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The Associated Press: DOE calls for bigger nuclear waste dump

DOE calls for bigger nuclear waste dump Associated Press By H. JOSEF HEBERT 10 Dec  08 – “……………………….The Yucca Mountain repository, with its statutory capacity limit, is nowhere near adequate for handling all the material expected to be generated by the country’s 104 commercial reactors before they are shut down, the department said.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said unless Congress removes the 77,000-ton limit on Yucca Mountain lawmakers will have to approve a search for a second repository. As many as nine potential waste sites had been looked at before Congress in 1987 declared that only the Nevada site should be considered…………………..Nearly 64,000 tons of reactor waste is now kept in cooling ponds and concrete storage canisters at commercial power plants, with about 2,200 tons being added every year. The Energy Department said Tuesday that power plants could generate as much as 143,000 tons over their extended operating life. The Yucca Mountain site also would have to accommodate defense-related reactor waste………………………

The department submitted an application for a permit to build and operate Yucca Mountain to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this year. The commission has four years to act on the proposal. If a permit is approved on schedule the Yucca site could begin taking waste by 2020.

Nevada officials have vigorously fought the Yucca project, arguing that the site is not the best place to put material that will remain highly radioactive for up to a million years.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to starve the project of funds.

The Associated Press: DOE calls for bigger nuclear waste dump

December 12, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized