why was yucca mountain chosen for nuclear waste

There's others: a resurgence of hybrid solutions of fusion fission where the fusion would impart not only energy, but again creates high-energy neutrons that can burn down the long-lived actinides. This corridor starts in Caliente, Nevada, traveling along the northern and western borders of the Nevada Test Site for approximately 200 miles (320 km). The new rule limits radiation doses from Yucca Mountain for up to 1,000,000 years after it closes. If the plan proceeds, 77,000 tons of hazardous radioactive materials from the 110 U.S. commercial nuclear power plants — 90 percent of which are east of the Mississippi River — and the government's nuclear weapons complex will be entombed at Yucca Mountain. stored at 121 sites around the nation. filed 7/29/11), "EPA's Proposed Public Health and Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Yucca Mountain", "Full Committee Oversight Hearing on the Status of the Yucca Mountain Project", http://www.sciencetechnologystudies.org/system/files/v27i2Ialenti.pdf, "Earthquake could cause flooding of Yucca Mountain repository", "Summary of Yucca Mountain Oversight and Impact Assessment Findings", "Technical Basis Document No. "[114], Nevada National Security Site officials in April 2019 assured the public that the Device Assembly Facility on the Nevada security site was safe from earthquake threats. It is common sense, and sound science, to site and build a nuclear waste repository to isolate radioactive waste as completely as possible from the human environment for the hazardous lifetime of the waste. The goal would be to have a storage facility for waste from operating reactors or other "non-priority waste" available by 2025, and an actual permanent repository by the end of 2048. of Energy stops work on Deep Borehole Field Test program", "Nuclear agency seeks $30M for Yucca Mountain licensing review", "NRC Aims For Budget Bump for FY19 - ExchangeMonitor | Page 1", "Congress Poised to Skip Funding Yucca Nuke Dump Again This Year", https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/energy-department-nominee-shifts-on-yucca-mountain-question-2032528/, "NRC: Locations of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations", "What are spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste? [74][75], The aquifer of Yucca Mountain drains to Amargosa Valley, home to over 1400 people and a number of endangered species.[2]. Because of questions raised by the State of Nevada[53] and Congressional members about the quality of the science behind Yucca Mountain, the DOE announced on March 31, 2006, the selection of Oak Ridge Associated Universities/Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (a not-for-profit consortium that includes 96 doctoral degree-granting institutions and 11 associate member universities) to provide expert reviews of scientific and technical work on the Yucca Mountain Project. There are several important reasons why this storage facility has been chosen to store the country’s nuclear waste. In March 2015 the Nuclear Waste Administration Act of 2015 (S854) was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Republican Senator Lamar Alexander. Under President Barack Obama the Department of Energy (DOE) reviewed options other than Yucca Mountain for a high-level waste repository. The court opinion stated that "The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections. It is in the desert, and the land it occupies includes public land, Nevada Test Site land, and Nellis Air Force Base land. The three sites were Hanford, Washington; Deaf Smith County, Texas; and Yucca Mountain. [97] South Carolina, Aiken County (the location of Savannah River site) and others joined Washington. "Sandia has unique experience in managing scientific investigations in support of a federally licensed geologic disposal facility, having served in that role as the scientific advisor to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico. This safety record is comparable to the worldwide experience where more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel have been transported since 1970 – an amount approximately equal to the total amount of spent nuclear fuel that would have been shipped to Yucca Mountain. Based on these reports, President Ronald Reagan approved three sites for intensive scientific study called site characterization. It is in these alcoves that most of the scientific experiments were conducted. The DOE was to begin accepting spent fuel at the Yucca Mountain Repository by January 31, 1998, but did not do so because of a series of delays due to legal challenges, concerns over how to transport nuclear waste to the facility, and political pressure resulting in underfunding of the construction. [96], On April 13, 2010, the state of Washington filed suit to prevent the closing of Yucca Mountain, since this would slow efforts to clean up Hanford Nuclear Reservation. A major jolt knocked windows out of a DOE facility in the early 1990’s. The basic … EPA's rule requires DOE to show that Yucca Mountain can safely contain wastes, considering the effects of earthquakes, volcanic activity, climate change, and container corrosion, over one million years. ", "Midweek Perspectives: Waste that won't go away", "Analysis: Reid's Yucca and nuke waste plan", "US election: Questioning the candidates", "Shuler: Nuclear waste is not headed to Asheville area", "Bill to liquidate the Nuclear Waste Fund", "Court orders halt to nuclear waste fees", "How the Department of Energy became a major taxpayer liability", "U.S. Department of Energy Awards a Contract to USA Repository Services for Management and Operating Contractor Support for the Yucca Mountain Project", http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2010/08/24/2/}, http://www.energy.gov/environment/ocrwm.htm}, "Erin Neff: The arbitrary science of Yucca Mountain", "Will the United States Need a Second Geologic Repository? All Nevada representatives opposed the bill. The fractured and faulted volcanic tuff that Yucca Mountain comprises reflects the occurrence of many earthquake-faulting and strong ground motion events during the last several million years, and the hydrological characteristics of the rock would not be changed significantly by seismic events that may occur in the next 10,000 years. Politics and economics. This leaves American utilities and the United States government, which currently disposes of its transuranic waste 2,150 feet (660 m) below the surface at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico,[7] without any designated long-term storage site for the high-level radioactive waste stored on site at various nuclear facilities around the country. Read More: The Nuclear Waste Policy Act Back to top Why was Yucca Mountain chosen? [81], The nuclear waste was planned to be shipped to the site by rail and/or truck in robust containers known as spent nuclear fuel shipping casks, approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The recommendation to use a geologic repository dates to 1957, when the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the best way to protect the environment and public health and safety is to dispose of the waste in rock deep underground. The engineered barrier system components will reportedly provide substantial protection of the waste from seepage water, even under severe seismic loading. [50] The governor of Nevada had 90 days to object and did so, but Congress overrode the objection. On July 18, 2006, the DOE proposed March 31, 2017, as the date to open the facility and begin accepting waste based on full funding. Analysis of the available data in 1996 indicates that, since 1976, there have been 621 seismic events of magnitude greater than 2.5 within a 50-mile (80 km) radius of Yucca Mountain. The discovery required several structures to be moved several hundred feet further to the east, and drew criticism from Robert R. Loux, then head of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, who argues that Yucca administrators should have known about the fault line's location years prior, and called the movement of the structures "just-in-time engineering. [31] To store this amount of waste would have required 40 miles (64 km) of tunnels. [citation needed] For the ten years after 2015 it is estimated to cost taxpayers $24 billion in payments from the Judgment Fund. These are geologically stable for a 50 to 100 million year time scale. The administration agency, DOE, began implementation of the President's plan in May 2009. 3053 was approved in a 340–72 vote in the House of Representatives. For FY18, the DOE had requested $120 million and the NRC $30 million[10] from Congress to continue licensing activities for the Yucca Mountain Repository. [78], In September 2007, it was discovered that the Bow Ridge fault line ran underneath the facility, hundreds of feet east of where it was originally thought to be located, beneath a storage pad where spent radioactive fuel canisters would be cooled before being sealed in a maze of tunnels. The nuclear energy industry supporters say the nation shouldn’t let all the money spent on Yucca Mountain go to waste, thus the effort to … [112] In their opposition to the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear repository, Nevada representatives were supported by Dianne Feinstein of California and other politicians. [pdf] The decision to site Yucca Mountain as a waste repository was based on politics, not science. It's a very natural containment. Most recently, in August 2013, a US Court of Appeals decision told the NRC and the Obama administration that they must either "approve or reject [DOE's] application for [the] never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain." [3] The project has encountered many difficulties and was highly contested by the public, the Western Shoshone peoples, and many politicians. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also went along with the administration's closure plan. [93] In 2013 this estimate of taxpayer liability was raised to $21 billion. A two-thirds majority of Nevadans feel it is unfair for their state to have to store nuclear waste when there are no nuclear power plants in Nevada. But say for certain types of waste you don't want to have access to it anymore—that's good. [17][page needed]. However, all of this land is part of the Western Shoshone traditional homelands. [63] The storage standard set a dose limit of 15 millirem per year for the public outside the Yucca Mountain site. Unfortunately, the repository rock at Yucca Mountain, chosen as a … Titus proposed an amendment which would have required long-term storage to be kept in locales that consented, which was rejected by the house 332–80. Any nuclear waste fees collected after S854 was enacted would be held in a newly established Working Capital Fund. Nuclear Waste! [116], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}36°51′10″N 116°25′36″W / 36.85278°N 116.42667°W / 36.85278; -116.42667. By 2010, years after this deadline, the future status of the repository at Yucca Mountain was still unknown due to ongoing litigation, and opposition by Harry Reid. [14], The project is widely opposed in Nevada and is a hotly debated national topic. According to a tribal elder, the Western Shoshone view Yucca Mountain as sacred and a nuclear storage facility "will poison everything. Some site opponents assert that, after the predicted containment failure of the waste containers, these cracks may provide a route for movement of radioactive waste that dissolves in the water flowing downward from the desert surface. [61][62], In January 2019 Governor Steve Silolak vowed that "not one ounce" of nuclear waste would be allowed at Yucca Mountain, and a May funding bill did not include funding for the site. One of the primary reasons why Yucca Mountain was chosen by the federal government to be a repository for nuclear waste was because of how isolated it is compared to other parts of the country. [67] By limiting the compliance time to 10,000 years, EPA did not respect a statutory requirement that it develop standards consistent with NAS recommendations.[68]. [2] On May 20, 2020, Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes testified in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that Trump strongly opposes proceeding with Yucca Mountain Repository. [44], One point of concern has been the standard of radiation emission in 10,000 to 1,000,000 years. Vartabedian, Ralph. Yucca Mountain was chosen to store the HLW instead of two other alternatives – in Texas and Washington – initially proposed to be … Bentley, S. Cheng, P.W. State and tribal representatives would have been notified before shipments of spent nuclear fuel entered their jurisdictions. NWPA established a comprehensive policy for permanent geologic disposal of the nation's spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Yucca Mountain is located in Nevada, about an hour northwest of Las Vegas. But even some of the U.S. government’s own assessments indicate that … Gove. The Yucca Mountain controversy involves fundamental issues of a state's right to determine its economic and environmental future and to consent or object to federal projects within its borders. For the first 10,000 years, the EPA would retain the 2001 final rule's dose limit of 15 millirem per year. "[21], In the 2008 Omnibus Spending Bill, the Yucca Mountain Project's budget was reduced to $390 million. On September 8, 2006, Bush nominated Ward (Edward) Sproat, a nuclear industry executive formerly of PECO energy in Pennsylvania, to lead the Yucca Mountain Project. "[91] The court opinion said that the NRC was "simply flouting the law" in its previous action to allow the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site since a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository remains in effect. [12] In May 2019 Representative John Shimkus reintroduced a bill in the House for the site,[2] but the Appropriation Committee killed an amendment by Representative Mike Simpson to add $74 million in Yucca Mountain funding to a DOE appropriations bill. [56] Successful nuclear waste storage siting efforts in Scandinavia have involved local communities in the decision-making process and given them a veto at each stage, but this did not happen with Yucca Mountain. Construction of such facilities would require the consent of the state, local, and tribal governments which may be affected. [19] On December 19, 1984, the DOE selected ten locations in six states for consideration as potential repository sites, based on data collected for nearly ten years. [113], In June 2018, the Trump administration and some members of Congress again began proposing using Yucca Mountain, with Nevada Senators raising opposition. It's people's life, our Mother Earth's life, all the living things here, all the creatures; whatever's crawling around, it's their life too." Available: Norris, A.E., H.W. [77], DOE has stated that seismic and tectonic effects on the natural systems at Yucca Mountain will not significantly affect repository performance. This is protection at the level of the most stringent radiation regulations in the U.S. today. The project was able to reallocate resources and delay transportation expenditures to complete the License Application for submission on June 3, 2008. [115] On April 1, 2019, the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted that "Nevada Democrats in the House" were seeking to block transfers of plutonium from DOE into the state by the use of the appropriations process. The licensing application was filed by the Bush administration under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982, and the proceeding itself began in October 2008. Yucca Mountain is in a remote, desert area on federal land. [35] This site studied by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology (NBMG) differs substantially from other potential repositories due to the finding of natural analogues of nuclear material that are currently being studied. The court ruled that EPA's 10,000-year compliance period for isolation of radioactive waste was not consistent with National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recommendations and was too short. In contrast, Nevada officials claimed seismic activity in the region made it unsafe for the storage of nuclear waste. If the governor's objection had stood the project would have been abandoned and a new site chosen. Science & Technology Studies 27(2). While the Yucca Mountain Project has been debated, the amount of nuclear waste needing burial has already surpassed what the repository was designed to hold. Why will Yucca Mountain fail to isolate nuclear waste? On July 23, 2002, President George W. Bush signed House Joint Resolution 87,[20] (Pub.L. [47][48][49], On February 12, 2002, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham decided that this site was suitable to be the nation's nuclear repository. The office evaluates, monitors, and investigates DOE's Yucca Mountain work, employing researchers and scientists from the University of Nevada System and research and scientific institutions from across the nation. The measure afterwards was scheduled to go to the Senate, and if passed there, would require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide on the matter within 30 months. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. [87] Some Native Americans disagree with the conclusions of archaeological investigators that their ancestors were highly mobile groups of hunter-gatherers who occupied the Yucca Mountain area before Euroamericans began using the area for prospecting, surveying, and ranching. The Act provided that if during site characterization Yucca Mountain was found unsuitable, studies would stop immediately. The U.S. Department of Energy plans to turn Yucca Mountain into the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository, if a study finds the site safe. "[79][80] Based on the 2001 cost estimate, approximately 73 percent is funded from consumers of nuclear-powered electricity and 27 percent by the taxpayers. In 1987, Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and directed DOE to study only Yucca Mountain, which is adjacent to the former nuclear test site. [38] The Total System Life Cycle Cost presented to Congress on July 15, 2008 by Director Sproat was $90 billion. [56], On March 5, 2009, Energy Secretary Steven Chu reiterated in a Senate hearing that the Yucca Mountain site was no longer considered an option for storing reactor waste. [89][90], Starting in 2009, the Obama administration attempted to close the Yucca Mountain repository, despite current US law that designates Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository. We're looking at reactors that have a high-energy neutron spectrum that can actually allow you to burn down the long-lived actinide waste. The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, located on a piece of land adjoining the Nevada Test Site in Nye County, Nevada, was designed to be a deep geological repository storage facility for spent nuclear fuel and other high- level radioactive waste, as designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987. [110] The bill directed the DOE to resume the licensing process for Yucca Mountain, with licensing for a permanent site at the mountain to "take up to five years. These are fast-neutron reactors. [102] On March 3, 2015, NRC ordered the staff to complete the supplemental EIS and make the Yucca Mountain licensing document database publicly available, using all the remaining previously appropriated licensing funds.[103]. The wastes need to be contained for at least 10,000 years because of the extreme hazards to public health and the environment associated with these radioactive materials. Nevada's Yucca Mountain is a proposed site for a nuclear waste repository. [25] The fee ended May 16, 2014. At Oasis Valley, the rail line would have turned north-northeast towards Yucca Mountain. They cannot simply make plans for its closure in violation of US law.[91]. Yet the administration’s attempt to abandon Yucca Mountain continues and in our view poses a significant risk of a major setback for public acceptance of nuclear energy. Rodney C. Ewing and Frank N. von Hippel. The office's technical and planning research divisions have published 117 reports in more than 125 volumes covering some 30,000 pages. [27] After the layoff of 800 employees on March 31, 2009, about 100 employees remained on the project until all technical staff were laid off by the end of FY 2010[28] due to zero funding in the 2011 budget for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. [101], In August 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to either "approve or reject [DOE's] application for [the] never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The management and operating contractor as of April 1, 2009 for the project is USA Repository Services (USA-RS), a wholly owned subsidiary of URS Corporation (now part of AECOM) with supporting principal subcontractors Shaw Corporation (now part of McDermott International Inc.) and Areva Federal Services LLC (now Orano federal services business). The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository is, by authority of legislation passed in 1982 and 1987, currently the designated single facility for permanent disposal of high level nuclear waste. After much study and debate, a disposal site at Yucca Mountain in southwestern Nevada was selected which is on Western Shoshone treaty land. "We believe that establishing Sandia as our lead laboratory is an important step in our new path forward. [92], In 2008, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works found that failure to perform to contractual requirements could cost taxpayers up to $11 billion by 2020. Nuclear waste transportation could result in accidents harmful to Nevada's and the nation's citizens and seriously hurt Nevada's image as an attractive place to visit, live, or locate a business. Once envisioned as a permanent waste storage site but now abandoned by both parties, Yucca Mountain is no longer a political lightning rod. The trouble with those type of places for repositories is you don't have access to it anymore. NRC, "NRC Staff to Prepare Supplement to Yucca Mountain Environmental Impact Statement," news release 15-016, March 12, 2015, Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, nuclear power plants in the United States, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Anti-nuclear movement in the United States, List of nuclear waste treatment technologies, "Nuclear waste repository safe for future generations", https://www.congress.gov/112/plaws/publ10/PLAW-112publ10.pdf, "Nye County, Sandoval clash over future of Yucca - Las Vegas Sun Newspaper", "Yucca Mountain opposition to be focus at Las Vegas conference", "GAO: Death of Yucca Mountain Caused by Political Maneuvering", "Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future Final Report", "Dept. The nuclear industry and experts want a long-term, safer dump than the more than 100 pools currently holding nuclear waste. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, established by the Secretary of Energy, released its final report in January 2012. [84], The Nevada Center for Biological Diversity and the Nevada Attorney General both have expressed concern about the transportation routes, "through any number of sensitive habitats. Regardless, even today, nuclear utilities are still paying. Radioactive substances could leak from the dump and create serious long-term health risks to the citizens of Nevada. In January 2019, a panel of scientists introduced to Congress a 126-page report, Reset of America’s Nuclear Waste Management, which proposed including Yucca Mountain as a potential repository with "development of a consensus-based siting process, but one that would still include Yucca Mountain as a candidate. [82], Within Nevada, the planned primary mode of transportation was via rail through the Caliente Corridor. So one could well imagine—again, it depends on what the blue-ribbon panel says—one could well imagine that for a certain classification for a certain type of waste, you don't want to have access to it anymore, so that means you could use different sites than Yucca Mountain, such as salt domes. The Hill clarified that the bill would "set a path forward for the DOE to resume the process of planning for and building the southern Nevada site, transfer land to the DOE for it, ease the federal funding mechanism and allow DOE to build or license a temporary site to store waste while the Yucca project is being planned and built. Yucca Mountain has been a political football for decades, stretching all the way back to when it was devised under the Reagan administration. The groundwater protection standard is consistent with EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act standards, which the Agency applies in many situations as a pollution prevention measure. The ten sites were studied and results of these preliminary studies were reported in 1985. For many years, the Western Shoshone and many activists fought against … The 104 U.S. commercial reactors currently operating will produce this quantity of spent fuel by 2014,[32] assuming that the spent fuel rods are not reprocessed. By 2007, the DOE announced it was seeking to double the size of the Yucca Mountain repository to a capacity of 135,000 metric tons (149,000 short tons), or 300 million pounds. The original Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 required detailed characterization of three potential repository sites for the disposal of the nation’s spent commercial nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from the nuclear weapons complex. [51] In March 2006, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Majority Staff issued a 25-page white paper, "Yucca Mountain: The Most Studied Real Estate on the Planet." Spencer Abraham (DOE) on the other hand has stated, "I think there's a general understanding that we move hazardous materials in this country, an understanding that the federal government knows how to do it safely. [59][60], The costly nuclear accident in 2014 at New Mexico's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in which a nuclear waste container exploded has caused doubt that it could serve as an alternative for Yucca. [26] The Judgment Fund is not subject to budget rules and allows Congress to ignore the nuclear waste issue since payments therefrom do not have any impact on yearly spending for other programs. "US seeks waste-research revival: Radioactive leak brings nuclear repositories into the spotlight". It is unrealistic to expect DOE to spend $6.5 to $8 billion "characterizing" Yucca Mountain and then simply walk away after serious flaws are found. Rises in the water table caused by seismic activity would be, at most, a few tens of meters and would not reach the repository. 2014. It detailed an urgent need to find a site suitable for constructing a consolidated geological repository, stating that any future facility should be developed by a new independent organization with direct access to the Nuclear Waste Fund, which is not subject to political and financial control as the Cabinet-level DOE is. Nevada Parent Teachers Association Board of Directors, Cities of Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Lovelock, Reno, and Sparks, Nevada Parent Teachers Association Convention of Delegates. [4] The project also faces strong state and regional opposition. This cost, could not be compared to previous estimates since it included a repository capacity about twice as large as previously estimated over a much longer period of time (100 years vs 30 years). At the same time, the staff also stated that NRC should not authorize actual construction of the repository until the requirements for land and water rights were met and a supplement to DOE's environmental impact statement (EIS) was finished. [82] However, cities were still concerned about the transport of radioactive waste on highways and railroads that may have passed through heavily populated areas. EPA published in the Federal Register a final rule in 2009. Res. [45] In October 2007, the DOE issued a draft of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement showing that for the first 10,000 years mean public dose would be 0.24 mrem/year and that thereafter the median public dose would be 0.98 mrem/year, both of which are substantially below the proposed EPA limit. 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