stuff like office furnishings from nuclear plants and other things that had long-term exposure and registers above background levels. Yes, the spend fuel can be reprocessed, but the majority of the volume would be just fine in a landfill (so long as they didn't build a school on top of the landfill - don't laugh, I've seen it happen multiple times). Much of it isn't even "radioactive" from a lay-person's perspective. It's less radioactive than a fair bit of Fiesta Ware, which people ate off years after reports about it.

another fact-choosing luny

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is still not completely clear whether Yucca Mountain would be a good place to bury radioactive waste"

It was decided 30 years ago that YMP was the best of 5 candidate sites. Prior to that, there were potential sites considered all across the US. But Yucca Mountain was chosen because it fit the criteria for a site best:

-low to no population near by
-low to no yearly rainfall
-low to no geologic activity

It also sits in the Nevada Test Site. The NTS is a HUGE tract of the (uninhabitable) Nevadan desert reserved for the government. It's a no fly zone, it's a no-go zone, and it's generally one of the most secure pieces of land in the world. If you don't believe me, I suggest you try to drive there. (No, really, don't - you're likely to be shot.)

This guy wants to say that the billions of dollars of research done into the YMP is "of no use". I suggest he's just another fear monger looking to stir up support for his policies via taking on something the ignorant masses are inherently fearful of. Sure, his analysis sounds level handed, but then the devil's in the details.

Things that YMP could be if the idiots could just get over themselves:

-a 'clean up' of some of the more drug infested parts of Nevada

There's plenty of drug related crime in the closest part of Nevada to the NTS. There's also little to no work up there. Bring the jobs, and the crime will decrease. I'm *sure* of it.

-a use of otherwise unusable land

Look, the NTS isn't going anywhere. If it's not storing nuclear waste, the feds are just going to be using it for whatever they use it for. They're not going to sell that land to developers, there's no private use that's ever going to be made of the NTS. Did I mention the NTS is some of the most inhospitable land in the world? There's no chance at society ever desiring a population center near enough to the YMP to be in danger.

-a huge local stimulus for the Nevada economy.

Currently, Nevada has gambling tourism as it's sole economy. Any other industry is supportive of tourism. The local "chamber of commerce" (don't get me started on those biased and misleadingly named fools) even sees Nevada's lack of a broad economy as a problem. The YMP would be a long term project requiring the hiring and long term employment of thousands of scientists, engineers, and 'support staff'. We're talking about BILLIONS a year in waste management.

Or we could let fear mongers tell us that the YMP is a bad idea and leave Nevada to rot.

PS We have contractual and national security reasons to establish a nuclear waste repository. As part of international agreements the US made to stem nuclear proliferation, the US loaned out nuclear fuel to nations across the world with the understanding that spent nuclear fuel would be shipped back to the US at a later date. That was some time ago and we are now over due on our waste pickup. They can sue the US for BILLIONS in international courts while that dangerous nuclear waste sits in unsecured waste pools around the world.

The only time we've ever thought too long-term

[Anonymous Coward]

Yucca mountain would clearly have held our nuclear waste just fine for hundreds of years (which is a lot more than you can say for the places it is currently kept). Any yet they wanted it certified to hold on to the stuff for tens of thousands of years. This is foolish. There's no conceivable scenario wherein humanity would have to worry about the radiation on that time scale. Either we will have come up with a way to make use of it (probably just wised up and used it as fuel) or civilization will have collapsed and we'll have bigger problems (and probably be dealing with far more fallout from nuclear weapons). As strange as it is to say it, our government needs to think more short-term!

not true

[edxwelch]

There's a lot of myths surrounding nuclear recycling.
Firstly, only the plutonium can be recycled, which accounts for less than 1% of the spent fuel rod. Most of the waste is uranium and contaminated with gamma emiting isotopes uranium 232 and uranium 234 and too dangerous to handle.
Secondly, recycling fuel doesn't make the waste "disappear". MOX fuel is converted to mostly to isotopes of plutonium after been burnt in the reactor and can't be recycled again.
Thirdly, producing MOX fuel is an expensive and dirty process. Sellafield and La Hague have to pump out low-level waste into the sea as part of the fabrication process.

Re:not true

[edxwelch]

> My preferred solution would be to convert the spent fuel rods into a liquid form suitable for use in a molten salt reactor.
Only problem is that they don't exist

Re:Reprocessing

[sjames]

That waste is more political than actual. It's not properly "nuclear waste" it's stuff that should go up on ebay. It's just more "political waste".

Of the actual waste, the stuff that lasts thousands of years is otherwise known as valuable fuel. The remainder is much more manageable even if it isn't practical to refine out useful isotopes like Co60 for medical and industrial apps.

Is Darwinism science?

[geoffrobinson]

Intelligent Design basically looks at things and gives a positive answer to teleology. Darwinism looks at things and gives a negative answer.

If Intelligent Design isn't science, neither is Darwinism because they are just the opposing sides of the same question.

Frankly, many Intelligent Design proponents believe in evolution and common descent, which won't be considered. As another posted, I doubt very seriously Intelligent Design will be accurately represented.

Yes it's politics. Facts are of little use.

[Trax3001BBS]

Back in 1987 when Nevada's Yucca Mountain was selected, it also removed
Gable Mountain at Hanford Washington as a burial site. A lot of money
had been spent on Gable Mountain already; but for the government that means little.

When I took a tour of Gable Mt. a milestone had just been met:
boring a 1000 foot (cite?) horizontal shaft that didn't droop.
That was a few months before Yucca Mountain got the green light and
Gable Mt., it's progress, and employees were dropped overnight.

It was a known fact at that time Yucca Mt. was a bad choice, as the rock
was porous, and radioactive material could get into the ground water. Gable Mt
is a slow cooled basalt, non-porous.

This was a bad time for Hanford. The Chernobyl disaster was a year earlier,
100-N a plutonium production reactor located at the Hanford site shared a
common trait with the Chernobyl reactor. It was also graphite moderated,
because of this it was in the public/political cross hairs.

DOE, President Regan, and the people of the area wanted 100-N to continue
operating. The people west of the Cascade Mountains which splits
Washington State and where the political power is located were against it.

Politics were generally accepted as the decision to abandon Gable Mt. in
no small part because of 100-N. Those who could wanted the Hanford site to go away.

The 100-N reactor was enhanced at a phenomenal cost, started up a few more times
amid a political storm plaster all over the front page, so no secret. Finally 100-N
was shut-down due to the pressure, mothballed and now buried.

The Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) took a hit over this as well, and was shut down
even though it could of supplied isotopes for medical use - which are now in demand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Flux_Test_Facility

Now those who can are asking once again for Washington state to be considered
for a burial site. Something they wanted no part of earlier.

High level nuclear waste disposal is a necessity that needs to be dealt with and soon.
Even if Yucca Mountain could leak, it was a disposal site and a leak is nothing
more money can't fix.

Gable Mt. isn't without it's faults :}
Geology of Gable Mountain-Gable Butte Area:
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6423229

Granite Facility

[MrKaos]

Yucca mountain is not a suitable site because it is made of pumice and geologically active evidenced by recent aftershocks of 5.6 within ten miles of a repository that is supposed to be geologically stable for at least 500000 years. The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste, and long term corrosion data on C22 (the material to contain the Pu-239 and mitigate the ingress of water - yet another Yucca problem) is just not available.

We need something made of granite. The only human made structure with the potential to last 10000 years is Mt Rushmore, so it has to be an engineering project of that scale, because the logistical problems of transferring the 70000 odd tons of Pu239 to the "waste repository" (in reality - containment facility) are so involved that you want to get it right the first time and only do it once.

Even doing that will probably take 30 years to complete, but there is more to it than that.

I was a big fan of the Integral Fast Reactor, and in a way I still am. But the reality is 3rd and 4th generation reactors are a pipe dream because our material science is not advanced enough yet to produce a reactor design that will last thousands of years. If you are going to build reactors then do it properly and build a Terra-watt scale nuclear reactor facility in the belly of a massive granite mountain with an attached waste facility that chomps up all your remaining plutonium or end all commercial nuclear activity altogether. As for the PBMR this reactor has some serious design flaws that, upon a closer examination of the design, makes them no better than RBMK as they age, especially when you are talking about a reactor design that lasts a inadequate 4-5 decades.

Nuclear power is energy intensive *after* the energy has been produced simply because our technology - especially material sciences - are not adequate to produce a Nuclear reactor (preferably a IFR style but safer) that has a life span that matches the geological time frames of the fuel. This exposes all the issues associated with de-commissioning reactor sites every 4 decades or so. We need a reactor design that lasts at least 1000 years and is a closed loop, i.e. the plutonium goes in and nothing comes out (except electricity and possibly hydrogen). In short the smart thing is for us to do is stop producing toy nuclear reactors, while we still can, and build a dedicated place to store the plutonium (ie a granite mountain) that is also a suitable place to build a Terra-watt scale reactor that satisfies those characteristics. A well designed and secured facility resistant to attacks even from orbit.

I don't hide the fact that I don't like the constant failure of the Nuclear Industry. But I'm also being realistic. I realise that the only way out of this mess is a well thought out and designed project because we have no other choice due to the nature of the materials. You have to redesign the entire industry, and it's a long term solution, but a much better legacy for future generations than a long term problem that will last a minimum of 25,000 years.

In the meantime we need to invest heavily in undeveloped, low externality, energy solutions like solar, wind, geo-thermal and micro-generation so there is enough energy *available* to carry out such an infrastructure project properly.

The DOE's original policy was the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility. The reason to choose a specific geology (granite) was, in addition to being stable, to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to mitigate the effect of ground water traveling through the facility and carrying radioactive isotopes into the water table. The half lives of the actinides would be dependent on the reactor,