The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in charge of developing radiation protection criteria for the Yucca Mountain repository under the Energy Policy Act. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a final safety rule in 2001 that set a 10,000-year limit on radiation containment at the site. Similarly, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) set compliance timeframes of 10,000 years for DOE to meet in order to be granted a license to build the repository.
Under these guidelines, the DOE must demonstrate that spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste can be properly kept for 10,000 years at Yucca Mountain. The EPA’s 10,000-year standard was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. in July 2004. Nevada filed a lawsuit against the EPA, claiming that the 10,000-year span was insufficient and illegal. The EPA was compelled by law to base the safety standard on the National Academy of Sciences’ recommendations. The Academy, on the other hand, believes that the radiation safety threshold should be set when the waste reaches its highest radiation levels, which would be at least 300,000 years after it is transferred to Yucca. Nevada’s suit was sustained by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the EPA purposefully ignored the National Academy of Sciences’ advice. To allow the 10,000-year requirement, the EPA must issue a new rule or Congress must adopt legislation.
As a result, the EPA set updated radiation guidelines for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage in September 2008. The final standards are a significant public health criterion that will be used by officials in deciding whether or not the repository should be created. After releasing a draft version in 2005, the EPA took three years to complete the rules.
- Maintain the 15 millirem per year radiation limit for the first 10,000 years following disposal;
- Between 10,000 and 1 million years, establish a dosage limit of 100 millirem yearly exposure;
- Require the Department of Energy (DOE) to take into account the impacts of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes, and corrosion on waste packages in order to properly confine the waste over a million years; and
- Establish a radiological protection standard for this facility, commensurate with the NAS standards, from the time of peak dosage to 1 million years following disposal.
A chest X-ray, for example, exposes a person to 10 millirem. Radiation from natural sources such as soil, water, and flora, as well as man-made ones such as building materials, televisions, and video terminals, gives Americans about 360 millirem per year. (Read more on this website or consult the EPA for more information.)
Despite the verdict on the 10,000-year requirement, the DOE says the Yucca Mountain repository “will perform in a way that protects public health and safety.” DOE engineers created waste canisters with two-inch stainless steel walls and a half-inch of Alloy 22, a corrosion-resistant nickel-metal alloy, on the inside. Engineers constructed unique titanium drip shields to be placed over the waste canisters when studies revealed that there would be far more water percolation, or dripping, within Yucca Mountain than previously estimated.
The state of Nevada, on the other hand, claims that the drip shields and DOE’s reliance on waste packages highlight Yucca Mountain’s geological inadequacy as a repository site. The state mentions the risk of volcanism and seismic activity, as well as the fact that the area is one of the country’s most geologically active. “The Yucca repository is the only repository under consideration in the world that is placed above the water table, not below it,” the Agency for Nuclear Projects adds.
Experts have determined that the chance of a volcano disturbing a repository is essentially nonexistent, according to the DOE. Due of its placement well below the earth’s surface, the Department claims that a repository would resist the effects of an earthquake. Earthquakes have a significantly lower impact beneath than on or near the surface because vibratory ground motion reduces with depth.
On a national scale, the DOE claims that a repository at Yucca Mountain will preserve public health and safety by combining radioactive waste from 131 locations around the country into a single location.
Nevada politicians, on the other hand, refer to this as the “one waste, one location” myth. They argue that by the time Yucca Mountain is full, nuclear power plants across the country will have produced nearly as much waste as they store now. The Yucca Mountain facility would hold 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. 46,000 tons of high-level garbage were stored around the country in 2003. Each year, nuclear power plants generate an additional 2,000 tons of waste.
Is any nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain?
Yucca Mountain, according to the state’s official position, is a terrible place to store the nation’s high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel for various reasons: More than 70,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel are stored across the country in 77 reactor sites.
Should we use Yucca Mountain in Nevada to store our nuclear waste?
A nonpartisan group of Nevada politicians is the second. The departure of anti-Yucca Democratic Senator Harry Reid gave a good opportunity to revive the project. But, lo and behold, Republican Senator Dean Heller stepped in to fill the hole, expressing his opposition to the bill.
In the end, there isn’t much of a reason for Nevada lawmakers to be pro-Yucca. This makes sense because the country is essentially pushing its nuclear waste on Nevadans in exchange for nothing. Despite the fact that Yucca Mountain has been proven to be a safe place to store nuclear waste after years of meticulous study, Nevadans see it as all risk and no gain. Let’s flip the script and offer to pay Nevadans to host the site.
The federal government might pay each Nevadan $500 in “rent” each year if the state agrees to open Yucca for commerce. With a population of almost 3 million people, this amounts to a $1.5 billion annual bill. To avoid the program becoming a never-ending transfer of income from the other 49 states to Nevada, it might be sunsetted after ten years, at which point Congress would have to vote to extend it. (To put that figure in context, we’ve already spent $15 billion on Yucca Mountain.)
For Nevada’s lawmakers, this would almost certainly change the conversation right away. The ordinary Nevadan would gain from the annual payments because the state’s gross domestic product per capita is in the low 30s in the country. Surprisingly, this concept might be incorporated into the infrastructure bill that President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer all stated their desire to pass.
There are valid concerns about this policy idea. Offering Nevada such a deal, it appears, would incentivize opposition to otherwise uncontroversial projects in the hopes of securing a payment from Uncle Sam. However, most projects include the development of items that people truly want, such as federal office buildings, bridges, and public transit things we used to refer to as “earmarks” or “pork.”
Nevada should be treated like Alaska
Critics may also argue that the project is excessively costly. Unfortunately, if things stay the same (i.e., storing waste on-site), the Department of Energy will be required to pay nuclear power providers “damages” for failing to collect the waste. The bill could cost anywhere between $23 and $50 billion. In any case, we’ll have to pay someone to store it.
Others would find it repulsive to compensate citizens for doing nothing. Alaska, on the other hand, has been doing just that since 1982. Every year, Alaskans get a check from the state’s oil wealth trust fund, ranging in value from a few hundred dollars to over $2,000.
In an ideal world, politicians would do the right thing and store the country’s nuclear waste in a secure, centralized repository in the middle of nowhere. However, sometimes it takes a little financial prodding to encourage politicians to do the right thing.
Why does nuclear waste need to be stored?
Radioactive waste is stored to prevent people from being exposed to radiation or causing pollution. The radioactivity of the wastes decays with time, therefore storing high-level waste for around 50 years until disposal is a major incentive.
How is waste stored in Yucca Mountain?
Yucca Mountain is a proposed spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) repository that might be used to dispose of both types of radioactive waste. If built, a tunnel complex would be built around 1000 feet below the summit of Yucca Mountain and roughly 1000 feet above the aquifer beneath the repository. The primary concept of geologic disposal is to store radioactive materials in neatly packaged tubes deep down. The Yucca Mountain facility would achieve this by isolating the waste from the surrounding environment using a combination of natural and artificial barriers.
Unless a second repository opens during its operating lifetime, it is statutorily limited to storing 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.
Why is Yucca Mountain important?
The Yucca Mountain Repository is a planned Department of Energy (DOE) location for the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States. The EPA has established environmental requirements to protect human health and the environment from radioactive material in the repository; the Yucca Mountain repository must meet these standards in order to be permitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Yucca Mountain is a volcanic ridge in Nye County, Nevada, about 90 miles southwest of Tonopah, the county seat, and 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The climate is desert-like in this location. Yucca Mountain is made up of layers of volcanic ash from eruptions that occurred over 10 million years ago. Over time, the ash from those volcanic eruptions changed into a type of igneous rock known as “tuff,” which has different properties depending on the setting in which it was created. The migration of the tuff layers produced the crest of Yucca Mountain due to regional geologic factors. Carbonate rock lies beneath the tuff, produced from deposits deposited at the bottom of ancient oceans that once existed in the area.
Why is Yucca Mountain Safe?
Proponents argue that Yucca Mountain is safe since the TSPA computed dose does not exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation limit for discharges from the repository. Relying on the TSPA for a safety claim has two major drawbacks.
What is the controversy about Yucca Mountain?
The state’s concerns about Yucca Mountain stem from how it was selected in the first place. The country’s nuclear weapons program had left tons of radioactive waste, and spent fuel from nuclear power reactors was piling up when Reagan signed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. The statute required the Energy Department to investigate many locations across the country, but legislators refused to fund the costly and time-consuming technical assessments of all viable sites. As a result, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was revised in 1987 to designate Yucca Mountain as the sole permanent storage location.
What makes Nevada so special? Texas, Washington, and Nevada were the three finalists. The speaker of the House at the time represented Texas, while the majority leader represented Washington. The Screw Nevada Bill was the name given to the amendment. “Clearly, the mistake we did in 1987 was forcing it down Nevadans’ throats,” a government official told Nature later.
Nevadans are likewise concerned about their safety. In 2014, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal body in charge of approving nuclear waste storage sites, released a long-awaited report declaring Yucca Mountain safe. However, detractors fear that groundwater in Yucca Mountain may corrode the nuclear waste canisters, resulting in a radioactive spill.
A 10,000-year storage facility will undoubtedly be difficult to plan; if completed, it will have to last longer than any other piece of infrastructure in history. However, after Reid became Senate majority leader and Obama gained president, both of whom are opposed to the project, efforts stalled. Despite Reid’s boasting, they never had enough votes to destroy it completely since Yucca Mountain was inscribed into law. As a result, they came to a halt.
What are the cons of Yucca Mountain?
Yucca Mountain generates a lot of debate let’s face it, if it didn’t, a four-part blog series wouldn’t be necessary. Part of the dispute stems from concerns about the impact of spent fuel disposal on the environment and the health of people living and working in the vicinity as well as along traffic routes. So, to wrap up this series, I’d like to take a look at some of these worries to see which ones are valid and which are exaggerated. A website created by the State of Nevada in 1998 is a good place to find a lot of these concerns.
This is correct, but it has no bearing on the matter of Yucca Mountain’s safe disposal because no one will ever come into contact with the spent fuel. As I explained in my last piece, the spent fuel will be stored in heavy-duty casks that are meant to reduce radiation to less than 10 mR/hr at a distance of 2 meters from the cask. The fact that the fuel is highly radioactive doesn’t matter as long as it stays inside the casks no one can be hurt by radiation to which they are not exposed. In terms of the wasted fuel still inside the casks, keep in mind that the casks are tough; they’re built to withstand strikes from rapid locomotives, and they won’t even be exposed to that risk after they’re buried. Finally, while the fuel remains radioactive for millennia, the radiation levels decline rapidly over time; after a few decades (much shorter than the design lifetime for the waste site or the casks), radiation dose rates are a fraction of what they were.
True, but not to the extent that it appears. Yes, plutonium is present in spent fuel because it is formed when uranium-238 atoms capture neutrons during nuclear fission. Yes, plutonium is a highly poisonous heavy metal. However, plutonium is far from the most deadly element known to man; a toxicologist with whom I used to work could identify a dozen compounds that are far more dangerous (including shellfish toxins and fungal toxins). In fact, plutonium was given to humans to help researchers figure out how it behaves and moves within the body, and those who received it lived to tell the tale (and yes, many of these tests would be considered unethical today, and they have sparked a lot of debate but that doesn’t change the fact that those who were tested were unharmed).
Consider what must happen in order for the plutonium in the fuel to reach a person who could be injured by it. To reach the spent fuel containers, groundwater would have to seep down hundreds of feet of rock. Then it would have to corrode the metal and soak through the concrete layers to get through the casks. It would have to dissolve the fuel ingredients, including the highly intractable plutonium, once within the barrels, and then escape. Finally, it would have to transport the dissolved plutonium several hundred feet through further rock to the water table, where it would have to be transported however many miles to the nearest human with a well drilled into the aquifer. Possible? Yes. Is it plausible, especially in millennia-scale time? Not at all.
Casks can fail due to geologic phenomena such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, hastening the release of radiation into the environment.
Let’s start with the easy one. Volcanic eruptions have occurred in the American Southwest during the last several thousand years, and Yucca Mountain is formed of volcanic rocks. So it’s reasonable to expect more of these eruptions in the next few tens of thousands of years. However, there are two types of eruptions: those that produce lava and those that do not. The American Southwest has a history of ashfalls rather than lava eruptions; a lava eruption would just serve to encase the used fuel even deeper, while the ash is too chilly to melt the spent fuel casks. The casks are more likely to be damaged if they are submerged in lava, although the lava itself is unlikely to spread as far as the Las Vegas suburbs. To expose people to high amounts of radiation, the lava would have to submerge the casks long enough to melt them, then continue to flow, carrying the fission products with it and continue far enough to expose people. Lava flows have covered hundreds of miles in the past, but not in millions of years. While it’s possible that volcanic eruptions could leak radioactivity into the environment, the debris or lava is more likely to bury the waste even deeper than it is to discharge it into the environment.
Earthquakes are a little more problematic; there are concerns that an earthquake will open up new fractures, speeding up the flow of water from the surface to the casks and from the casks to the water table. Another risk is that an earthquake could burst the casks, allowing radiation to escape. Both of these scenarios are feasible; we know that earthquakes may fracture rock and affect groundwater flows, and Yucca Mountain is no exception. We know they can fracture rock, therefore we’re confident they can also fracture old fuel casks. As a result, it’s reasonable to believe that an earthquake could discharge radionuclides from spent fuel casks. But we must also consider the possibility that an earthquake will develop a fissure in the precise rock the exact portion of the rock in which the casks are housed. It’s conceivable, but the chances are stacked against you.
Plutonium might seep from the canisters and build up to a critical mass in the environment, causing an explosion.
This is a personal favorite of mine. Not only must we get the plutonium out of the casks (water leaking into the waste repository, penetrating into the casks, dissolving plutonium, contaminating the environment), but we must also get enough plutonium out of solution in the same place and under the same conditions to form a critical mass. It’s also vital to remember that a critical mass isn’t something that will explode; rather, it’s something that will maintain a fission chain reaction in the correct conditions. It’s difficult enough to get plutonium into the environment as it is, and it’s unlikely to happen. The risk of plutonium precipitating out of solution in a critical mass is increased. And putting something together that could go off is nearly impossible.
Putting all of the spent fuel which contains plutonium in one location attracts terrorists and poses a proliferation danger.
Placing all of the spent fuel in one spot undoubtedly increases the amount of plutonium in that one site. On the other hand, we must consider whether having only one place at risk is preferable to the 50+ that exist presently. We can make a good case that guarding and making impenetrable a single place is easier than trying to defend every reactor facility in the country.
In terms of non-proliferation, anyone trying to build a nuclear weapon would have to first get to the spent fuel casks, then either steal some very large and heavy casks or open them up at the waste site and remove the fuel both actions that would be hampered by high radiation levels in the coming decades. Did I mention that the wasted gasoline has to be moved off-site and out of the country? The alleged terrorists (or infiltrators from a potential nuclear power) would then have to remove the fuel, break it up, dissolve it in acid, and chemically treat it to extract the plutonium. The main truth is that neither a terrorist group nor most countries have the resources to pull this off. So…possible? Maybe, in the sense that winning the lotto with a single ticket is a possibility. No, it’s not plausible. This is another another one that fails to materialize.
I could go on and on about why spent nuclear fuel should not be disposed of at Yucca Mountain; there have been several reasons made in support of this position. Some of these arguments, such as the one about plutonium leaking out, building a critical mass, and blowing boom, are either intentionally disingenuous or worst-case wishful thinking; they will very likely not occur in the real world. Others are feasible, such as the potential of an earthquake rupturing the used fuel casks, but the odds are stacked against them. But here’s the bottom line: we’ll be able to come up with a long list of arguments for and against dumping spent nuclear material almost anyplace. We must say one of three things at some point:
- We’re content with the current scenario and will continue to do so indefinitely.
- We’re either going to take it and dispose of the waste in a location where our best science tells us it will be safe under any reasonable set of circumstances, or we’re going to suck it up and dispose of the waste in a location where our best science tells us it will be safe under any reasonable set of circumstances.
- We’re going to abandon nuclear power in favor of finding another way to meet 20% of our electrical needs.
The bottom line is that nuclear energy benefits the entire country – again, nuclear energy accounts for 20% of our electricity generation. There are plenty of areas where the waste from these reactors can be stored safely without endangering the environment or people. We may never find a single location that we can certify as “best,” and the nit-pickers among us will always be able to find arguments no matter how irrational, spurious, or ill-informed that appear to mitigate against any given site. However, the nation will eventually need to identify a location that, while not perfect, is good enough to suit our needs because it meets all realistic trash disposal standards in the actual world.
Whether the country continues to use nuclear energy or not, we will need to find a place to store the spent reactor fuel that has amassed and is now being kept across the country at some point. It makes sense for this region to be dry and sparsely populated, close to major transportation routes, and geologically and hydrogeologically ideal for isolating the hazardous waste while it is still harmful. These places do exist, and one of them is Yucca Mountain. The technical issues of long-term radioactive waste disposal, I believe, are modest the natural nuclear reactor at Oklo has demonstrated that even damp and broken rock can keep radioactive waste for millennia it is the political issues that have proven insurmountable thus far. But don’t be fooled: the ostensibly scientific arguments to Yucca Mountain are only pretexts for the underlying political objections. Our trash disposal solution is being held up by politics rather than science or engineering. And, until these political issues are resolved, we will continue to store our waste in a variety of susceptible sites across the United States.
The article Yucca Mountain: Questions and Concerns first appeared on ScienceWonk, FAS’s blog for expert and thought leaders.
How nuclear waste is stored?
What Is the Best Way to Store Nuclear Waste? New nuclear technology, such as small modular reactors and accident-tolerant fuels, will shorten the time spent in the cooling pool for these assemblies. Operators remove the fuel from the pool when it has cooled and store it in a dry cask, which is made of concrete and steel.
Why is nuclear waste bad for the environment?
Because nuclear power plants do not emit carbon dioxide, it has been dubbed a “clean” form of energy. This is correct, however it is misleading. Although nuclear power reactors do not emit carbon dioxide while in operation, large amounts of carbon dioxide are released during the construction and operation of the plants. Uranium is used as a fuel in nuclear power reactors. The uranium mining process emits a significant amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When new nuclear power facilities are created, carbon dioxide is also emitted into the atmosphere. Finally, the transportation of radioactive waste emits carbon dioxide.