nuclear-news

The safety of Yucca Mountain has been debated for nearly forty years. I’ve previously posted on the topic here and here. An interesting analysis of political and other factors swirling around the project is “How Safe is Yucca Mountain?”As the map to the right (USGS craton map) [on original] shows, the Yucca Mountain site is not in an ideal location in terms of tectonic activity.

Located near the boundary of the “accretionary belt” and the “deformed craton” the region has a history of volcanic activity within the past 2 million years and Nevada is ranked third in the nation for earthquakes. As Dr. Cochran points out in his paper cited above, Nevada was selected largely for political reasons. The federal government already owned the Nevada Test Site property, which had been used for years for weapons testing. It is remote, however, remote areas of the United States are often found out west where there is higher seismicity. Whether we want to or not, we as a nation will have to figure out a solution to permanent nuclear waste disposal with some 90,000 tons now in temporary storage.

So where should it go? North or South Dakota? Eastern Montana? Predicting the long-term future of seismic events appears to be dicey. As Nevada Seismological Laboratory Director Graham Kent puts it “We like to think everything’s the way it is and it doesn’t change that much,” he said. “I think the last few months we’ve learned with the pandemic that that’s not the case.”