Editorial: Dangers of shipping nuke waste

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 | 8:54 a.m.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said that national security is one reason why a nuclear waste dump should be built in Nevada. In Abraham's view, a central repository would be a better way to fend off possible terrorist attacks made against nuclear power plants, which is where spent fuel currently is stored. Despite Abraham's attempt to make Yucca Mountain more palatable by invoking terrorism, the reality is that a central repository for nuclear waste creates a much greater risk because transporting nuclear waste would be highly vulnerable to an attack.

A fortified nuclear power plant offers a better defense than a slow-moving convoy carrying nuclear waste, a shipment that would be more susceptible to attack. Don't forget that it's estimated that it could take 30 years to send 100,000 shipments of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, much of it cross-country, before all 77,000 tons of the nuclear waste are removed from the nuclear power plants. A videotape recently acquired by Nevada's congressional delegation, and which reporter Benjamin Grove wrote about in a copyrighted story in Sunday's Sun, throws additional doubts on the ability to protect nuclear waste from a terrorist attack while it is being shipped.

The tape shows two tests from 1998 that compared the vulnerability to missile attacks for casks used to store nuclear waste on site at power plants versus casks used to haul nuclear waste. The experiments, using TOW anti-tank missiles of less than 50 pounds, were performed by the casks' maker, International Fuel Containers, in conjunction with the U.S. Army at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. In one test, a cask is covered by concrete to simulate how nuclear waste currently is stored at power plants. A missile is placed on the cask and detonated. The missile does crack the surface, but it doesn't completely penetrate the cask that would be holding the nuclear waste. In another test simulating an attack on a truck or train hauling the waste, a TOW anti-tank missile is placed on the less-fortified cask and detonated. The explosion pierces the one-foo t-thick cask and creates a softball-sized hole all the way through the container. Neither test shows what would have happen! ed if a missile had actually been fired at a cask, but you get the picture about one of the potential dangers of shipping nuclear waste.

The Department of Energy for years has avoided the issue of transportation because it knows this is a weak link in the creation of a single repository. By ignoring the matter, the officials hope it will go away. In addition, if the department identified the train routes and interstate highways and roads that the waste would be shipped over, Nevada no longer would be virtually alone in making the case against Yucca Mountain. It would create political opposition in other states that could result in the project being derailed. Now that Yucca Mountain is on the verge of getting a favorable recommendation by the Department of Energy, the Bush administration no longer can avoid coming to terms with transportation, no matter how much it tries.

There already is enough geologic evidence alone for President Bush to reject a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The threat of transporting man's deadliest waste to a central repository also is an important reason why Yucca Mountain should be rejected. The key now is whether the president is willing to listen to Nevada's well-reasoned arguments against the construction of a nuclear waste dump in this state.