Yucca Mountain

[tw]

Originally posted by Hubris Boy
Seriously, though... that kind of accident would be pretty unlikely at Yucca Mountain, wouldn't it? If nothing else, wouldn't the impurities in the environment from the (by now decomposed) containment vessels be enough to prevent critical mass? Time to dig out the old physics textbooks...

We are at the mercy of those who run the place. They have a monopoly - the only realistic solution currently available. We can only assume they have taken into account what happens when contaiment vessels DO break down. They will breakdown long before the waste is safe. Containment vessels break down faster when exposed to high radioactive levels.

Of course that is the obvious stuff. What we really need to know is whether this stuff will be retreivable when it come time to apply new technology and reprocess the waste. Reprocessing, which is technically not yet possible, is really the only long term alternative. Yucca Mt must be structured to recover and reprocess the stored waste when technology becomes available.

Unfortunately, with all the contraversy, no one is asking this question. How is stored waste to be reclaimed for reprocessing or just for transfer to new containment vessels?

BTW, threat to ground water is a valid and serious problem. Containment vessels do break down.

Waste, currently stored on all nuclear reactor sites, was not guarded until this past year. In fact in years previous, the industry claimed the waste was not a viable terrorist target. For example, Yankee Maine, a shutdown nuclear reactor, had no full time guards and plenty of water stored waste in aluminum sheds.