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Controversy Over Yucca Mountain May Be Ending
More than two decades after Yucca Mountain in Nevada was selected to be the national nuclear waste repository, the controversial proposal may finally be put to rest by the Obama administration.
A tunnel at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada. (Laura Rauch/Associated Press) In keeping with a pledge President Obama made during the campaign, the budget released last week cuts off almost all funding for creating a permanent burial site for a large portion of the nation's radioactive nuclear waste at the site in the Nevada desert. Congress selected the location in 1987 and reaffirmed the choice in 2002. About $7.7 billion has been sunk into the project since its inception.
"Yucca Mountain is not an option, and the budget clearly reflects that," Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy, said yesterday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), a staunch opponent of the Yucca project, called the Obama action "our most significant victory to date in our battle to protect Nevada from becoming the country's toxic wasteland."
Reid, who during primary season helped extract campaign promises from Obama and then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to stop Yucca Mountain, added: "President Obama recognizes that the proposed dump threatens the health and safety of Nevadans and millions of Americans. His commitment to stop this terrible project could not be clearer."
Less clear is what will happen next with the nation's growing stockpile of nuclear waste.
"That's a great question," said Geoffrey H. Fettus, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The 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 2,000 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 new administration is starting the process of finding a new strategy for nuclear waste," Mueller said.
Keeping the waste at temporary sites is an option in the short term, but experts in the field say it will not serve as a long-term answer for the problem of radioactive waste, which will need to be kept safely stored for at least 1,000 years.
Others have advocated reprocessing much of the spent fuel, as is being done in France, but this too is fraught with problems, according to some experts.
Ultimately, Fettus said, the government will have to find a new site or sites for permanent storage of nuclear waste.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear industry, favors the creation of a "blue-ribbon commission to assess where we go," spokesman Steve Kerkeres said.
The Bush administration last year submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and hoped to have the repository operating by 2020. The Obama administration is not withdrawing the application because of concerns about lawsuits but, nonetheless, insists the Yucca Mountain project will not go forward.
- Posted in
46 Comments so far
Show AllConsider this an affirmation that there is no viable solution to nuclear waste. So, why is nuclear energy still being pushed?
a) Erroneous summation. b) So that you, or anyone who recognizes the present ongoing devastation of coal burning and wants to deal with it aggressively, can still work on your computer and post comments online.
a) Please list the viable solutions. b) Huh?
Methinks He thinks that coal is the only alternative.
Relaible central generation plants of some sort are going to be a large part of any practical solution.
---USAn---
a) all forms of renewable energy, plus a mandatory drastic reduction across the board in nearly all uses of first world energy, plus 3rd and 4th generation nuclear
b) your post and mine used more energy than is used in a fortnight by more than a billion-and-a-half people who have almost no access to any forms of energy, including coal or nuclear. The notion that they, and 2 billion more with greatly limited access to energy sources, will ever have available for use in this lifetime even a tiny a fraction of what you do, based on every conceivable combination of renewable production schemes alone, is a feel-good, voodoo energy farce that is categorically rejected by the scientific community, and unacceptable to India and China and a host of other countries that make up more than half the world's population.
Anyone who thinks that they can address the energy problem by eliminating or even reducing nuclear generated energy without creating a more devastating scenario than multiple, simultaneous, major nuclear accidents piled on top of our already fossil fuel poisoned planet hasn't put their plan out.
Internet clients and servers can be designed to consume energy only when needed, and be much more efficient than today's computers. They haven't only because elites who demand "economic growth at all cost" want MORE energy consumption, not less.
The elites' way to address the "energy problem" is to produce/consume MORE energy, at all cost. Thus, fossil and nuke campaigns. But there's a bonus: All of the ensuing destruction opens yet more doors for the elites to steal the people's production surplus.
The people's way to address the "energy problem" is to produce/consume LESS energy, and in ways that benefit the people, such as locally owned/operated renewable energy production, keeping the surplus, and starving the elites.
For information, publicly owned/operated telecomm satellites is probably the way to go. The default installation downloads "snapshots" of global information to keep the locals "in the know" during interruptions.
Ther are plenty of viable engineered solutions for nuclear waste - which even without reprocessing, is tiny in volume - all the high level spent fuel waste generted so far can be fit on a single football field 20 feet deep. With reprocessing, the volume of waste would be far smaller.
The problems aren't technological, they are political, and related to an uneducated and superstitious public.
Yucca Mountain was the best site - the result of an enormous amount of research and testing. But with disfunctional US politics, no doubt the next site will be in a compltely unsuitable geologic formation under a poor black neighborhood.
---USAn---
"Yucca Mountain was the best site - the result of an enormous amount of research and testing. But with disfunctional US politics, no doubt the next site will be in a compltely unsuitable geologic formation under a poor black neighborhood."
Bwahh! Ever been to Vegas and its surroundings?
You'd put an underground storage facility in a place littered with underground tunnels and bases, nearby a site where they blow up megatons of god knows what underground, nearby more sites where there's bombing practice, rocket practice and more of god knows what? And then add all the commercial activity--the mining, the digging, the "other" seismic activity?
I like another poster's comment that it will make a nice bunker. No evil plans, none, we just spent 8 billion dollars digging into our already established tunnel network...nothing here but blinking lights and hookers!
Between Vegas and Reno the state is just a large military base. I wouldn't take it at face value whenever anybody tells you anything about that place.
How much do you get paid for spewing out pro-nuclear energy lies like that? Are you full time or freelance? Most of the guys I have debated, FOR FREE on my part, over the last 40 years were paid fairly well by the industries that stood to make millions off the construction! It must really drive the corporate industrial facsist crazy that democracy gets in their way to dump short lived multi-billion dollar projects on utilities who can't pay for them with out government welfare or very unpopular advanced rate increases on their customers!
So really PJD...you would rather spend say 3 -5 billion on a single nuclear power plant or the same amount on indivual home photovoltaic systems that hook into existing power grids?
Days without rain, snow, or less than 50% cloud cover are pretty rare here in Pittsburgh. No home photovoltaic will be coming here.
The US public is pretty unique in it's superstition regarding nuclear power - a result of it's poorly educated populace. More progressive countries like France and Sweden have no problem with nuclear power.
Merely eating a chicken breast exposes you to more carcinogens than you will ever get from the nuclear fuel cycle.
---USAn---
Unless you happen to be a uranium miner?
PV cells still store solar energy during days of snow, rain, or clouds, not as rapidly as a sunny day, but still a significant amount, like 50%...
so double up on PV units and sell the surplus juice back to the grid, and it will pay for the PVC installation in ten years...
I remember the beginning of nuclear energy in California and anti nuke activists like me asking a simple question about what to do about the waste. We have never gotten an adequate response to that question from the nuclear industry.
However, let's go with the scenario of Yucca Mountain opening. If you do the math, it is easy to see the facility will be at capacity within a couple of years. Then what?
If you do the math in terms of our deep recession and the dependency of nuclear energy on government subsidies to deal with radioactive waste it is easy to see that we simply cannot afford this on going bail out of nuke power.
"Others have advocated reprocessing much of the spent fuel, as is being done in France, but this too is fraught with problems, according to some experts."
Are these problems greater or lesser than the current practice of burrying this stuff for future generations to have to deal with?
Seems like we're gonna be leaving behind too much to our future generations; what a horrible life they'll have with all this crap we're leaving behind!
Why not just put it on a rocket and shoot it at the sun, or deep into space?
Sorry for pointing out the obvious, but large muti-stage rockets capable of getting the waste up to escape velocity and away from earth are not exactly the most reliable and catastrophe-safe forms of transportation out there...
---USAn---
I'm not a rocket scientist, so thanks for pointing out the "obvious"...
Why use large multi stage rockets if they are known to be unsafe?
Why not several smaller payloads ?
How about launching them from a space shuttle while in orbit?
These may be stupid questions, but nuclear waste is a stupid answer to our energy needs...
2000 tons a year rocketed into space would cost more than I want to know.
Rockets pollute too.
And if you want a war with the Space aliens, that is how to get their attention.
There has been a lot of talk about "Safer" mini nukes inserted into Coal plants for conversion, but until a large corporation or government like China can get one running and prove it is safe with the problem of dangerous waste solved it is just talk.
Yucca Mountain should not be polluted by waste ... it is a great Bomb Shelter or top security prison for war criminals.
For the incredible 55% of the vote Obama got in that state which was considered to be swing, he owes them big time. Besides, Reid's up for reelection so something's gotta be done. Now if Obama would just pull out of coal and nuclear altogether and reward those environmentally friendly but sustainable alternatives with decent subsidization for a change.
Some of the 57,700 tons of nuclear waste can be dispersed as DU upon unsuspecting children
and the rest repackaged into fertilizer for Monsanto's Frankenfoods.
Why not drill down into the subduction zones and pump or dump this stuff down to be absorbed by the planet? Then, it is gone, the planet will reprocess it and we won't have to worry about it, nor can anyone recover it.
Better still - they could drill all the way to the molten core of the planet and dump it there! A pipeline could be built running from all the reactors so there'd be a steady dump, and that would keep the molten stuff from coming out of the hole.
Nice image -- out of sight, out of mind, ad absurdum.
Just don't ever -- EVER -- push the Restart button!!
Since there is no place to put the waste, shouldn't we stop making more? Try to imagine where we would be if all the money that was wasted on Yucca Mountain and the subsidies given to the nuclear power industry had been spent on developing renewable energy sources and increased energy efficiency. Now let's start moving forward in the right direction.
"Since there is no place to put the waste, shouldn't we stop making more?"
The toilet is overflowing, yet they continue to crap into it, and even want to line up more people to use the overflowing toilet.
By now, there is so much waste in the US (53 million gallons in Hanford alone), the Yucca Repository wouldn't be big enough, unless, perhaps,the country started reprocessing spent fuel. Now, let me tell you, that's a real controversy!
And let's be honest with ourselves, shall we? Obama is pro-nuclear energy as is Energy Secretary Chu. People need to be prepared for the "green energy movement" to be pitched as "zero-emissions" electricity via nuke power.
Environmentalists like George Monbiot (but also co-founder of Greenpeace, Moore) are calling for nukes to juice the green movement.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/20/george-monbiot-nuclear-climate
Do you think that's what the "power shift" youth are signing up for when they demand 5 million green jobs? And BTW, who were those "nearly 20" environmental lobby groups in DC that created the "Energy Action Coalition"; which lead to the Power Shift Galas?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Action_Coalition
link to optimistic visions of green energy jobs....
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/02-3
hanford still causing headaches --
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/355909_tanks21.html
genaman
What was it last year Presidential Canadate John McCain kept saying more Nuke plants More Nuke Plants. Clean Energy!
Hey you all do of course know what they use to do with all their nuclear waste back in the 50's right?
They were a couple of places like like that huge dedpository in the state of Washington. And there were drum after drum of suposily low level stuff dumped in the pacific not far from San Francisco.
Oh and how about that Kerr/Mcgree place in oklahoma where the workers had little protection from the plutonium they were sopsily working with.
Oh anyone remember how President Eisenhower was going to use nuke explosions on huge constructions like a bigger panama canal?
What was it atoms for peace?
Then remember all the atmosphre testing in the 50's. How all of a sudden they found strominun 90 in cows milk?
Oh yes then we thought we could produce Electricity with nuke and water.
Ah but did Private enterprize go out and build any of those plants?
Or did they even take any responsibilits for any contaminations that might happen?
Talk about today's bailouts huh-our government said that's ok we will make sure about your insurance that is limited insuurance
Oh taking care of that nuclear waste? Did they ever have a clue? Idiots like myself found out way back after TMI how dangerous this waste was.
Heck remember just a few years ago Bush screaming about Dirty bomb possibility?
Why are We The People so gullible?WE can get talked into most anything.
Remember KIng Coal? How many people recieved early deaths.
Or big oil-Hey we still love our polluting putt putts
Nuclear? take the survey. most likely 85 percent of us think Nuclear power is the answer.
WE must just be sheep. How else can it be explained.
I will bet the farm more nuke plants get built right here in the good old USA.
Any takers?
After all we need electricity to microwave our frankenfoods and to run our water pumps that brings us our ever more polluted h2o.
And don't forget our Computer screens I mean without elctricity from nuke plants We would have to throw away even our brand new full of radiation moniters.
Talking about we the majority I always think of those college pledges being bent over recieving a swat from a paddle and after each swat he says "Thank you Can I Have Another"
Nuclear wastes? believe me pretty soon something else will come along even worse. but We the people will just keep up being ignorant.
What was that old saying about ignorance being bliss?
genaman
Has anybody ever thought about offering Nevada residents some kind of ongoing compensation program or tax rebate for having a nuclear dump in their state?. You know, something along the lines of the breaks Alaskans get as a result of oil production supposedly degrading their environment.
Everybody has their price; maybe something could be arranged. It's a shame to see our federal tax dollars paying for this fiasco.
ya can't buy me
ken
a native of nevada
Sure, free chemo for the cancer they'll get :-)
Nuclear power is inappropriate technology and irrational.
Thank you President Obama.
"Others have advocated reprocessing much of the spent fuel, as is being done in France, but this too is fraught with problems, according to some experts."
Care to elaborate? A solution which eliminates 99% of the waste should be explored.
One of the Four Horsemen will bring us the answer. I might die before then. I am 72 now.
And reprocessing results in France dumping something like 400 million (or is it billion? I can't remember) gallons of radioactively contaminated water into the Atlantic Ocean annually, which has by now spread all the way up the Arctic. A fine solution there. We'll just use all our fresh water to reprocess nuclear fuel, and any water we don't use for it will become radioactive. Just what we all need!
France is using an older and inefficient PUREX process, and despite the large number in terms of volume, relatively speaking, it is not a significant global environmental problem, more so locally due to their high population density. The water usage is a drop in a bucket really. If we introduce nuclear desalination to provide water in drought prone areas of the west, nuclear could solve a lot of problems. No solution is without some adverse effects, you can however mimimize these problems so they are within tolerable limits. If you accept CO2 to be a potential killer, in decades, and if you accept we will run out of oil, peak oil is here!, then really, you have to consider coal and nuclear for some part of your energy needs.
Solution to drought stricken areas in the West = Don't live there.
Coal and Nuclear kill people, plain and simple. We need to produce renewables like, yesterday.
Reprocessing was banned due to nuclear proliferation concerns, but certainly security can be provided to eliminate this concern. The other great issue was cost, it is cheaper to simply just bury the fuel. But that is a serious environmental issue.
Newer generations of reactors (CANDU reactors) can use spent nuclear fuel rods from older reactors as fuel directly w/o reprocessing.
Certainly, if there are more efficient reprocessing options, then the US should choose them.
http://www.ou.edu/class/che-design/a-design/projects-2007/Nuclear%20Reprocessing.pdf
India's atomic bomb came from a U.S. nuclear fuel reprocessing program, Atoms For Peace. Yes, I would say there are fricking huge proliferation concerns from it.
I am talking about reprocessing our waste in the US. Since 2001, certainly we have enough security to manage our own reprocessing w/o proliferation fears.
That's funny, weren't there cases of security breakdowns as Los Alamos a few years ago? Maybe Oak Ridge too? I don't really remember, but I do remember a case with a missing hard drive, I think.
I agree with Ken from Nevada. My family has lived in Las Vegas since 1957. My wife and kids were born here. Her father worked at the Nuclear Test Site and died from cancer as did mine although my father's cancer was caused by 27 years as a Las Vegas City Firefighter. My mother, wife and daughter all suffer from serious thyroid problems and my son was born with extra teeth. Nevada has enough radiation as it is after all the Atom bomb testing that was done here over the years. My mother and law's Las Vegas High School class was taken out to the football field to set and watch the mushroom clouds when they were still doing above ground testing. My father told us the story of how his father's farm in New Mexico was lit up as bright as day when he was doing chores in the dark when the first bomb was tested. We have had enough and what good would compensation do if your family's health was destroyed.