Yucca Mountain: Storing America's nuclear waste

Timon Singh & Charity Azadian

Earlier in the year, plans to store America's nuclear waste inside one of America's most challenging engineering feats, Yucca Mountain, were scrapped due to a lack of federal funding.

The Yucca Mountain project, located in Nevada near the nuclear test sites, had been underway since 1987, when Congress had selected the site as America's nuclear waste repository. To ensure the waste was safely stored, over $9 billion was spent on concrete tunnels and chambers designed to keep waste safe for at least a million years.

One of the most extraordinary aspects of the project saw a five mile U-shaped tunnel was bored into the side of the extinct volcano, through which to transport the material.

While environmentalists may have approved the decision by the White House, it does present the country with several problems; where does the country now store its nuclear waste, what shall happen to the Yucca Mountain complex and more importantly, if the President is seriously about more nuclear plants to wean the country off oil is he expecting them to be waste-free?

To discuss the two sides of the issue are US Infrastructure Online Editor Timon Singh and former senior advisor on Nuclear Nonproliferation matters at the US Department of Energy, Charity Azadian.

Charity Azadian: "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back"

As the familiar saying goes, you can take the Senator (Harry Reid) out of Nevada, but you can't take the Nevada out of the Senator. It is clear that politics is once again trumping science. By allowing politicians, and not the scientific experts, to detail a path forward for Yucca Mountain, this only stalls the progress toward resolving the nation's nuclear waste problem.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 set 31 January 1998, as the deadline for the federal government to begin disposing of used fuel. More than a decade after the deadline, the government has still not settled on a policy for how to do it. The US Department of Energy (DOE) established a Blue Ribbon Commission to explore alternatives to long-term waste storage. The government's ineptitude to begin proper nuclear waste management should be a reason to remove government responsibilities, not remove Yucca from consideration. The Administration's Yucca Mountain policy signals once again that the government cannot be a trusted partner.

Essentially the Administration's policies are schizophrenic. On one hand, President Obama has touted that the Federal Government will guarantee loans for nuclear power plants, and then days later states that he is going to abandon plans for a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Furthermore, in staying the course with Obama-litic politics that sway to the wind, Energy Secretary Chu testified before Congress that he supported funding on Yucca Mountain, but then a few days later sent a letter to the committee that he would like to retract parts of his testimony, and that he was essentially confused.

Shocking, appalling, or is it? This type of delusional behavior and lack of integrity in our political leaders is unacceptable. And, by allowing politics to trump science at Yucca Mountain, Chu's announcement threatens to stall progress toward resolving the nation's nuclear waste problem.

So should we listen to the science, except when it's inconvenient to well-connected political leaders? If politicians eager to shut down Yucca Mountain are so confident that the science is on their side, why not allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to finish its license review? After, all, it's the NRC's responsibility to determine the technical feasibility of Yucca - even if it has been studied countless times.

The fact of the matter is that nuclear waste is currently being housed at several different national lab sites throughout the country, waiting to be deposited, buried forever, and the clock is ticking. Specifically, the current budget provides no answers as to what the Administration proposes to do with the approximately 57,700 tons of nuclear waste at more than 100 temporary sites around the country, or with the approximately 2000 tons generated each year by nuclear power plants. The Yucca site was designed specifically to handle spent fuel rods from the nation's 103 nuclear generators. "The concern is not that these facilities are not safe," said Rick McLeod, executive for the Savannah River Community Reuse Organization. "The concern is that the facilities have not been evaluated for storing the material permanently."

There are more than 60,000 tons of spent reactor fuel housed in temporary storage at commercial reactors in 31 states. Not to mention there are 7000 tons of high-level wastes left over from nuclear weapons production, much of it buried in 177 underground tanks at Hanford. For now, wastes from nuclear power generation and national defense programs are housed at 131 sites across the nation. There's no telling whether that number ever will be reduced under the course President Obama wants to take.

At the very least, DOE shouldn't spend any money closing down Yucca Mountain while its fate remains undecided. Better yet, the Administration ought to put Yucca Mountain back on the table ahead of any decision - it's bad policy to unilaterally scratch Yucca Mountain from consideration. It means throwing away the nearly $14 billion of the public's money that already has been spent studying the Nevada site.

So, what should the Administration do to constructively handle the Yucca Mountain dilemma? Some possible solutions are the following: 1) Allow the NRC to continue its license review, 2) Transfer the permit to construct Yucca Mountain to a third party, and 3) Use the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to inform a final decision on Yucca Mountain. After all, what's the current Administration afraid of, a little competition?!

Timon Singh: "A dangerous necessity?"

Yucca Mountain is a issue that isn't just black and white. Despite my more environmental leanings, I am forced to agree that Yucca Mountain is a necessity for the United States for a number of reasons.

If President Obama is serious about switching to renewable sources of energy, as stated in the new Climate Bill and horrifically demonstrated by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, then nuclear power plants are going to have to be built and used to provide enough electricity for the country, before truly 'clean' forms of renewable energy are up to significant levels.

Of course, considering nuclear energy as a form of renewable energy is a bit of a joke considering the amount of radioactive waste it produces, but it does not emit any carbon, which is an objective at the forefront of governments all around the world.

Currently, the United States spreads its nuclear waste around 131 sites in 39 states, now from both an environmental and security point of view this is hardly safe and secure. As such, Yucca Mountain has always been touted as a "sole, safe geological repository." However there are dangers with storing all your radioactive eggs in one colossal basket.

When the Yucca Mountain proposal was sent to a Senate vote over eight years ago, Senator John Ensign of Nevada, opposed the idea saying that the proposal would "give the terrorists plenty of opportunities by shipping this nuclear waste across the country through major metropolitan areas."

Now, while this is fear-mongering of the worst kind, with quite a substantial terrorist force required to hijack an armed nuclear waste convoy, the chances of an accident are much more likely.

Should a nuclear waste convoy or shipment be in an accident, then there are studies that this could essentially trigger a 'dirty bomb' in its own right. According to The Dekalb Neighbour in Dekalb County mere accidents may unintentionally detonate such a "moving dirty bomb."

In Georgia, a state where nuclear waste would be shipping through en route to Yucca Mountain, there have been reports that there have been 16 accidents between trains and cars in the past five years. If that trend continues, there will be nearly 77 train accidents while nuclear waste is shipped through one of Georgia's most populated counties for the estimated 24 years of transport to Yucca Mountain.

In fact, according to the Federal Railroad Administration, there were over 13,000 railroad accidents in 2006, including over 840 fatalities. Over 2900 railroad accidents involved collisions with cars and other vehicles at a railroad crossing. In addition, 2145 railroad accidents involved train derailments, and more than 1400 railroad accidents were the result of defective equipment, including signal defects, track defects, and train equipment defects.

And we haven't even started on the potential of an accident involving a road convoy...

However, this is all pure speculation and it is clear that we do need a repository for nuclear waste and Yucca Mountain, ideally close to the radiated test sites of Nevada anyway, makes an obvious choice.

There are concerns from those that live near the site for obvious reasons. Apart from the fact that the people of Nevada would have highly radioactive material essentially in their backyard, there is a worry that possible natural forces such as erosion and earthquakes could render the site unstable and thus unsuitable to store nuclear isotopes.

How the brass tacks of the matter is that we just don't have another option. If the US is going to use nuclear power, which unfortunately it will have to for the near future, the country is going to need a place to store the waste and Yucca Mountain is that place.

After all, $9 billion has already been spent on it. We might as well use it for something.

Charity Azadian is a professor, diplomat and author. She served as the first Special Assistant on International Affairs for the Science and Technology Directorate at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and soon thereafter served as a Senior Advisor on Nuclear Nonproliferation matters at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in the administrations of President George W. Bush.

Timon Singh is the Head Online Writer for GDS Digital and the online editor for US Infrastructure, EU Infrastructure and MENA Infrastructure.

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