The Yucca Mountain Project

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Recommended: Radiation and its health effects

The Yucca Mountain Project

Kai Erikson argues that radiation and other forms of radioactive waste are a new species of trouble (Erikson, 1994). Nuclear waste disposal is a pressing issue of extreme importance. Nuclear waste is material that either contains a radioactive substance or has been contaminated by radioactive elements and is no longer useful. With all of the dangers surrounding nuclear waste and a half-life of one hundred thousand years this issue must be solved with complete certainty. Any mistakes or miscalculations can destroy the environment.

Congress established a national policy in 1982. To solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal, this federal law is called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The United States Department of Energy is responsible for finding a site, building a facility, and operating the repository.

They studied nine locations for ten years and then narrowed it down to three. The three sites were Hanford, Washington; Deaf Smith County, Texas; and Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In 1987, Wes Barnes, the director of the Yucca Mountain Project (an offshoot of the Department of Energy) decided the desolate mountain ridge in south-western Nevada is to become the final resting place (Monastersky, 1997). More than one hundred of America's commercial nuclear reactors are planned to deposit the worst of their nuclear waste deep into the mountain. It is to be stored permanently, but the project says it will be guaranteed for ten thousand years. The project proposes that the containers be surrounded by impermeable layers of volcanic rock guaranteeing safety (Wolfe, 1997).

The Department of Energy (DOE) reports that there is 20,000 tons of used-up nuclear fuel and that number should double by the year 2000 (kieft, 1997). The fuel rods are now placed in cooling ponds near the plants. Most pools are full, or nearly full. Aware that time is running out, Yucca Mountain was the only site left. The mountain sits inside the Nevada Test Site about 80 miles of Las Vegas. A huge earth boring machine is digging a tunnel 25 feet wide into the mountain. Two miles of tunnel have already been excavated and three more miles remain till completion. The mountain is planned to receive waste by the year 2010 (www.cyberwest.com).

The Nevada state government is against putting the depository in the Mountain. Many people disagree with the project a say the the site can safely hold the waste for only 100 years (www.

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