The before and after imagery of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Facility in Japan speaks for itself.

START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGESTART PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE

You don’t need to be a structural or nuclear engineer to see the extent of the damage.

For the CH'ers here in the US, you might want to consider contacting your Senators and Congressional Representative and urge them to call on President Obama and ask him to either stand by or reverse his decision to stop construction of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Disposal Site. 

DOE has spent an estimated $33.5 Billion on it so far and estimates range up to another $77 Billion to place it in service for the next 130 years.

I realize this is a controversial topic in view of the fact that we already have an out of control Federal Budget for 2011 that can't get passed, a planned trillion dollar deficit in the budget for 2012, and a National Debt climbing through $14.2 Trillion dollars that will take several generations to pay off…

Having said that we have well over 100 commercial nuclear power generating facilities here in the US.  All of them have storage pools on site that have been accumulating spent nuclear fuel rods since the reactors were built. 

Moving these spent fuel rods to permanent underground storage at Yucca Mountain would lessen the risk that people of Japan are now facing.

What's it worth?  You decide.

Take care,

V/R, Batch

If you check out the KNOWN earthquake fault lines, you'll see that Yucca Mountain is about forty miles from the Furnace Creek fault line. (which connects to San Andreas via Garlock)

START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE

Anybody see a problem with that?

Apart from the fact that spent fuel rods will be extremely toxic for GEOLOGIC time ~ 200,000 years.

I was in the weapons test business and a Weapons Office as well, so I'm familiar with many of the layered safety precautions taken in the transport, handling and storage of nuclear materials.  I've also been to some of the test ranges and flown over the rest in that area, so no... I don't have any particularly problem with the location of the repository, but it's a good question.

START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGESTART PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE

The National Test Site, an area of which is shown above, lies less than 25 miles NE of the Yucca Mountain Radioactive Waste Repository.  BTW, those are craters from the underground tests in the photo above...  not mounds... 

Between 1951 and 1992 they conducted 1,021 nuclear detonations at NTS, of which 921 were underground.  It's my guess there are fractures all over hell and back in that area.  The depth of the facility is 800 feet above the water table and aquifers in that area.  Wikipedia has a fair writeup on the facility and its geology.

The SSTs and safe pots used to transport the spent fuel rods have some hefty specs that would resist the most severe impact collisions and the final storage containers are spec'd out with corrosion and breaching resistant properties to last for thousands of years...

Again, it's a trade off...  Do you want the spent nuclear fuel rods stored above ground at over 100 locations in the US, or well underground and sealed from the atmosphere?

Take care,

V/R, Batch

One test done in the UK was to crash a train locomotive plus coaches into a nuclear transport flask at 100mph. This was done in 1984 and it showed that the flask survived intact, unlike the locomotive which was destroyed.

START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE

We don’t want or need other people’s nuclear garbage in Nevada. Leave that crap right where it is produced, used and turned into the most dangerous material in the world. Billions of dollars of profit have been made from the nuclear plants. If you want the garbage sent to Nevada, where there are no nuclear plants and the people of Nevada have never made a dime from them, send those billion$ to us and then we’ll decide what to do with the waste. Maybe we’ll have the trains and trucks carrying the waste routed through downtown Bremerton.

Quote:

Maybe we’ll have the trains and trucks carrying the waste routed through downtown Bremerton.

I gotta agree, Bob. Of course I'm just as much of a NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) as you or Batch. I was raised in Elko, worked all over Nevada and I think it's a damn shame they made so much of Nye County uninhabitable. I mean, after you've blown up four or five nukes, (or 20-30) you should be satisfied that the next one will blow up as well.

Before we whine about handing over multi-trillion dollar debt$ to our children, we should think about leaving them some poison to deal with for the next tens of thousands of years.

Well there's a couple "Ney" votes...  Any others?  The problem isn't going away...

I can understand the "Not in my back yard" syndrome, but there's no need to truck any additional nuclear waste here to Bremerton if you think that will make you feel any better. 

We've got plenty now and have been living with it since the 60s.  There are cooling pools filled with spent fuel rods from the reactors of boomers (SSBN nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines) overhauled or scrapped at Puget Sound Naval Ship Yard as well as from the CVNs (nuclear powered aircraft carriers) that have undergone refueling while going through overhaul.  The low level stuff is encased in steel and cement coffins then shipped to Hanford, WA for underground storage there.

I raised four kids here and three of them turned out normal and healthy.  The fourth was born with four legs...  but was ultimately diagnosed as a canine.

Take care,

V/R, Batch

New York State would love to get rid of our delightful nuclear waste processing facility in West Valley, not all that far from me.

It's fun stuff.

Charlie

Charlie wrote on Mar 21^st, 2011 at 1:01pm:

New York State would love to get rid of our delightful nuclear waste processing facility in West Valley, not all that far from me.

The Superfund for toxic cleanups was spurred through Congress in Carter's lame duck session as part of a comprehensive environmental bill by the discovery of Niagara's Love Canal site about your parts, Charlie.



Tough one, Batch.  $100 billion and then operating costs could double that over it's time.  Two square miles of underground tunnels designed for over 75,000 tons.

It's an area created by volcanic activity millions of years ago where crustal plates subduct 100's of miles deep.  Still seismically active, 600 earthquakes in the last decade 2.5 and higher within 50 miles.  But I guess that's been taken into consideration.

Renewed interest last decade with the many sites, possible terrorist concerns, safer to consolidate. 

Looks to be a long term project in parts.  As is usually the case, something may happen to edge it forward.

Quote:

The Superfund for toxic cleanups was spurred through Congress in Carter's lame duck session as part of a comprehensive environmental bill by the discovery of Niagara's Love Canal site about your parts, Charlie.

Ah....fond memories of rancid basements and orange water coming out of the tap. Fortunately, we were about 90 miles south of this goop.

Charlie