A different nuke waste approach

Monday, May 8, 2000 | 9:27 a.m.

Sweden, like the United States, is struggling to find a solution to a national nuclear waste problem. But unlike in the United States, the process in Sweden has given local officials an active role in deciding where spent nuclear fuel will go.

A look at the European nation's journey to dispose of nuclear waste -- outlined by Swedish officials at a Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board meeting in Pahrump last week -- provides a contrast to the long, bumpy road that may lead to a high-level repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

For the past 10 years Swedish officials have taken the nuclear waste problem public, encouraging local governments to volunteer their communities as sites for a high-level repository, Harak Ahagan, a nuclear expert from Oskarshamn, Sweden, explained.

Earlier this year eight potential sites were announced -- all with local cooperation and all giving the mayors the ability to veto a repository in their towns. Now the science begins to determine, probably over the next eight years, which site is most suitable.

Two of the eight sites have already opted not to host a nuclear waste repository.

In 1987 Congress voted Yucca Mountain the lone site to be studied for a permanent burial ground to hold 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste. Since then Nevada and local officials have fought the project tooth and nail.

Another key difference in the journeys on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean: The Swedes have adopted a go-slow approach without a deadline for opening a repository, Ahagan said.

In the United States, one deadline has already been missed -- the federal government was supposed to remove nuclear waste from the nation's nuclear power plants in 1998. If a repository is approved at Yucca, it is expected to open by 2010 at the earliest, though Republicans in Congress are trying to move the waste to Nevada for temporary storage by 2007.

"The United States has a site and a schedule and everything is being made to fit that," Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, noted at the Pahrump meeting.

More than a decade ago Swedish nuclear scientists, public officials and opponents approached the controversial issue around the same table, sharing information and funds to decide where to put its 8,000 tons of highly radioactive waste, Oskarshamn's mayor, Torsten Carlsson, said.

National officials in Sweden are no different from those in America who seem to believe people have no opinions and no time to express them, he said.

"We argue that the public very definitely has very clear opinions," Carlsson said.

The first step brought people together a decade ago to solve the regional problem of nuclear waste.

"Everything was on the table and there was real influence -- real influence," he noted, emphasizing the weight of public and environmental experts to help make earlier decisions.

"Their members and experts give us valuable contributions to the solution," he said. "If the answers are not clear, we ask tougher questions."

The nuclear utilities pay into a fund, much as U.S. power plants do. In Sweden the funds are shared by each interest group, from the nuclear industry to the environmentalists, who hire their own experts.

In Oskarshamn, trucking and nuclear power account for 13,000 jobs, about half of the community's population, Carlsson said. Three nuclear reactors there produce about 10 percent of Sweden's electricity.

By involving all segments of the community, officials were able to reach a decision about 10 years ago to temporarily store all of Sweden's spent fuel in Oskarshamn.

The fuel stored there will remain to cool off -- both in heat and radiation -- for 40 years under the Swedish nuclear waste management plan. In contrast, the average age of nuclear waste expected to arrive at a Yucca Mountain repository is 26 years old, making it hotter and more radioactive.

If none of the remaining six sites in Sweden proves safe enough for a permanent repository, then the fuel will stay in Oskarshamn while technical experts seek another solution.

"With a veto in my back pocket, I think it was wise for all parties to listen to one another," the mayor said.

And Carlsson's veto extends throughout the repository selection process, based on environmental concerns, so selecting the site remains in local hands, he said.

Mary Manning covers environmental issues for the Sun. She can be reached by phone at (702) 259-4065 or by e-mail: manning@lasvegassun.com.