Yucca Mountain is the epitome of a radioactive topic (no pun intended), and it’s in the news again, thanks to a big jump in its projected cost:
The Yucca Mountain program, which began in 1983 and is expected to close in 2133, is expected to cost $96.2 billion in 2007 dollars over its 150-year life cycle, up 67 percent from a 2001 estimate of $57.5 billion.
Excluding inflation, the new estimate increased 38 percent to $79.3 billion.
The Energy Department said the increased costs are due to more than $16 billion in inflation and a 30 percent increase in the amount of nuclear waste that will need to be disposed of at the site.
…
The long delayed nuclear waste dump is expected to be opened in 2020 at the earliest, the department said in June.
Let me be painfully clear about this: When we’re talking about public expenditures measured in the tens of billions of dollars, it’s only appropriate that we pay attention to the sums involved. So I have no argument whatsoever with such articles. But I think we also need to look just a bit deeper into the nuclear waste management issue to assess this project fully.
First, notice the number listed above for the lifetime of the project: 150 years. Why is anyone saying that this project will “end”, ever? In human terms, high-level nuclear waste is forever, as in “if Julius Caesar had had nuclear reactors we’d still be managing the waste.” Is the plan really to lock the door, throw away the key, and then never spend a single cent on monitoring, maintaining, inspecting, repairing, etc. the site?
Second, we have the issue of capacity, which is mentioned in the article above and detailed a bit more on the Dept. of Energy site in this March 6, 2007 item:
The proposed legislation would also eliminate the current statutory 70,000 metric ton cap on disposal capacity at Yucca Mountain, in order to allow maximum use of the mountain’s true technical capacity. This provision would help provide the safe isolation of the nation’s entire commercial spent nuclear fuel inventory from existing reactors, including life extensions.
…
“We have a legal and moral obligation to get Yucca Mountain opened and operating,” Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Director Ward Sproat said. “Currently 55,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel and Defense high-level waste is being stored at more than 100 above-ground sites in 39 states, and that number grows by about 2,000 metric tons annually. By entombing it deep in Yucca Mountain – a safe and secure permanent geologic repository – we can ensure public safety for thousands of generations.”
Hmm. 55,000 metric tons of waste in existence today plus 2,000[1] metric tons/year between today and when the DOE “hopes” to have the facility open in 2020 gives us a total of 79,000 metric tons. And that assumes we don’t build any more nuclear power plants. If the US does start building new nuclear power plants, ala John McCain’s proposal for 45 new plants by 2030, then we’ll increase our production rate for this kind of waste to roughly 3,000 metric tons/year. And every such increase in the rate of waste creation only adds to the cost of monitoring, guarding, and management that we’re passing off to future generations.
(Architects are familiar with a problem in designing very tall buildings that serves as a good analogy for this waste situation. The usable space inside a skyscraper is essentially an inverted pyramid because for any given design the taller the building the more space that must be used on the lower floors for things like elevator shafts, water pipes, etc. to service the upper floors. As we build more nuclear reactors, the future cost of waste management continues to grow, making nuclear energy less and less desirable, but that cost is just as inescapable as the requirement to give up valuable space on the ground floors of skyscrapers for utilities.)
Third is a date, as in when do we start talking about what “permanent storage solution” comes after Yucca Mountain? If we’ll completely fill Yucca to its ultimate limit of 132,000 tons long before the proposed end of its lifespan in 2133 (roughly 2050, using the above numbers, even without new plants in the mix), then what do we do with all the new high-level nuclear waste we’ll be churning out? Do we make some excuse to allow ourselves to scrap the current international ban so we can bury it in subduction zones in the ocean? Or will we simply find another place for “permanent” disposal and start the whole ordeal all over again?
I’m sure that this post will elicit most of the same hate mail I get every time I say anything negative about nuclear power, so let me be so clear only the willfully belligerent can miss it: I’m not saying that nuclear power is evil and should never be used. But just as we need to get far more realistic about all the costs associated with burning fossil fuels (most notably the currently “free” dumping of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere), we also need to take a deeper and more detailed look at just what we’re signing up for and imposing on future generations with any brave new commitment to nuclear power.
[1] The number I’ve seen quoted endlessly is 2,194 metric tons of high-level waste/year. For the sake of simplicity, I used the approximation of 2,000 metric tons above.
