What was wrong with yucca mountain

Despite the Treaty, the United States still refuses to recognize the sovereignty of Western Shoshone or the cultural and historical value of this land. Over the years, the United States has failed to recognize their constant disruption of this region as a violation of rights or the treaty. Starting in and ending in , the United States government preformed one hundred nuclear tests, causing countless cases of radiation poisoning and cancer of both the people and the land.

Although the radiation caused effects for Nevadans in general, a disproportionate amount of them were Native American Etchegaray 3. In , Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act directing the US Department of Energy to site two permanent repositories one in the eastern US and one in the west for high level radioactive waste from nuclear power reactors and weapons in the US. Over the next fourteen years, the United States government spent nearly 7 billion dollars characterizing Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository designated to hold the radioactive waste for the next ten thousand years.

And we know that they can fracture rock, so they can certainly fracture spent fuel casks. So it is plausible to think that an earthquake could cause radionuclides to be released from the spent fuel casks.

But we also have to think about the odds that an earthquake will open a fracture that passes through the very rock — the exact part of the rock — that the casks are sitting in. Plutonium might leak out of the canisters and accumulate in a critical mass in the environment and explode. This is one of my favorites.

Not only do we have to get the plutonium out of the casks water leaking into the waste repository, penetrating into the casks, dissolving plutonium, making its way into the environment , but then enough of the plutonium has to precipitate out of solution in the same place — and under the correct conditions — to form a critical mass.

Going through the steps to even get plutonium into the environment is challenging enough and not likely to happen. Precipitating the plutonium out of solution in a critical mass adds to the unlikelihood. And putting together something that could blow up is well-nigh impossible. Putting all of the spent fuel — which contains plutonium — in one spot makes a tempting target for terrorists and is a proliferation risk.

Putting all of the spent fuel in one place certainly increases the amount of plutonium in this one location. With regards to non-proliferation, anyone trying to make a nuclear weapon would first have to get to the spent fuel casks and would then have to either steal some very large and heavy casks or would have to open them up at the waste site and remove the fuel from them — actions that would be hampered by high radiation levels anytime in the next several decades.

And did I mention getting the spent fuel offsite and out of the country? Then the putative terrorists or infiltrators from a prospective nuclear power would have to remove the fuel, chop it up and dissolve it in acid, and chemically process it to remove the plutonium.

More than 70, metric tons of high level nuclear waste and spent nuclear is stored in more than 77 reactor sites across the country. That number increases by more than 2, tons each year.

Yucca's statutory design capacity is only 77, metric tons. By the time Yucca would be filled to capacity in , there will still be at least the same amount of spent fuel still stored at the reaction sites, even if no new plants are built. It should be noted that on-site storage is not a sound strategy for the long term.

It risks a host of problems, including the possibility of reprocessing, social instability, leaks and accidents, or destruction of waste storage containers by natural disasters or terrorism. There is also a high potential for neglect in economically difficult times.

The problem of neglect may become more serious after the utility has shut down the reactor since the plant would not be generating any more income. Operating power plants would continue to create and store on-site spent nuclear fuel even if Yucca Mountain were opening. These problems must be addressed regardless of where the waste is ultimately put. Moving spent fuel to an interim spot for instance a monitored retrievable storage facility proposed for the Skull Valley Goshute land in Utah before any long-term management solution is decided upon carries a host of new risks arising from: transportation of the wastes; the possible need to transport wastes again; temptations to reprocess the spent fuel, causing more pollution and proliferation risks; safety problems associated with loading, unloading and reloading canisters; and hasty decisions regarding canisters that should be far more carefully made.

These risks are both unnecessary and are qualitatively more serious than storage of spent fuel at reactor sites, which have, after all, been licensed for operation of reactors that generally carry far greater safety risks than spent fuel storage.

Some of the financial and legal arguments of the utilities do have merit. The DOE did sign contracts with them to begin taking charge of the waste in , although it was done as part of deadlines in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that were set without reference to environmental protection or sound nuclear waste management.

Moreover, the problem of spent fuel management after a reactor is shut down is a serious one. These issues can be addressed within the framework of on-site storage. The federal government should pay for additional on-site storage necessitated by delays in the repository program but only for wastes covered by existing license periods for presently operating reactors.

The funds should come from the Nuclear Waste Fund and not from general taxpayer revenues. Spent fuel from existing nuclear power plants beyond their presently licensed lifetimes or from new nuclear power plants should be excluded by law from federal assumption of waste management liabilities. Future nuclear power plant owners and licensees should bear the full liability for the waste they produce. There are no ideal options for managing highly radioactive waste.