4 v. Nuclear Waste

The following section looks at:

• Yucca Mountain, Nevada USA
• Yucca Legal Crisis
• Utah Interim Waste Storage Site Rejected
• Hanford, USA
• Nuclear Waste in France
• Nuclear Waste in Sweden
• Australia's Nuclear Waste
• An Above-ground Nucler Waste Dump in the Northern Territory?
• An Underground Nuclear Waste Dump in Australia?

A. Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA

Nuclear waste management in the US is in a state of crisis. The US Department of Energy (DOE) has been studying a potential site for a national high-level nuclear waste dump for 20 years. It¿s called Yucca Mountain and after $9 billion, there's still no certainty that it will ever open. Utilities have taken legal action against DOE for breach of contract because of the failure to open Yucca Mountain on time; these law suits are likely to cost DOE tens of billions of dollars.

Yucca Mountain is the site of a proposed national deep geological waste repository for high level waste. The site is on federal land, not far from Death Valley and 90 miles from Las Vegas. The plan was to store 70,000 tonnes of high-level waste. The repository was supposed to open in 1998, but the latest news is that it¿s not likely to open for at least another decade, with March 2017 now set as the new government deadline.
See: www.reviewjournal.com/...

This website shows a global timeline for waste repositories, ranging from low level to high level wastes. Yucca Mountain is shown at 2010, and is the earliest scheduled high level waste repository in the world.

Read about the full scale revolt against Yucca Mountain by the State of Nevada, the City of Las Vegas and civil society groups at www.yuccamountain.org/

• The state of Nevada has sued the Federal Government to try to kill the project
• The state of Nevada has denied water to the site on the basis that it's not in the public¿s interest and is stalling DOE's efforts to get an operating license
• The City of Las Vegas has passed a law making it illegal to haul nuclear waste through the city

See: www.cbsnews.com/stories/...

The powerful Preface and Executive Summary to A Mountain of Trouble: a Nation at Risk, the Yucca Mountain impacts report by the State of Nevada, includes the following key points:

• The Yucca Mountain program would mean an overall net deficit in the Federal Budget of US$18-35 billion or more.
• The effort to transport high level radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain would be an effort of 'truly epic proportions'. The plan is to use a dedicated rail line. This would involve daily rail shipments in 6 states, rail shipments every other day in a further 4 other states, and weekly rail shipments in another 9 states over 40 years.
• The amount of high level waste already accumulated exceeds the proposed capacity of Yucca Mountain. When, or if, it gets approved a new site will already be needed.
• Delays in disposing of high level waste have led some utilities to take legal action to recover the cost of having to maintain storage facilities after the DoE has failed to accept the spent fuel from decommissioning reactors

In 2004, the US EPA set a Yucca Mountain exposure standard lasting 1 million years. Anatomically, modern Homo sapiens appeared on Earth about 100,000 years ago.

On 15 July 2006, it was announced that as many as 500 workers at Yucca Mountain were to be laid off, as part of an ongoing reorganisation of the nuclear waste repository program. Many of these workers are well-trained scientists, engineers, computer modelers and technical workers.
See: www.reviewjournal.com/...

The 2006 Congressional elections have shifted the power balance for Yucca Mountain. The project's strongest opponent in the Senate is now Majority Leader in the Senate, Nevada Senator Harry Reid.

B. Yucca Legal Crisis

Under the US Nuclear Waste Policy Act 1982, the DOE was obligated to collect high level waste from utilities from 31 January 1998 and transport the wastes to Yucca Mountain. As the Yucca Mountain site is seriously behind schedule, DoE breached its contractual obligations and many of the utilities were forced to build on-site temporary storage facilities for the spent fuel ¿ the cost of which are now the damages being sought in their litigation with the US Government.
Download: www.yuccamountain.org/....pdf

Some industry analysts estimate the cost of damages could be upward of US$50 billion, but DoE estimates that the government¿s ultimate liability would be a mere US$7 billion. Many believe that Yucca Mountain will never open. The State of Nevada currently is in three federal courts fighting the repository and it anticipates additional lawsuits in the coming months.

C. Utah Interim Waste Storage Site Rejected

In response to the Yucca Mountain crisis, a group of utilities combined together to form Private Fuel Storage, a company whose aim was to create an interim storage site for 40,000 tons of nuclear waste. On 7 September 2006, two separate Interior Department agencies refused PFS a lease to use tribal lands to store the waste and refused to grant a right of way to access the land ¿ effectively killing the interim storage proposal.
See: deseretnews.com/...

D. Hanford, Washington, USA

Hanford, in southeastern Washington, USA, is the second most contaminated site in the world, after Chernobyl. Hanford was established as part of the Manhattan Project to develop the world¿s first atomic bomb. Throughout the Cold War, Hanford continued to operate, producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. It ceased operations in 1987.

Although the Cold War is over, the legacy of that era remains very much present: about 53 million gallons of high-level radioactive and chemical waste are now stored in 177 underground tanks on site. Over several decades, the tanks have leaked one million gallons of waste into the soil. This waste has now entered the groundwater and is migrating towards the Columbia River and the one million people who live downstream. So far, the US DoE does not have a plan to intercept the waste before it reaches the river.

On September 8 2006, the DoE announced that the cost of building a huge waste treatment plant at the Hanford nuclear site has now risen to US$12.2 billion.
See: www.latimes.com/...

The job is likely to take decades and could cost up to US$100 billion: See: www.latimes.com/news/...

Read about the Hanford debacle: See: www.cbsnews.com/stories/... and www.hanfordwatch.org/

In summary, nuclear waste storage in the US is in a state of crisis, which is why the US is pushing hard for the return of spent fuel reprocessing in the US. Reprocessing reduces the volume of waste, but the pollution and plutonium proliferation risks are high.

E. Nuclear Waste in France

France is often referred to by nuclear power advocates as an example of a nation that has a successful and well managed nuclear industry. Nuclear power plants do provide about 75% of France's electricity needs. But the story of France¿s nuclear waste problem, and the waste it receives from nuclear power plants around the world, is rarely told. Read Greenpeace International¿s briefing document: The Nuclear Waste Crisis in France, 30th May 2006. Source: www.greenpeace.org/....pdf

F. Nuclear Waste in Sweden

Sweden has a clean, green image, but in July 2005, radioactive water was found to be leaking from the nuclear waste store in Forsmark, Sweden. The content of radioactive caesium in sampled water was ten times the normal value. Statens strålskyddsinstitut (SSI, the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority) believe that the leakage originated from corroded waste barrels in the waste disposal area of the Forsmark power plant. The radiation was low and intermediate level waste. No high level waste has been reported.
See: wikinews.org/wiki/Radioactive_leakage_at_Swedish_nuclear_waste_store

G. Australia's Nuclear Waste

Australia has shipped spent nuclear fuel from the Lucas Heights reactor to France, for reprocessing in Cogema¿s La Hague facility. About 1,300 spent fuel rods have been sent for reprocessing. The waste is expected to return to Australia as early as 2011 and as late as 2015. Source: www.cogema.com/...

The Government claims that the waste being returned to Australia is long-lived intermediate level waste (IWL). Yet, the Uranium Information Centre (UIC) states that:

'High-level wastes (HLW), typically the spent fuel from power reactors or the wastes left over from reprocessing spent fuel, contain most of the radioactivity from the nuclear fuel cycle'

The UIC website then goes on to state that Australia does not have any high level waste. However, even with respect to IWL waste, the UIC states:

'Long-lived intermediate-level waste requires a higher degree of isolation from the biosphere and it is put into engineered geological repositories, or held in surface storage pending the development of such repositories.'

Either way, the nuclear industry state that the waste being returned to Australia needs an engineered geological waste repository. This is made clear on the Areva NC website, which says the following specifically about the HIFAR waste at La Hague:

'The final residues that will be manufactured at AREVA NC La Hague will be directly suitable for final disposal without any further conditioning. The conditioning of waste into universal canisters gives the ability to rationalise waste management for on site handling, for transport operations, and for interim storage and ultimate geological disposal.'
See: www.cogema.com/...

H. An Above-ground Nuclear Waste Dump in the Northern Territory?

The Federal Government is planning a Commonwealth nuclear waste facility to store the waste being returned from France.
See: www.radioactivewaste.gov.au/...

South Australia and Western Australia have passed laws preventing the establishment of a waste dump in their state. The federal government is therefore considering four possible sites for a surface storage facility in the Northern Territory, where the government has constitutional powers to impose developments without the approval of the territory government: See: www.radioactivewaste.gov.au/

The Aboriginal Traditional Owners of all four sites strongly oppose a waste dump being imposed on their land

Late in 2005, the Federal Government passed legislation (the Cth Radioactive Waste Management Act) to fast-track selection of the waste repository site. The legislation overrides all Commonwealth and Territory legislation, including environmental and Aboriginal heritage law. The Act also states that the Commonwealth Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review)Act does not apply, effectively removing judicial review rights and making individuals¿ ¿rights, liberties or obligations dependent upon non-reviewable discretions¿ by the Executive arm of Government. In other words, removing democratic rights traditionally held by Australian citizens.

See://www.aph.gov.au/...

I. An Underground Nuclear Waste Dump in Australia?

Several years ago, an international nuclear waste consortium (Pangea Resources) found that Australia was the world¿s most geologically suitable site for deep geological disposal of the world's nuclear waste. Pangea identified suitable regions in WA and SA.
See: www.anawa.org.au/waste/...

Pangea has now folded, but its interests are now served by a new body, ARIUS (Association for Regional and Underground Storage), formed in 2002 and based in Switzerland. ARIUS was in Australia in October 2006.
See: www.arius-world.org/

Advocates for deep geological disposal are becoming more common within Australia. In its submission to the PM's Switkowski review, Geoscience Australia stated that it was well placed to provide advice on the selection of burial sites for radioactive waste in Australia:

'Australia is the most geologically stable of the continents. It has areas which appear geologically suitable for waste disposal. These are particularly in Precambrian granite-gneiss terranes and clay-rich sedimentary strata, where it is possible to predict the future behaviour of the geological and hydrological systems and provide information on the risks.'

See: www.dpmc.gov.au/...

The Nuclear Fuel Leasing Group submission to the PM's Switkowski review states that:

'near surface storage of spent fuel would be required for approximately 30 years for the new Australian leased fuel to be sufficiently cool for final geologic storage. Therefore the construction of a repository would be delayed for at least 20 years after the receipt of the first leased spent fuel assemblies. This would allow the repository to be self-financing.'

See: www.pmc.gov.au/...

Of note is that one of the four founding parties of the Nuclear Fuel Leasing Group is Mr David Pentz who was the Chair of Pangea Resources Australia. There is no doubt that a consequence of nuclear fuel leasing is a high level waste repository.

The final Switkowski report to the PM states that "...Australia will ultimately require a deep repository" but it does not explain why.

"Australia has large areas with simple, readily modelled geology in stable tectonic settings and favourable groundwater conditions potentially suitable for nuclear waste disposal.

Australia's strengths in earth sciences and mining suggest that a geological repository project couldbe executed with Australian resources."