Student Comment (continued...)

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), passed in 1982 and amended in 1987, directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to investigate Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a geologic repository. In 2002, President George W. Bush’s signature on House Joint Resolution 87 made the site selection official.

However, despite two decades of preparation, Yucca Mountain is still surrounded by intense controversies and lengthy setbacks. The opening date for the repository, originally slated for 1998, has been pushed back to 2017; perhaps further. Several groups of people are vehemently opposed to the project. Nevadans are opposed on the grounds that Nevada has no nuclear power plants and thus generates no commercial nuclear waste. The Western Shoshone claim that Yucca Mountain legally belongs to the tribe as recognized in the 1963 Ruby Valley Treaty, and the tribe is pursuing this claim through lawsuits. These concerns have fueled intense political controversy and seriously delayed the opening of the repository.

There is also some debate as to whether the geologic composition of Yucca Mountain is sufficient to permanently contain radioactive wastes. Opponents argue that fractures, groundwater flows, and seismic and volcanic activities will lead to radioactive contamination of water used for irrigation and drinking. Alternatively, the DOE asserts that Yucca Mountain was specifically selected for geology that would maximize the separation of wastes and water, and minimize potential corrosion of waste canisters. This scientific controversy also makes it difficult to find a permanent disposal solution for nuclear waste.

Though we seem to be no closer to a permanent solution, Yucca Mountain has already cost the U.S. billions of dollars. And the spending continues: in October 2007 the House Budget Committee was told that a doubling or tripling of annual project funding would be needed to meet the 2017 opening. In addition to direct spending, nuclear power plant owners are owed growing damages for the delay in permanent disposal of wastes that have been temporarily stored at their sites since the repository failed to open in 1998. Despite growing stockpiles of nuclear waste, Yucca Mountain is the only disposal solution being seriously considered in the U.S. Without Yucca Mountain, any increase in nuclear power capacity will merely intensify an unresolved and controversial problem.

The severity of the nuclear waste issue is further exemplified by the fact that Yucca Mountain could effectively be “full” long before it ever opens. NWPA sets the maximum amount of commercial waste that can be stored at Yucca Mountain at 63,000 metric tons. With the 59,000 metric tons already in storage growing daily, the statutory capacity could potentially be met by 2010, seven years before the current predicted opening date. While the DOE has asked Congress to expand this statutory cap, expansion of nuclear power capacity will generate even more waste that needs to be managed, perhaps provoking the need for a second repository. Considering the decades of effort and billions of dollars surrounding the unopened Yucca Mountain, more nuclear waste just doesn’t seem like a good idea.

However, there is one process that could potentially alleviate some of the mounting pressure to deal with nuclear waste. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a voluntary international partnership of 21 countries created in 2006, is promoting “reprocessing” of nuclear waste. The U.S. currently employs a once-through fuel cycle, where all materials in spent fuel rods are marked for disposal. Reprocessing would separate out the remaining usable uranium from spent fuel rods, allowing for more energy production from that extra uranium and also significantly reducing the volume of wastes. GNEP contends that initiating reprocessing in the U.S. could allow Yucca Mountain to satisfy U.S. repository needs for the remainder of the twenty-first century.

However, reprocessing spent nuclear fuel also involves the extraction of pure weapons-grade plutonium, which aggravates the proliferation concerns associated with nuclear power expansion. Although the separated plutonium could potentially be used to make Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX), which could be burned in fast reactors to generate more “carbon-free” energy, fast reactor technology has not yet been perfected. Additionally, siting and building a nuclear waste reprocessing facility in the United States is likely to be politically difficult and expensive. There is also speculation that GNEP’s emphasis on reprocessing merely provides political cover to avoid further painful, but necessary, choices about Yucca Mountain. In the end, no amount of reprocessing can eliminate the need for a geologic repository. At best, reprocessing offers a temporary solution.

Due to the threats associated with climate change, it is extremely important to pursue “carbon-free” sources of energy to meet growing energy demands while limiting negative impacts. While nuclear power could potentially provide such “carbon-free” energy, it seems unwise to purposefully create more dangerous nuclear waste until the issue of permanent disposal of nuclear waste can be resolved.