Friday, Jan. 28, 2005 | 11:14 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department today unveiled new plans for a 500-foot-by-500-foot "aging pad" where nuclear waste would be stored above ground at Yucca Mountain until it was ready for placement in the underground repository.
The department has long planned to collect waste at a surface holding facility at Yucca, where waste could be sorted and stored, in some cases for years. Some of the waste could be relatively fresh from nuclear plant reactors and more radioactive, or "hotter," than waste that would have been cooling for far longer in pools at the plants.
The department had considered an aging pad with storage for up to 40,000 metric tons of waste -- over half the planned 70,000-metric-ton capacity of Yucca's repository tunnels, Energy Department repository systems engineer Paul Harrington said today at a nuclear waste issues conference here. But that plan was scaled back, he said.
Design plans now call for a pad with capacity for 21,000 metric tons of waste. Waste would be stored in roughly 2,000 above-ground casks, Harrington said.
It's hard to know how long a typical waste package would sit there, but it could be five, 10, even 15 years, he said. The pad likely would be used for about 50 years -- about the amount of time it would take to fill Yucca.
The aging pad would allow the department to accept waste at the Yucca site before construction of the repository is complete, Harrington said. Energy Department officials aim to begin accepting waste at Yucca by 2010, although critics say that target is unlikely to be met.
Nevada lawmakers have battled back proposals in Congress to construct a "temporary," or interim, waste site at the Nevada Test Site until Yucca is complete.
Harrington said the aging pad is not defined as a temporary storage facility because the waste would not be stored temporarily -- it would be held awaiting placement in the permanent repository.
"Interim storage doesn't have a disposal component," Harrington said.
Yucca critics have said that is a matter of semantics. They note that federal law prohibits interim waste sites in Nevada if the state is to be home to a national permanent waste repository.
Such a large pad would enable the department to ship hotter waste earlier than planned, said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist with Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
"That really increases transportation risks," Kamps said.
Nevada officials plan to challenge the Energy Department's attempt to construct such a large aging pad. They say that a pad that size should be licensed separately by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"We think that a facility that holds that quantity of waste is an independent fuel storage facility," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.
Yucca critics also have been critical of plans to store so much waste above ground because it would be vulnerable to aircraft accidents or even terrorist attacks.
"If you have waste sitting there for 10 or 15 years -- that's a long time," said Michele Boyd, an analyst for Public Citizen who tracks Yucca issues. "That's one of the most dangerous aspects of Yucca Mountain."
Nevada officials are keeping a close eye on the NRC, which has raised questions about the security of "temporary" waste sites. The NRC has delayed licensing a temporary above-ground waste site in Utah in large part due to concerns about aircraft crashes. That case may have implications for the aging pad at Yucca, Yucca critics said.
The Yucca pad could be surrounded by a 300-foot barrier that would offer protection from, among other things, aircraft "skid-ins," Energy Department officials say. But Harrington today said that for security reasons, officials could not offer details about security measures that would be taken at the site.
"There would be security, certainly," he said.
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