Nuke containers focus of meeting

Wednesday, March 26, 2003 | 11:38 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The metal containers that would be used to store high-level nuclear waste at the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain came under fire from three Nevada consultants today.

The containers, made of a high-tech nickel-based alloy, would be vulnerable to corrosion over time in the underground tunnels at Yucca Mountain, said Don Shettel, a Nevada consultant based in Boulder City.

Shettel and several other consultants made brief presentations today at a regular meeting of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste.

The containers likely will corrode at rates faster than officials at the Energy Department anticipate, Shettel said. Corrosive salts that form on and inside the containers as a result of evaporation and condensation of moisture in the tunnels is a problem.

The Energy Department, which is in charge of the Yucca Mountain project, also has not adequately studied the effects of dust settling on the containers, said Englebrecht von Tiesenhausen, a Clark County consultant. Dust mixing with moisture will form a "primordial soup" of chemicals on the containers that will accelerate corrosion, he said.

Accurately predicting corrosion rates is "probably not realistic," he said.

John Walton, a University of Texas, El Paso, consultant for Nye County agreed that Yucca Mountain was a "potentially aggressive environment" for the alloy containers and titanium drip shields designed to protect them from moisture inside the tunnels of the mountain, which is situated on federal land in Nye County, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.