Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

LETTERS: 'Miracle metal' an embarrassment for Yucca backers

Recently, the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board sent the U.S. Department of Energy a message that is devastating to DOE's case for Yucca Mountain. The independent scientific board said the "miracle metal" the department has been counting on to protect waste packages will likely corrode, and may do so rapidly.

Once the radioactive contents are exposed, it would not take long for radioactivity to show up in waters used in Nevada's inhabited areas. It has become apparent that water flows much faster through the mountain and along the water table below than the DOE expected years ago.

Instead of rejecting the site on these grounds, the department rejected its own geologic guidelines in 2001. With a wave of the hand a few weeks later, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommended Yucca Mountain to the president.

The Energy Department thereby also rejected the traditional safety philosophy that called for separate safety standards for the man-made package and for the surrounding natural barriers. DOE relies on a huge computer model that lumps everything together to predict radiation measurements some distance away from the Mountain.

The department argues it doesn't matter how it gets to the answer so long as its projections meet the NRC standard on public irradiation. Unfortunately, the NRC has gone along with this all-in-one approach for Yucca Mountain licensing.

As a former NRC commissioner, I can tell you this method is completely at odds with the "defense-in-depth" doctrine the agency applies to nuclear power reactors (or even to other waste sites). The NRC has separate requirements for the various barriers between radioactive fuel and people -- on reactor fuel "cladding," the reactor vessel, the containment building and on outside emergency measures.

The reason for this is that if you rely on only one component and you are wrong, you can wipe out all safety protection. In the case of a permanent repository, such a mistake will be irretrievable.

In its letter, the Technical Review Board told DOE that it didn't want the waste package corrosion problem to be just mixed into the computer model stew. The board wanted the problem dealt with separately and convincingly.

This is a backhanded acknowledgement that DOE's computer model approach -- with the impressive name of Total System Performance Assessment -- has in practice served more to obscure problems than to get on top of them. The board is also impatient with DOE because it has been telling the agency to validate its assumptions that the waste package would withstand the hot and humid Yucca Mountain repository environment with little effect. As we know, DOE is not very good at listening.

Last year I testified before the Congress that the Yucca Mountain program was not ready for a green light. It doesn't make sense from the point of view of public safety, or security, or its cost. Nor is it needed, as some of its adherents think, for a continuation or even expansion of nuclear power use.

As often happens with gargantuan projects that are not driven by a real need, the Yucca Mountain program has taken on a life of its own that is unrelated to any useful purpose; it is a dream for the contractors but, at a cost heading toward $100 billion, definitely not one for the taxpayers.

The federal government should face up scientific and economic reality and take a fresh look at how best to manage used nuclear reactor fuel, which is what most of the stuff is. For many decades we can protect it at reactor sites by putting it in "dry" casks, as is already being done with NRC approval. The casks are hardened air-cooled storage containers licensed by NRC.

We should be making plans for collecting the casks in regional storage centers, and doing so in a way that minimizes transportation. By keeping the waste casks accessible we can monitor potential problems and fix them before they can cause harm.

In my view, a comprehensive waste management plan should also include getting DOE out of the business -- for reasons that are all to obvious -- and putting an entity in charge that is independent of nuclear power promotion. That is what the French have done, and it works well.

For the present, the tough comments of the federal Technical Review Board in its letter to DOE should be helpful to Nevada's arguments against Yucca. But it will take more than being right on the technical arguments for Nevada to prevail. The powerful hands of Sen. Harry Reid and his colleagues in the Nevada congressional delegation have been indispensable. Gov. Kenny Guinn's steadfastness has kept the Department of Energy from bullying the state.

Nevada is fortunate to have these leaders in the fight over Yucca Mountain.

Victor Gilinsky, a former commissioner of the Nuclear Regular Regulatory Commission, writes from Santa Monica, Calif.