Becca Hedges
Dr. MacLean
Geo 3010-01
17 Feb. 2017
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Reflection 6
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Yucca Mountain is a remote desert area mountain located about one hundred miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada in an area known as the Great Basin. This location was formed from large explosive volcanic eruptions about 12 million years ago. More recently smaller eruptions in the form of cinder cone volcanos and lava flows have taken place, the remanence of which are still seen in the area today (yuccamountain.org).
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Underground, this area has a series of faults and fishers created from the stretching of the Earth’s crust known as the basin and range district. The local geology of Yucca Mountain has been studied but there are still uncertainties. While the threat of a volcanic eruption is slim the threat of a volcanic intrusion is more realistic. If this were to happen the magma would most likely engulf the waste containers which would then become incorporated into the magma itself. Even though volcanic activity is considered inactive, the area can be prone to earthquakes. The current infrastructure of the repository is build on top of a couple of faults. Depending on the intensity of an earthquake along the fault lines it could be enough to cause damage and definitely holds the potential of releasing radiation into the environment (Osuna).
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In 1987 congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act designating the US Department of Energy to study Yucca Mountain for the storage of the nation’s nuclear waste. In 2008 the study was completed and an application was submitted for the repository to be located deep underground in Yucca Mountain (yuccamountain.org). In 2010 court proceedings were halted due to the ten thousand year holding period originally specified by the US Department of Energy as being too short of a time frame in which to store the waste products. In 2015 this time frame was expanded to one million years (Osuna). The yucca mountain storage facility is about one thousand feet below the surface, about one thousand feet above that water table and, is large enough to hold seventy thousand metric tons of waste material (yuccamountain.org).
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During the period of time the US Department of Energy was searching and studying potential sites in which a repository could be placed they took into consideration many factors. The main areas they looked at was the actual geology and population of the potential areas. It took five years to select the final three locations of Yucca Mountain and two other locations in Texas. Ultimately Yucca Mountain was determined to be the best. Some people within the department figured since this area was already exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb testing the general population would not have a problem with this. They were wrong. This decision did not sit well with the surrounding population though they are located hundreds of miles away (Osuna). This area is also home to the Western Shoshone and Southern Paiute peoples. They say housing nuclear waste on their land was not part of the agreement (Osuna). To this day this land is still considered sacred to them (yuccamountain.org). If there was some type of disaster at the repository not only nearby communities could be affected. Wind currents and groundwater paths would carry radioactive waste many miles away.
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Whether nuclear fuel is used once or recycled for additional use nuclear waste will always occur. It is important to have a proper long term storage for any waste products. The big question that still remains is where should we put this national repository? Should we go ahead and use the facility that we have already spent nine billion dollars on or do we spend more time and money that we don’t have to find a new location? A further question is because of the time it has already taken trying to get a final yea or nay on Yucca Mountain, soon it will fill up and we will need to build another one. There are currently 1.6 million people living within 75 miles of 104 nuclear plants in the US. All of these plants have their own temporary waste storage facilities on site (Osuna). The problem with this is they were never created for individual long term storage. Some of them are already seeing the effect of this. Their containment facilities are breaking down and some are starting to leak radioactive waste into the local environment. While most everyone can agree with the need for a national repository there has not been a consensus as to where this repository should be located.
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This is a problem. Whether people are for this or not a decision needs to be made and soon. Regardless of the location determined whether it be at Yucca Mountain or a different location, there are going to be people who disagree as well as potential hazards associated with it. These hazards could be natural earth processes, human error, or even terroristic in nature. It will also still take time to consolidate nuclear waste no matter where the repository is located. There are pros and cons, good points and bad on both sides and there will always be. I feel that with the time and money that has been spent on this and the preparations that have been already been made we should utilize Yucca Mountain. While the space available there is not infinite we should start filling it while looking for a different site to utilize and prepare for when it is needed. Better yet, start doing what France does and recycle as much of the spent fuel rods thereby elimination large portions of the waste produced. An alternative could be that if the Yucca Mountain repository is utilized maybe further expansion of this location itself could house more waste in the future.