YUCCA MOUNTAIN: DOE: Enlarge repository
SORRY THAT THIS IS A LONG ARTICLE AND MY COMMENTS ARE LONG, BUT THIS IS AN ISSUE THAT EFFECTS ALL PEOPLE WORLD-WIDE STARTING WITH THOSE IN THE USA PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS !!!
As predicated by myself, Gregor Gable in the Original Environmental Impact Hearings(EIS) many years ago I believe that it was in late 80's or earlier '90's I asked at one of the the first Eniviormental Impact Hearings on Yucca Mountain's suitability to use the mountain as the primary barrier of High-Level Radioactive Waste, (which will be harmfull for over 250,000 years) that I attended( I am researching the exact dates of this hearing), this question of building two Nuclear High-High Level Waste Repositories, one on top of the other, rather than the one Repository that the Public was lead to believe would be placed on the site. Most people at the hearings did not understand what I was saying. What I wanted the Public and the Media to know that there were going to be two High-Level Waster Repositories at the same place, rather than a single one . This was clearly stated in the Original EIS for Yucca Mountain, NVthe. within 16 volume set(very thick volumens of thousands of pages, which took more than 3-4 feet of shelf space. It said in black and white that the original plans called to double stacking the two proposed, not one, but two Repositories. I brought up this Fact and the DOE stated that this was the plan stated. Althought, the Public and Media failed to under stand the meaning of this statement and how it would effect their lives or childrens, childrens lives. Just reading the original EIS it was apparent that the current amount of Nuclear Waste that had been produced, would almost completely fill the original Repository, making it necessary for a second Repository, as the Nuclear indrusty has no plans of slowing down. Rather they are calling for the construction for new Nuclear Reactors!
This is very signification due to the facts that scientists have found several earthquake fault lines running through the Repository site. I don't like to be the one who said that I told you so. This is one of the reasons in 1992 that I chose to be arrested at the LM-3000 waterless drilling rigs, attempting to bring this fact to the American Public. But unfortunately their were many people that did not understand the fact that they DOE did not plan to build one but Two High-Level Nuclear Dumps, on Western Shoshone Sacred land, but the DOE lied to the American People by stating that they were planing on only building one Nuclear High-LevelRadioactive waste Dump on the only site that Congress allowed the DOE to study.
As you may or may not know currently the DOE is running two Low level Radioactive Dumps (The materials in these dumps in some cases will remain radioactive for a longer period of time than the High-Level Radioactive Materials that the DOE plans to place at the fault ridden site at Yucca Mountain). These so called Low-Level Nuclear Waste Dumps are literally dumps. The technology that is used at the dumps, consist of the Nuclear Waste Materials (some with materials that have a much greater longer half lives of the High-Level Waste Dumps) are located in Areas 3 and 5 at the Nevada Test Site use what is commonly "the kitty litter" dump approach. This method calls for unlined wooden or some times metal boxes about the size of the trailers found on an 18 wheeler truck. These boxes are are off loaded with especially large fork lift trucks. The actual dump area in one instance is the remains of an above Nuclear Test blast hole and the other hole is man made. The holes allow the Wooden Waste unlined boxes to be stacked either three or four boxes deep. The holes or trenches are entirely unlined and after the area is filled the materials which were excavated in the digging of the holes are used to cover the long lasting radioactive waste materials that are called"low level". This is the same method that the normal cat uses to cover it's fecal materials. Non of the trenches or holes have any liner.
The requirements for your house hold garbage is much more strict, calling for triple lined barriers to prevent household garbage to to get into the water systems and the garbage trenches are covered with multiple non-porous layers and then covered with a thick, up to six feet deep layer of gravel. The gravel is placed, so that no plant materials would be able to enter the garbage dump materials so that there is no chance of any transfer of the garbage to the bio-sphere.
Nuclear waste on the other hand is merely covered with three feet of (in some cases) radioactive from the residue from a previous nuclear test. The workers that Handel these materials wear a tyvek material with out any head cover and a simple face mask that,YOU might use when painting an enclosed room, in your house.
Nuclear high or low-level waste which can cause cancer from exposure from as little as a billionth of a gram, receives NO PROTECTION in Areas three and five Nuclear Waste Dumps, that exist less than 100 miles of distance from Las Vegas. These Nuclear Waste Dumps are located on top of one of the largest aquifers in the State in Nevada.
Your household garbage has over 100 times protection as Nuclear waste in Areas three and Five of the Nevada Test Site. The TWO High-Level Nuclear Waste Dumps are located in Nevada, which is the third most earthquake prone state in the entire United, States placed on top of known earthquake faults. Do you that is the correct use of Federals Dollars for your protection from Highly Radioactive Nuclear Waste which will be life threating for over 250,000 years.
Do i t strike that some thing is wrong here? -gregor
Agency studies nearly doubling nuclear waste capacity
http://www.lvrj.com/news/10257277.html
WASHINGTON -- Nevadans who fear the Yucca Mountain Project now might have twice as much to worry about.
The Department of Energy is almost doubling the size of the proposed repository as it completes new environmental studies and long-term cost estimates of burying nuclear waste in Nevada.
The department late Thursday issued a draft study that the project's director said analyzes the potential environmental effects of a repository built to hold up to 135,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste.
Further, DOE is finalizing long-range cost estimates for Yucca Mountain on the assumption it could be expanded at some point, project Director Ward Sproat said. The repository project's price tag could total in the range of $77 billion, a 35 percent increase from a 2001 estimate.
The department's actions laying groundwork for a possible expansion at Yucca Mountain opened a new flash point of opposition in Nevada. State leaders argue nuclear waste burial is unsafe, and they do not want a repository of any size, let alone one that could be almost twice as large as originally planned.
"Doubling the size of Yucca Mountain will only double the danger," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "This is not a bad dream; it's a nightmare."
A federal law passed in 1982 set the Yucca Mountain capacity at 70,000 metric tons.
But while the project has been delayed for years, commercial power plants have gotten life extensions and are generating waste at a rate of 2,000 metric tons per year.
With the waste already waiting for disposal at 121 locations, that means a Yucca repository effectively would be "full" long before it might open in the next decade or two.
Sproat said 135,000 metric tons is estimated as the entire waste output of nuclear plants through their operating lives.
The Energy Department has asked Congress to pass a bill that would remove the 70,000 metric ton cap at Yucca Mountain, but it has drawn little interest from lawmakers. DOE also is preparing a report on whether the government should consider building a second repository.
The Electric Power Research Institute, an arm of the utility industry, said in a study completed in June that the repository could be redesigned to hold at least 260,000 metric tons of waste and up to 570,000 metric tons with additional site characterization.
"Additional drifts can be successfully excavated, loaded and cooled during a 50-year retrievability period such as the capacity of Yucca Mountain can be increased by at least a factor of three," said the study, which was overseen by John Kessler, Electric Power Research Institute manager of high-level waste and spent fuel.
Sproat said Thursday he anticipates charges that the Energy Department is being presumptuous in examining issues related to an expanded Yucca repository.
"People will absolutely say that, but we don't have any other basis to do anything else," Sproat said.
If DOE limited itself to preparations for a 70,000 metric ton facility, policymakers "would ask me, what about everything else?"
"I am probably in a no-win situation, but I like the way we are going," Sproat said.
The project director said that DOE still plans by the end of June 2008 to seek a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 70,000 metric ton facility.
If Congress were to lift the cap, DOE would move forward at that point, he said.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said DOE is setting the stage to push Congress to enlarge the Nevada site.
"Once they convince themselves the science is safe, they will use that as an argument to expand," he said.
At a congressional hearing Thursday, Porter argued that Congress should move in the opposite direction and end the project.
When it was conceived in 1982, Sony had just come up with the portable CD player, cell phones and the Internet did not exist, and the top-selling record was "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, he said.
"In 25 years, we have studied a hole in the ground to death," Porter said. "We have spent 10 billion to 11 billion dollars but have not moved one inch on the playing field."
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the state will evaluate the legality of the department's actions.
"I think it certainly calls into question the validity of the environmental impact statement if they are doing an analysis for a scenario that is illegal under federal law," Loux said. "The only way they could be directed to do this is to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act," the 1982 law.
But another observer said room appears to exist in another law, the National Environmental Policy Act, for what the department is doing.
"I think in the world of NEPA, you are supposed to identify reasonably foreseeable increases in scope," said Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste adviser at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. "If you err on the side of a larger impact, you can always scale back."
PLEASE LET ME HEAR YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE, THIS CONCERNS YOUR CHILDRENS AND THEIR CHILDRENS LIVES. DO YOU CARE?
Gregor Gable
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