Vol. 5, No. 3
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December 1, 2007
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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COPYWRITING
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Yucca Rail Corridors
Debated Statewide
Many Surprised To Learn
Northern Routes Still Open
by Johnny Gunn
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is holding open meetings around the state to discuss the findings of the Environmental Impact studies following a period of public comment and so-called scoping sessions. During the scoping sessions several months ago, many believed the Mina Route as it's called had been dropped from study because the Walker River Paiute Indians at Schurz said they would not allow nuclear laden trains to pass through the reservation. At a public meeting held November 19 at the Reno Sparks Convention Center, DOE said the project must still be discussed since the scoping sessions took place before the Indian Tribe said they did not want the trains coming through their land.
Those living in the northern half of the Silver State have often been left out of the debate over Yucca Mountain and even now most of the communities that would be affected by the Mina Route are still being left out by DOE. The Mina Route is an extension of a rail line that connects with the Union Pacific Railroad's main Intercontinental line that spans the northern counties of Nevada from Reno to Elko. The extension runs from about Hawthorne to Yucca, passing through or near Mina, Luning, Tonopah, Goldfield, Beatty, and Indian Wells.
The Department will not discuss anything outside the extension area, thus almost no public hearings have been held in Elko, Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Lovelock, Verdi, Fernley, Wadsworth, or in Fallon or Schurz. Every one of those communities would have trainloads of high level nuclear waste passing through densely populated sections of the towns, but DOE considers them outside the area of discussion. It is because of this type of thinking that none of the communities from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean are on a list for public hearings dealing with the transportation of nuclear waste to take place from nuclear energy production facilities to the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Questions such as "why?" are simply deflected. Answers such as, "we are here to discuss this subject only," are given.
Before Yucca Mountain can be opened and operating it must be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees nuclear energy production, transportation of nuclear products, and high level waste outside the military realm of influence. DOE is on a crash course to get a license application before the NRC by this coming June even though they have spent the last quarter of a century dawdling along, making terrible non-good-science decisions, and lying to themselves and Congress among others.
Why the big push? Because the current administration will not be in office after January 2009. Most of those currently running for president have come out in favor of storing the high level waste at the various generating plants and working to develop ways to reconstitute the waste into reusable nuclear energy sources. From the National Science Academy to many within the nuclear energy industry, this is the practical approach to handling the waste. Currently there are about 77,000 tons of waste on the ground, more being accumulated daily, and some 30 new nuclear power plants in the design stage. The Yucca repository was planned a quarter of a century ago and will not have the capacity to store current waste. In the minds of many, the alternative is to store the waste on site and work to create the science necessary to reconstitute it into a useable product.
The second rail line that DOE is planning on building is called the Caliente Line and runs from Caliente to Yucca, not in a straight line, and is about 320 miles in length. Nellis Air Force Base and portions of the Nevada Test site will not allow nuclear laden trains to run across their operations, so DOE is planning to run around the facilities. The railroad will run north from Caliente passing somewhat near Pioche, turn west to near Tonopah, then south near Goldfield and Beatty before arriving back at Yucca Mountain. The cost projections for that line have ballooned to well over $3 billion making the Yucca Project one of the most expensive federal programs ever to be developed. Some estimates for the total project exceed $30 billion.
At meetings in southern and northern Nevada representatives of the Nevada Nuclear Projects agency were on hand to join the debate and discussion. The Nuclear Projects agency is the Nevada agency that is fighting the Yucca Project, in court, and before Congress. DOE is so determined to get their way with the project that the federal agency has hired outside legal representation. It appears obvious from the outside that if a Yucca license application isn't on file before November 2008, the project is probably doomed. Many in Congress have changed their thinking lately on the project, budget hearings have not produced the amounts of money DOE demands, and foremost, the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (NV) has said he will stop the project at all costs.
Among the problems that Nevada officials have been pointing out lately are the canisters that DOE proposes to use on the railcars. The canisters, filled with high level nuclear waste have only been computer designed; there are none in existence that can be tested. DOE is using "virtual" tests from as much as 20 years ago and is not taking into account today's problems with terrorists and modern military weapons in terrorist's hands. DOE has not addressed that issue once.
Bob Halstead of the Nevada Nuclear agency spoke at the Caliente hearing November 15 and reminded all that the canisters that DOE wants to use are designed for final storage underground at Yucca. The waste would be loaded into the canister called a TAD, which stands for Transport, Aging, and Disposal. Many within the nuclear industry fear that using TADs would negate the possibility of being able to reconstitute the aged fuel into reusable energy. The canisters would be welded shut at the reactors, inserted into large casks and shipped by rail to Yucca. Each cask, with its safety devices and skids would weigh in the neighborhood of 180 tons.
It was pointed out at Caliente that there is no final TAD design. Halstead calls it "Proof of Concept" only. He says the "TAD system is not compatible with dry storage systems currently in use at civilian nuclear power plants." There are no alternative DOE plans at this time. Since there are no TADs built, there has been no actual safety testing, only virtual computer modeling.
If a canister were to be hit by a shoulder fired missile or grenade, it isn't known whether the canister would be breached. If it were, and the railcar was in a heavily populated area, there would be mass evacuations, and the clean up costs would be astronomical. For instance, if radioactive energy were released, it would contaminate surrounding buildings, which according to current science cannot be simply cleaned out. Most believe the buildings would have to be destroyed and the material disposed of at a nuclear waste site. Clean up, according to Halstead "could reach $10 billion."
The secondary part to that would be a non-breach attack, but in that scenario, the psychological impact of the terrorism has an equal importance. If a terrorist simply used a heavy weapon to derail a nuclear waste laden railcar in the middle of downtown Reno, every major casino hotel in the city would have to be evacuated. According to Halstead, "DOE dismisses (the) potential for unique conditions or terrorist attacks."
It is obvious that DOE is planning to ram their license application through NRC regardless of those that oppose the project. It is obvious that for some reason DOE still believes they will be able to run nuclear waste laden trains through the Walker Lake Paiute Reservation and build the Mina Route, and it seems obvious that the concept of a terrorist attack has not been taken into account by the Department. Recent polls in the Silver State indicate that a large majority of the population is not in favor of the project.
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