Article about Yucca Mountain

[Steven Dapra <sjd@swcp.com>]

Jan. 23



	This article was sent to me.  Would anyone care to comment on the merits

of Professor Craig's claims?  I don't know enough about geology, etc., to

say anything.



	Thank you.



Steven Dapra

sjd@swcp.com



- - - - - - - - -



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



YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Scientific evidence faulted 



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



By Keith Rogers 

Las Vegas Review-Journal 



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. 





























************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To

unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the

text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,

with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/