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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.'"
How is that not exactly the same thing? In either case, you're manipulating or misrepresenting scientific data in order to achieve political goals.
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 Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
"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.
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!
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
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,
My ism, it's full of beliefs.