Yucca Mountain keeps rolling forward

by kristan markey

The disappointing yet anticipated 60-39 Senate vote on the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) represents another step backwards of the nuclear waste behemoth for concerned citizens. Already, over $9 billion has been invested, increasing the inertia behind the project. Although the Department of Energy (DOE) officially plans to open the facility in 2010, licensing issues and lawsuits will probably draw out the process at least until 2015, as well as extend the total time to transport the waste. While the project was once touted as the solution to the commercial nuclear waste problem, its only legacy will be to allow the nuclear complex (weapons and energy) to continue operating through the 21^st century.

By 2040, the last year Yucca Mountain is scheduled to accept waste, at least 33,000 tons of additional waste will be stockpiled (official DOE and industry numbers). In fact, given the likelihood of delays and future construction of nuclear plants, many groups estimate that a new "Yucca Mountain" site will be needed around 2034, long before the old one is full.

In the post-9/11 climate, proponents of YMP have cited security concerns as the top reason for centralizing the storage of nuclear waste. They point out that the current method of waste storage, in holding tanks on-site, is vulnerable to terrorist attack. While true, irrespective of the YMP, these facilities are necessary to store waste for five year periods following removal from a nuclear generator. Additionally, transporting over 50,000 unaccompanied truckloads of waste, a focus of Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) opponents, remains a disconcerting security hazard. While DOE has not determined the final transportation plan for YMP, WIPP shipments remain unaccompanied even after 9/11, suggesting a similar scheme for YMP.

In addition to the security concerns, the DOE has long held that the YMP will promote environmental stewardship. DOE states that by relocating the waste to a remote location and storing it underground, the danger to human health is reduced. However, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB, the oversight board of the project) states that while DOE has collected an impressive amount of data, understanding of the site is nowhere near complete, and it is not possible to determine whether YMP will actually hold the waste over time. Several independent scientific oversight groups have pointed to inconsistencies in official data and factors (such as wetness models, past water presence, and geological features) that DOE has not investigated. Industry lobbyists, such as the Nuclear Energy Institute, have attempted to discredit this criticism by citing outdated reports from impeccable sources like the National Academy of Sciences. While this has had political success, the NWTRB has acknowledged this technical criticism and pushed DOE for further study.

In moving forward with the YMP, government and industry cite forty years of research into solutions, and that other options were dismissed because they were environmentally unsound, politically infeasible, or socially unacceptable. Looking more closely, DOE disqualified number of environmentally superior sites because of legislative and political opposition. Under pressure to find a solution, in 1987 Congress decided to eliminate other potential sites and directed DOE to focus on Yucca Mountain. In a number of cases, when YMP has failed a given environmental criterion, DOE has successfully worked to simply change the law.

Often, citizens ask if not Yucca Mountain, what? First, no good solutions exist for nuclear waste, except to stop producing it. Unfortunately, nuclear waste will be with us for hundreds of thousands of years, and there is no magic technology to wish it away. Second, organizations around the country, including the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Institute for Energy and Environmental Security, and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, support temporary on-site, retrievable storage in monitored, secure facilities similar to those used for nuclear weapons. Numerous studies state that the waste can safely be stored as is for 100 years. Third, DOE should begin a broad based research program designed to understand different disposal options and possible sites, without respect to potential political challenges or an immediate goal of choosing a site.

With the continuation of the YMP, strategies for opposition include involvement with licensing process of the facility with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, lawsuits challenging document release and regulatory process, and building grassroots support against transporting waste across the country. Activists are needed to educate communities affected by nuclear plants about ending nuclear power and finding good long-term solutions to nuclear waste, rather than moving it from one community's backyard into another's. As it now stands, Yucca Mountain just can't hold its own water as a project, and it remains one more cog in the nuclear machine.