And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 21:10:53 EST >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 52 >Subject: [DOEWatch] NYT---CONTRADICTIONS SEEN IN REPORT ON POSSIBLE NUCLEAR-WASTE SITE > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >CONTRADICTIONS SEEN IN REPORT ON POSSIBLE NUCLEAR-WASTE SITE > New York Times > December 16, 1998 > by Matthew L. Wald > > WASHINGTON -- After 15 years and $6 billion of research, the Energy >Department plans to release this week its first detailed analysis of whether >Yucca Mountain, in the Nevada desert, is a good place to bury nuclear waste >for what amounts to eternity. > The report is expected to say there is no reason to stop investigating >Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, as the site for storing thousands of tons of >long-lived radioactive waste from the production of electricity and nuclear >weapons. But according to people who have been briefed on the assessment, >and public comments by agencies advising the Energy Department, several >contradictory points are contained within its thousands of pages > First, water has been found to move through the desert mountain faster >than many proponents of the site had hoped, posing the possibility that >nuclear contamination could be carried relatively quickly into the >groundwater under the mountain and then beyond the boundaries of the waste >repository. > Because the mountain alone will not be able to contain the waste without >some help from man, if then, engineering details such as how the wastes are >packaged and how the storage tunnels are laid out will be crucial, the >assessment states. > But the report's supporting documents also predict that the peak period >of radioactive releases from the waste will be so far in the future -- >200,000 years or more -- that man-made features, like corrosion-resistant >canisters, will not be reliable. > Officials at the Energy Department, which was supposed to have begun >accepting reactor waste in February, say the report, known as a viability >assessment, merely lays out a path for further research before 2001, when >the department is supposed to make a recommendation on the site to the >president. > Department officials and nuclear-power executives say the assessment is >a step toward the department being able to recommend the site, even if the >rock is not as impermeable as once believed. > But other experts, including independent reviewers brought in by the >department, say that making any predictions about the site will be extremely >difficult if the Environmental Protection Agency, which must eventually >establish the criteria for it, decides that it must perform well hundreds of >thousands of years from now. Two thousand centuries from now, they say, >Yucca Mountain, now one of the driest and most remote places in the United >States, may no longer be desert. > Energy Secretary William Richardson said in a telephone interview that >predictions would be stated in probabilities. "That's all one can offer," he >said. "I don't think in science one can offer certainty." > The assessment runs five volumes; thousands of supporting documents >have already been made public. Many are available at >http://www.ymp.gov/va.htm. > The nuclear industry, which is eager for the government to take spent >reactor fuel off its hands, is asserting that the assessment shows there are >no "show-stoppers" that would nullify Congress' instructions to the Energy >Department to investigate Yucca Mountain. > Theodore Garrish, an expert on waste at the Nuclear Energy Institute, >the industry's trade association, said study of the mountain was going >through "a natural progression" into man-made aspects of the project. > "They're saying what kind of engineering needs to be put into this site >to make this thing work," Garrish said. "This is a combination of geology >and man-made barriers and engineering." > Garrish also said that the work thus far is sufficient to lay to rest >some concerns -- for example, that a volcano or an earthquake would disturb >the site. > But outside scientists have raised many questions about the research. >Many of these scientists are not hostile to the idea of burying the wastes >at Yucca, but say that evaluation of the 15 years of research points to many >unanswered questions. > Recent reviews by outside scientists found that not enough is known >about how water, the main vector in spreading the wastes, will flow through >the mountain in coming millennia, when rainfall may be triple the mountain's >current six inches a year. The time scale is so long that it probably >includes climactic changes including ice ages. > "Greenhouse gas warming is a little blip on the screen, compared to >longer-term changes we're going to see here," said another independent >scientist who has seen the statement. Scientists have already found that in >the section of the mountain where the waste would go, 1,000 feet below the >surface, water shows signs of atomic bomb fallout, which means that it made >the trip in the last 50 years, after atmospheric nuclear testing began. > To carry wastes from the site, the water would have to percolate down >another 1,000 feet to reach the water table, but a report last month to >Congress and the Energy Department by a panel of outside scientists, the >Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, found that water may flow relatively >quickly, through rock fractures. > The report said the usefulness of the area above the water table as a >barrier was "uncertain," and that during times when the climate in Nevada is >wetter than it is now, travel times could be "several hundred years or >shorter," which is brief compared to the longevity of the wastes. > How fast the waste moves depends heavily on the amount of rainfall, but >even the U.S. Geological Survey, the organization that first identified the >region in 1976 as a likely site for burying waste, said in a report to the >Energy Department this month that "there is surprisingly little" in the >assessment about "reckoning the uncertainties in either past or future >climates." > Department officials say that shifting the focus of research to >engineering considerations is natural. "In any scientific endeavor, it >starts off seeming simple, and you will find more and more questions," said >one high-ranking department official, speaking on condition that he not be >further identified. Most of those willing to talk about the study said they >did not want to comment on the record before it is released by Richardson, >who could make changes in its findings. > "People used to think, 20 years ago, that the geology was so good, you >don't have to worry much about the man-made part," said the official. But no >matter what site was chosen, "you find more and more you need to explain," >he said, and eventually, engineers will have to address the question of how >the metal of the waste containers, and how the heat created by the wastes, >will interact with the rock at the site chosen. > As part of the shift in attention, the department has been testing the >corrosion resistance of a nickel alloy that it wants to use to package the >spent fuel; scientists think those tests could be used to predict the >metal's performance for centuries or even a few thousand years. But, said >one scientist who was asked by the Energy Department to evaluate its >research, "if you want to extrapolate from two years to 100,000 years, good >luck. There's no good theoretical basis for your extrapolations." > And no one is clear on how much extrapolation is necessary, because >the period for which the repository should be expected to contain the wastes >has not been established. In the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency >suggested 10,000 years in a draft rule that was later withdrawn. > In 10,000 years the most intensely radioactive wastes, like cesium and >strontium, will have decayed away, but the plutonium and other man-made >elements will still have most of their radioactivity. >========================================================== > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription >to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and >select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left. > &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment ...http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ `"` `"` `"` `"` `"` `"`
