238
the eventual large-scale transport of high-level waste to geologic disposal facilities,
a weak link in the Yucca Mountain Project. The commission also expressed hope
that the development of a repository would help the U.S. to innovate in nuclear
energy technology, and provide leadership in international efforts to address nuclear
safety, waste management, non-proliferation, and security issues.
The failure of Yucca Mountain has left the future of nuclear power very uncertain. The trust of the nuclear power industry in the government has been eroded by
the lack of a coherent nuclear energy policy and the inability of the government to
follow the nuclear waste policies already in place. However, even in Washington,
they eventually figure out that killing a project does not necessarily solve the underlying problem. The United States currently has no solution for dealing with the
high-level radioactive waste from the nearly 100 nuclear reactors operating around
the nation, let alone any new reactors that might be added to fight climate change.
Huge amounts of time, effort, and money have been spent on Yucca Mountain.
Investments in the site include a five-mile long tunnel complex, numerous drill
holes, aquifer tests, detailed geologic mapping, seismic surveys, geochemical investigations, and physical studies of the response of the rock to heat and radiation.
Massive amounts of information are available concerning the performance of the
site. No show-stopping technical flaws have been found. Walking away from all this
and starting over from scratch someplace else for reasons that are almost exclusively political would be a huge squandering of time and fiscal resources. There is
also no guarantee that the heavy-handed approach that so alienated the people of
Nevada wouldn’t have the same result anywhere else.
High-level radioactive waste disposal has evolved from a technical issue into a
political and legal battle that has produced nothing but volumes of Byzantine regulations, the near-impossibility of licensing new reactors, and a lack of interest in
nuclear engineering among U.S. students. In the meantime, levels of GHG in the
atmosphere have continued to rise, while nuclear energy is ignored as a viable alternative. This is now a political issue, and as such, it requires a political solution.
Yucca Mountain might be salvageable as a high-level nuclear waste repository if a
new approach is taken and some basic criteria are honored. Four suggestions are
given below.
1. Negotiate with Nevada. People resent the federal government barging in and just
making decisions without consulting local officials and residents. Nevada as a
state is famously agreeable to nearly everything, including drinking, gambling,
and prostitution as long as it is regulated and taxed. Despite this, no one in DOE
had actually approached the state or local governments in the beginning and
asked them what it might take to get their constituents to accept nuclear waste.
There was an assumption among federal agencies that if it had been okay to set
off nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site for 30 years, no one should mind the
government storing nuclear waste out there as well. However, people did mind,
because this was kind of a last straw for being taken advantage of by nuclear
programs. DOE would have received a lot more support for a repository if they
had demonstrated some benefits to the population of the state for accepting the
12 Moving into the Energy Future
the eventual large-scale transport of high-level waste to geologic disposal facilities,
a weak link in the Yucca Mountain Project. The commission also expressed hope
that the development of a repository would help the U.S. to innovate in nuclear
energy technology, and provide leadership in international efforts to address nuclear
safety, waste management, non-proliferation, and security issues.
The failure of Yucca Mountain has left the future of nuclear power very uncertain. The trust of the nuclear power industry in the government has been eroded by
the lack of a coherent nuclear energy policy and the inability of the government to
follow the nuclear waste policies already in place. However, even in Washington,
they eventually figure out that killing a project does not necessarily solve the underlying problem. The United States currently has no solution for dealing with the
high-level radioactive waste from the nearly 100 nuclear reactors operating around
the nation, let alone any new reactors that might be added to fight climate change.
Huge amounts of time, effort, and money have been spent on Yucca Mountain.
Investments in the site include a five-mile long tunnel complex, numerous drill
holes, aquifer tests, detailed geologic mapping, seismic surveys, geochemical investigations, and physical studies of the response of the rock to heat and radiation.
Massive amounts of information are available concerning the performance of the
site. No show-stopping technical flaws have been found. Walking away from all this
and starting over from scratch someplace else for reasons that are almost exclusively political would be a huge squandering of time and fiscal resources. There is
also no guarantee that the heavy-handed approach that so alienated the people of
Nevada wouldn’t have the same result anywhere else.
High-level radioactive waste disposal has evolved from a technical issue into a
political and legal battle that has produced nothing but volumes of Byzantine regulations, the near-impossibility of licensing new reactors, and a lack of interest in
nuclear engineering among U.S. students. In the meantime, levels of GHG in the
atmosphere have continued to rise, while nuclear energy is ignored as a viable alternative. This is now a political issue, and as such, it requires a political solution.
Yucca Mountain might be salvageable as a high-level nuclear waste repository if a
new approach is taken and some basic criteria are honored. Four suggestions are
given below.
1. Negotiate with Nevada. People resent the federal government barging in and just
making decisions without consulting local officials and residents. Nevada as a
state is famously agreeable to nearly everything, including drinking, gambling,
and prostitution as long as it is regulated and taxed. Despite this, no one in DOE
had actually approached the state or local governments in the beginning and
asked them what it might take to get their constituents to accept nuclear waste.
There was an assumption among federal agencies that if it had been okay to set
off nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site for 30 years, no one should mind the
government storing nuclear waste out there as well. However, people did mind,
because this was kind of a last straw for being taken advantage of by nuclear
programs. DOE would have received a lot more support for a repository if they
had demonstrated some benefits to the population of the state for accepting the
12 Moving into the Energy Future