In The News: Plans Advance for Yucca Mountain
July 24, 2008
The Bush Administration has advanced in its plans for developing a nuclear waste containment site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. On June 3 a license application to begin construction at the site was sent from the Energy Department to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for approval.
The plan to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste—mostly in the form of used reactor fuel from nuclear power plants—in underground tunnels at the federally-controlled Yucca Mountain was approved by President Bush in 2002. This most recent step in what has been a 20-year-long process of research and investigation begins a three-year review process on the part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. During its review of the license application, the NRC will prioritize the health, safety, and environmental implications of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, verifying that the repository’s proposed design will ensure human and environmental health and safety for up to a million years.
The nuclear waste that would be placed in the Yucca Mountain facility is currently being stored in smaller, and less stable, repositories scattered throughout the country. The waste must be in a secure repository during the thousands of years it requires for its radiation levels to diminish.
In a press conference, Department of Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said, “We are confident that the NRC’s rigorous review process will validate the Yucca Mountain repository and will provide for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste in a way that protects human health and our environment.”
Critics of the Yucca Mountain repository proposal cite the license application’s failure to include a public radiation exposure standard— an element that the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to provide for the Department of Energy. Senate leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and other politicians from Yucca Mountain’s surrounding region express doubt that the project will provide for citizens’ safety. If the Yucca Mountain repository is approved and constructed—which officials project could happen as early as 2020—it will be the country’s first national repository for spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste.
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