Vol. 6, No. 2
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November 15, 2008
Nevada's Online State News Journal-- Serving Informed Nevadans Since 2003
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COPYWRITING
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Is Yucca Mountain
Coming To An End?
Obama Said So, But Is
It Really Going To Happen?
Those who have fought the creation of the Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository are hoping that President elect Barack Obama will stand up to his campaign rhetoric and work to end the project. On the other hand, the Department of Energy (DOE) went before congress recently saying they not only want Yucca Mountain to be completed, but that another repository is needed right now.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is currently reviewing a license application from DOE for the Yucca site, congress has cut back funding for the operation, and the Senate Majority Leader, Nevada Senator Harry Reid has promised to stop the project completely. From a political standpoint, Reid and Obama, along with California’s Pelosi, form a triumvirate that could very well end the project in a moment’s notice.
Along with the emotional arguments against the high level nuclear waste repository are strong scientific reasons to stop the project, including what many believe is the correct answer to getting rid of the waste, recycling. Recycling of the high level nuclear waste at the plants where the waste is created would answer two of the largest arguments against the repository. The waste would not have to be transported across the country, inviting terrorist attacks, or creating a localized nuclear emergency in the event of an accident. Recycling would allow for the waste to be fully used, something that is not the case today. When the rods are not capable of producing the heat necessary to drive the turbines, they are still deadly. Thus, waste. By recycling, something that takes place regularly in European nuclear power plants, the waste eventually becomes almost inert, and storage is, according to the French nuclear industry, as simple as putting it in a garage.
During the recent presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama, both candidates favored the concept of recycling, the difference being McCain still favored going forward with Yucca Mountain. Obama stated his opposition to the effort. He said several times that he doesn’t believe the current plans are safe, and he prefers storing the waste at the power plants where the waste is created.
One member of Obama’s transition team, John Podesta, a former member of the Clinton White House, has worked with Reid to lobby against Yucca Mountain. The DOE will have an all new leadership structure following the January inauguration, and some already see Obama lining up people to sit in various seats of energy influence. During the next two months, the NRC will continue its review of the Yucca License Application.
The strongest arguments against the Yucca plan deal with transportation of the casks, none of which have been constructed at this time. Contracts for their construction have been let, but none have been built. Fears of international or domestic terrorists attacking the casks or the trains hauling them, are at the heart of transportation risk. DOE insists the casks can withstand a train wreck, but no one know if they would withstand the explosive force of a shoulder fired mortar round or missile.
Often in terrorist attacks, the psychological impact is far greater than the physical, and an attack in the heart of any town, whether successful or not, would have an immediate and devastating effect on that town’s economy and people. The waste would be transported through about 37 states on its way to Yucca Mountain, and few if any would be willing to say the transportation plans are completely safe.
Economically, Yucca Mountain has cost billions and the price tag is continuing to rise. What needs to be put in the equation is how much money would be saved if the country had followed through with the idea of recycling in the beginning. A recycling program had been started, scientific research has been done, during the Jimmy Carter presidency. It was at that time, in the dark days of the cold war with the USSR, that burying the waste became the law of the land. It was feared that the waste would be stolen or clandestinely sold, get into Russian or some other bad guy’s hands, and become nuclear weapons.
That fear has been minimized today, so many nations already have nuclear weapons or are on the brink of having them, that stealing nuclear waste from the U.S. isn’t a threat. And, that waste has been sitting on the ground at nuclear plants all over the country for the last 20 years that it’s taken DOE to get this far in their licensing process. For many years, DOE has been accused of not using “good science” in their plans for the waste. At this time, those plans are in the hands of the NRC on the one hand, and in the hands of our new president on the other.
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