Thursday, January 22, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Scientific evidence faulted

Nuclear repository design flawed, ex-member of review panel says

Yucca Mountain Project leaders are rushing to complete a nuclear waste repository design that lacks data and is flawed by weak science, an engineering professor who recently resigned from a key review panel said Wednesday.

Paul P. Craig, professor emeritus of engineering at the University of California, Davis, said big problems loom for the government's plan to entomb nuclear waste 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Department of Energy lacks information about how metal waste containers will hold up over 10,000 years, and the agency has failed to collect evidence about the mountain's heat conductivity, Craig said.

He said the issues are akin to NASA officials failing to interpret data that showed problems prior to the 1986 shuttle Challenger tragedy.

"Clearly, the Department of Energy needs to change the (repository) design because they do not have the confidence of the scientific community," Craig said.

He resigned last week from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. The independent board monitors the Energy Department's performance on technical aspects of the Yucca Mountain Project and gives Congress its findings.

He was appointed to the nonpartisan panel in 1997 by President Clinton. His term was set to expire in April.

Craig said Wednesday his claims about the project were not factors in his resignation. He wanted to pursue other endeavors related to research and scientific policy issues.

But he also wanted to speak out on the issues, which he couldn't do on the panel.

Craig said the Energy Department, which has been working for more than 20 years to develop a single, permanent storage site for the nation's nuclear waste and has at least another decade to go, is moving with great haste.

"My reading is the guys at the top at the Department of Energy are in such a rush to get approval, but the science is weak. They're rushing ahead. That's a bad idea," he said.

Of particular concern, he said, is Energy Department reluctance to collect data on how the mountain will be affected by heat from the 77,000 tons of decaying, spent nuclear fuel and highly radioactive waste to be entombed there.

While the Energy Department initially sought a site with adequate geological properties to isolate the waste, scientists determined Yucca Mountain alone wouldn't safely contain the waste. So, late in their studies, they were forced to shift toward heavy reliance on metal containers to keep the waste from contaminating the outside environment for at least 10,000 years.

Nevada scientists have been highly critical of that design, arguing that the alloy in question would be prone to corrosion and cracking from moisture in the storage area sooner than scientists anticipate.

Craig said Energy Department scientists haven't researched the corrosive metal issue adequately and have little data about heat conductivity in the repository area.

"If the mountain is a poor conductor of heat, then it's going to heat up, and that's bad."

Craig said there is a reason energy officials have very little data about this: "They never bothered to collect it."

He said they need to take measurements in the precise repository area to fill the data gaps. "I don't see how they can do a credible design without that data," he said.

An Energy Department spokesman for the Office of Repository Development in Las Vegas rejected Craig's claims. "We have been studying Yucca Mountain for many years, and all of the evidence we have developed is sound. We stand behind our scientific effort," Allen Benson said.

Craig said Benson's comment makes it clear the Yucca Mountain Project is schedule-driven, not driven by science.

Attempting to gather more data, as Craig has suggested, would prevent the Energy Department from submitting a license application by the end of this year for review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That, in turn, would throw off the construction schedule and the government's ability to receive waste shipments.

Congress approved the project on July 9, 2002, over Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto.