State Files New Yucca Mountain Challenges
Sep 15 - Las Vegas Review-Journal
>
> Nevada's nuclear project agency chief said today the state has
> filed five new challenges to the Energy Department's application for a
> license to build a repository for the nation's highly radioactive
> waste at Yucca Mountain.
>
> Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for
> Nuclear Projects, said of key concern is the state's assertion that
> DOE used "improper techniques" in a safety assessment of how fast a
> metal known as
> Alloy-22 will corrode if it is used for waste containers.
>
> The state also has repeatedly questioned DOE's logic behind its
> plan to wait 75 years to install titanium drip shields to prevent
> water from trickling onto waste containers entombed in a maze of
> tunnels inside the volcanic-rock ridge, 100 miles northwest of Las
> Vegas.
>
> Breslow, speaking during a break in today's pre-hearing
> conference of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety and licensing
> panel, said the NRC staff has similar concerns.
>
> "The NRC staff, for the first time, wrote a letter of support for
> the corrosion contention and drip shields," he said.
>
> In May and July, Breslow wrote the NRC's repository safety
> director, Lawrence Kokajko, stating that DOE hasn't calculated what
> dose the public can expect near Yucca Mountain if no drip shields are
> installed.
>
> An NRC nuclear material official, Aby Mohseni, replied, saying
> the staff's safety review "will include careful consideration of the
> items you mention."
>
> The five new challenges come after administrative judges for the
> licensing panel allowed all but seven of the state's original 229
> challenges to be considered in the licensing review, a process that's
> expected to take up to four years. In all, the review will consider
> 299 out of 318 contentions raised by more than a dozen concerned
> parties.
>
> The NRC is proceeding with the hearing process even though the
> Obama administration and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have said Yucca
> Mountain is not an option for disposing 77,000 tons of used nuclear
> reactor fuel and highly radioactive defense waste.
>
> Breslow said the Alloy-22 corrosion study challenge comes in
> addition to new safety contentions about water infiltrating the
> planned repository from 10,000 years to 1 million years; as well as
> effects from erosion during the same time period, and two challenges
> related to future volcanoes affecting Yucca Mountain.
>
> Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto has written NRC
> Chairman Gregory Jaczko, expressing concern that DOE's case for safely
> disposing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain depends heavily on
> installing more than 11,000 titanium drip shields. Doing so would cost
> $8 billion just for raw materials and there is no guarantee that would
> occur 75 years after the first waste containers are put in the
> mountain.
>
> A century from now the task of constructing drip shields and
> developing robotics to install them would be at least $50 billion,
> according to Cortez Masto.
>
> Breslow said he has not heard back from Chu about a previous
> written request for DOE to withdraw its license application with a
> stipulation that Yucca Mountain isn't a suitable site for burying
> nuclear waste.
>
> A Yucca Project Mountain spokesman had no immediate comment on
> whether the Department of Energy has an appetite for withdrawing the
> license application.
>
> Contact reporter Keith Rogers at [email protected] or
> 702-383-0308.
>
>
> Nevada's nuclear project agency chief said today the state has
> filed five new challenges to the Energy Department's application for a
> license to build a repository for the nation's highly radioactive
> waste at Yucca Mountain.
>
> Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for
> Nuclear Projects, said of key concern is the state's assertion that
> DOE used "improper techniques" in a safety assessment of how fast a
> metal known as
> Alloy-22 will corrode if it is used for waste containers.
>
> The state also has repeatedly questioned DOE's logic behind its
> plan to wait 75 years to install titanium drip shields to prevent
> water from trickling onto waste containers entombed in a maze of
> tunnels inside the volcanic-rock ridge, 100 miles northwest of Las
> Vegas.
>
> Breslow, speaking during a break in today's pre-hearing
> conference of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety and licensing
> panel, said the NRC staff has similar concerns.
>
> "The NRC staff, for the first time, wrote a letter of support for
> the corrosion contention and drip shields," he said.
>
> In May and July, Breslow wrote the NRC's repository safety
> director, Lawrence Kokajko, stating that DOE hasn't calculated what
> dose the public can expect near Yucca Mountain if no drip shields are
> installed.
>
> An NRC nuclear material official, Aby Mohseni, replied, saying
> the staff's safety review "will include careful consideration of the
> items you mention."
>
> The five new challenges come after administrative judges for the
> licensing panel allowed all but seven of the state's original 229
> challenges to be considered in the licensing review, a process that's
> expected to take up to four years. In all, the review will consider
> 299 out of 318 contentions raised by more than a dozen concerned
> parties.
>
> The NRC is proceeding with the hearing process even though the
> Obama administration and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have said Yucca
> Mountain is not an option for disposing 77,000 tons of used nuclear
> reactor fuel and highly radioactive defense waste.
>
> Breslow said the Alloy-22 corrosion study challenge comes in
> addition to new safety contentions about water infiltrating the
> planned repository from 10,000 years to 1 million years; as well as
> effects from erosion during the same time period, and two challenges
> related to future volcanoes affecting Yucca Mountain.
>
> Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto has written NRC
> Chairman Gregory Jaczko, expressing concern that DOE's case for safely
> disposing nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain depends heavily on
> installing more than 11,000 titanium drip shields. Doing so would cost
> $8 billion just for raw materials and there is no guarantee that would
> occur 75 years after the first waste containers are put in the
> mountain.
>
> A century from now the task of constructing drip shields and
> developing robotics to install them would be at least $50 billion,
> according to Cortez Masto.
>
> Breslow said he has not heard back from Chu about a previous
> written request for DOE to withdraw its license application with a
> stipulation that Yucca Mountain isn't a suitable site for burying
> nuclear waste.
>
> A Yucca Project Mountain spokesman had no immediate comment on
> whether the Department of Energy has an appetite for withdrawing the
> license application.
>
> Contact reporter Keith Rogers at [email protected] or
> 702-383-0308.
>