Info 202 Fall 2011

Main Article: Nation Needs New Nuclear Waste Site, Pronto

In spent fuel pools and dry cask storage containers, radioactive waste from commercial and defense nuclear reactors continues to pile up. Scattered across over 100 sites throughout the United States the total amount exceeds 52,000 tons* – and that’s just the high-level radioactive waste. Not included in that figure are millions of gallons of waste left over from plutonium and other processing, or the millions of tons of tailings from milling uranium ore. The central question is: what do we do with the stuff?

Until 2010, the answer lied at Yucca Mountain. Located on a former nuclear test site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, it was selected as the result of a Congressional decision in 1987. The process has since been mired in a political, legal and environmental tug-of-war between players at the the federal, state and local levels.  The details of the case are Byzantine, but the result is that the Yucca Mountain project has been suspended indefinitely.

This is arguably the ultimate organizing problem. Here we have a “resource” for which no final storage was defined. Due to the toxic nature of the resource, a system must be designed to safely move it from it’s temporary location to a permanent location. The inventory must be monitored and then safeguarded upon arrival. The system should only allow the resource to be checked in; not out. The contents of the repository must be communicated to distant posterity in order to avoid a future catastrophe.

The design of the Yucca Mountain facility was to accommodate 77,000 metric tons of radioactive waste in 40 miles of volcanic rock. By 2015, it’s projected that amount will be generated by commercial reactors alone. A final repository is still required – one that will comply with Federal and State laws, survive scientific and environmental scrutiny, and obtain buy-in from local citizens. Until those concerns are addressed the waste will continue to be stored on-site at commercial and defense facilities at great cost to taxpayers.

*The Eiffel Tower weighs approximately 10,000 tons. Visualize five Eiffel Towers to get an impression of how much high-level waste is being referenced.

Additional References:

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository

Yucca Mountain