Yucca Mt scientifically unsuitable for nuclear waste dump

in the last three decades 1the Energy Department studied Yucca Mountain and simply couldn’t make the plan work. There are a multitude of scientific, technical and safety issues with Yucca Mountain, which is a porous volcanic ridge in an area prone to earthquakes. The Energy Department had to keep rewriting its plans and requirements to try to make it look like Yucca Mountain was suitable……Nevada was chosen because the state [back then] didn’t have any political power.

More Yucca hypocrisy, Las Vegas Sun, Republicans continue to push a foolish plan that is unsafe and expensive, May 15, 2011 Republicans in Congress this past week continued their shameful crusade to turn Nevada into a nuclear waste repository by trumpeting a report that they say shows “political opposition” is the key obstacle toward building a Yucca Mountain repository.

That has been a theme for the Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who on Monday released a Government Accountability Office report on the consequences of the Obama administration’s decision to scrap plans to build the repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The report, which Republicans ordered, looks at the issues and costs associated with ending the project. It’s part of the Republicans’ predetermined “investigation” into the Yucca Mountain repository…..
in the last three decades 1the Energy Department studied Yucca Mountain and simply couldn’t make the plan work. There are a multitude of scientific, technical and safety issues with Yucca Mountain, which is a porous volcanic ridge in an area prone to earthquakes. The Energy Department had to keep rewriting its plans and requirements to try to make it look like Yucca Mountain was suitable……
the support for the site was never about science, it was about politics. The nuclear industry’s supporters in Congress have long pushed the repository, ignoring sound science. In 1987 they circumvented the scientific process that was designated to seek out a nuclear waste repository for the nation. No one wanted the repository, and Nevada was chosen because the state didn’t have any political power. Now that it does, Republicans squeal about politics. It’s disgusting…
More Yucca hypocrisy – Sunday, May 15, 2011 | 2:01 a.m. – Las Vegas Sun

May 16, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA

2 Comments »

Another good source for nuclear cojntamination info:
http://www.globalnuclearcontaminationwatch.com/

Comment by Mitchell | May 16, 2011 | Reply
Here are two things to keep in mind:

1.) Simple and inexpensive processes for destroying the radioactivity in nuclear waste have been known for decades:

“Radioactive isotope decay rate or half-life can be increased or decreased as needed to deactivate radioactivity or to increase shelf life of radioactive isotopes. Currently many investigators/experimenters have reported half-life anomalies and have demonstrated repeatability of the various processes. The deactivation/neutralization of radioactivity in isotopes by the several demonstrated processes clearly suggest the possibility of full scale processing of radioactive nuclear materials to deactivate radioactive nuclear materials. ”

“In 1964 we thought and believed that radioactivity in nuclear waste would soon be history on planet earth. As history has proven us wrong, we now know and understand that there is a fortune, billions yearly, to be made by saving every scrap of radioactive nuclear waste and trying to bury it in Yucca Mountain and in cleaning up spills, leaks, and escaping radioactive particles from decaying containment schemes. We were just looking at the wrong goal post. No one receiving the funds has any interest in eliminating radioactivity in nuclear waste. Nuclear Half-Life Modification Technology could reduce the cost to a fraction of the cost that is experienced today.” ( “Radioactivity Deactivation at High Temperature in an Applied DC Voltage Field Demonstrated in 1964”. Larry Geer & Cecil Baumgartner, http://www.gdr.org/nuclear_half.htm )

Destroying radioactive waste on site obviates concerns about reprocessing, packaging, transportation, storage, and worries about terrorism and off-site accidents.

There are more details, and other processes, described in my article “Adventures in Energy Destruction” at scripturalphysics.org/qm/adven.html

2.) The nuclear power industry is headed for the junk yard. It will be going the way of the Linotype machine, the mechanical typewriter, the landline telephone, and the incandescent light bulb. Already consumers are becoming able to sell power back to the utility companies from their homes. Eventually, even the Grid will disappear. There are political developments too: Germany is trying to shut down its nuclear power industry. And Japan is probably having second thoughts.

But the thing that will destroy the nuclear power industry is economics and lack of investors. Rapid advances in other energy fields will make nuclear power obsolete. For example,
RSi’s ChemArc Process has greatly reduced the cost of photovoltaic silicon.
http://www.engineeringtv.com/video/The-Chemistry-of-RSis-ChemArc-P

(references to advances in electical storage have been deleted)

The nuclear power industry has only a short, limited future. This is NOT a good time to build new nuclear plants. But it is a good time to DESTROY radioactive waste (or “spent fuel”) permanently by simple, safe, inexpensive processes that have been known for decades. Some additional research will be needed to convert this knowhow into an industrial process, but that will still be MUCH cheaper than digging more 100 billion dollar holes in the ground. The nuclear power industry would have quickly solved these problems if it had been required to dispose of its own nuclear waste on-site at the power plant WITHOUT help (subsidies) from the federal government!

Comment by Brian Fraser | August 2, 2011 | Reply

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