Friday, Feb. 11, 2005 | 3:58 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
February 12 - 13, 2005
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week pounded Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman over the issue of Yucca Mountain, peppering him with questions and comments that illuminated their impatience with the project's near-limbo status. Bodman tried to placate the members, at one point saying, "I share your enthusiasm about Yucca Mountain ... I am eager to work with the committee ... " But the energy secretary also became defensive as the questions flew about how he will resolve the innumerable problems confronting the planned high-level nuclear-waste repository under construction 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Referring to his recent replacement of former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Bodman answered, "I've only been there seven days."
The Yucca hawks on the committee grilled Bodman on Wednesday, the same day that the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board was meeting in Las Vegas. This is a scientific panel created by Congress to oversee the Energy Department's handling of the Yucca Mountain Project. While the committee members in Washington were demanding a hurried approach to opening Yucca Mountain, two of the Energy Department's own engineers were warning the review board about why that approach is dangerous.
It's long been known that Yucca Mountain, even with deep storage tunnels drilled underneath it, would not itself be sufficient protection against the waste's radiation. To guard against leaks, the Energy Department plans to seal the waste in casks made of a metal alloy. And to protect the casks against the corrosive force of water, it has designed titanium drip shields. Engineers William Boyle and Kirk Lachman told the review board, however, of their concerns about design flaws in the drip shields. This is a long-standing concern that has also been expressed by other engineers and scientists.
Yucca Mountain is beset with other critical problems, as illustrated in the Sun's cover story today. Foremost is its overall design, which a federal court has rejected as falling far short of a radiation protection standard set by the National Academy of Sciences. The documents the Energy Department needs to apply for a license to open Yucca Mountain -- and there are millions of them -- are not ready, a factor that weighed in the decision to postpone the projected opening from 2010 to 2012. The department had planned to build a railroad at Caliente, north of Las Vegas, to transport the deadly waste on its final leg to the mountain. But severe flooding there last month has raised serious safety questions. And no specific plan has been developed to transport nuclear waste to Yucca from nuclear power plants all over the country.
Yucca Mountain, thankfully, is indeed stalled and its future is looking bleak. But only because the facts are beginning to get in the way of the type of politically driven "enthusiasm" expressed by Bodman.
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