Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste storage

 

The major issue involved in the use of nuclear power is risk: primarily proliferation, as a result of an accident, and storage of highly toxic waste.

In spite of the possibility of an accident and the consequential proliferation that might follow, a number of important countries appear to consider the risks “acceptable,” notably Japan, France, Russia and the United States. 

 

The French obtain 77 percent of their electricity from nuclear energy; the Japanese derive 35 percent of their electricity needs from nuclear energy, which they are working to expand to 40 percent by 2010; and in 2007, 16 percent of Russia’s electricity came from nuclear power, with expansion to 18.6 percent planned by 2016.

In the United States, “after a hiatus of nearly three decades, nuclear energy is booming. Seventeen power companies in the U.S. are making plans to build more than 30 nuclear plants.” (npr.org, April 3, 2008)

 

So, notwithstanding strident opposition from Greenpeace and other groups that oppose the use of nuclear power, its expansion is accelerating, which brings us to the issue of long-term storage of nuclear waste.

In general, U.S. nuclear waste is initially stored on site to “cool” at the various plants where it is created, usually for a period of years. 

“In the United States, which has a repository schedule decades ahead of other countries, Yucca Mountain (Nevada) is being offered by the nuclear establishment as the sole solution for the disposal of spent fuel.  Proponents want it to be the country’s first underground storage facility for spent fuel from the 100-plus commercial nuclear power plants in the United States.” (“If not Yucca Mountain, then what?”, Point-Counterpoint, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, December 2001)

 

Yucca Mountain “…will be the final resting place for 70,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste.  Beginning in the year 2010, it will be shipped (there) from all over the country by truck or by rail, and stored under the mountain in tunnels for the next 10,000 years – which is how long the waste will remain deadly…The nuclear waste is currently being kept in temporary facilities scattered across 39 states, in cooling ponds and in storage buildings outside nuclear reactors.  Some of it sits adjacent to rivers or on top of water tables…161 million Americans live within 75 miles of one of these sites.”  (“Yucca Mountain,” CBS News, July 25, 2004).

Critics complain that “The site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been the Department of Energy’s only candidate for a permanent nuclear waste repository for some 20 years…”  

In the final analysis, there is no “silver bullet” for the problem of storing nuclear waste, nor is there likely to be one in the foreseeable future.  The stuff remains highly dangerous for thousands of years, and increasing numbers of industrialized societies are turning to nuclear power as a significant part of meeting their energy needs, so the need for storage is guaranteed to grow.  The trend is unstoppable.

 

Yucca Mountain is not necessarily the ideal answer to the problem of storing nuclear waste, but so far the critics have not offered any better alternatives.  My take is that consolidating it in one location, away from densely populated areas, is a better option than leaving it scattered in more than 130 locations, which will be far more difficult to manage and protect from potential attack.