What have we done in the past with Nuclear waste? Gas escaped from unfiltered stacks! Water used to cool reactors was returned to rivers! Waste was stored.

What have we done in the past with Nuclear waste?

•Gas escaped from unfiltered stacks!•Water used to cool reactors was returned to rivers!•Waste was stored in underground tanks that leaked into the soil, eventually contaminating groundwater!•Drums were dumped overboard at sea into deep water!•Radioactive waste was incinerated!

Currently, nuclear waste is stored.

• Radioactive waste is temporarily stored on-site, awaiting approval of a national long-term nuclear waste storage facility.

• WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF SPACE!!!

The Decision Has Been Made!

• The Federal Government vetoed Nevada and had decided that Yucca Mountain will serve as the long-term storage facility for all commercially generated nuclear waste in the U.S.

Ready…Ready…

Or NOT!!!Or NOT!!!

What is Yucca Mountain?• Site that has been declared

“scientifically sound” and technically suitable” to geologically isolate nuclear waste for at least 10,000 years.

• Located 100 miles from Las Vegas

• Accept over 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste before another site is built.

• Transportation of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain will take 24 years to complete.

Inside Yucca

Mountain

Scientists have studied Yucca Mountain• DOE has spent over $4

billion testing and tunneling Yucca mountain over 20 years.

• 200 pits, 450 boreholes, 6.8 miles of tunnels, 75,000 feet of core samples, 18,000 other geological samples, heated 7 million cubic feet of rock, tested 13,000 metals for corrosive resistance.

Scientists Created a Model• Scientists use a computer model that calculates

equations and assumptions a breakneck speeds to simulate what may happen at Yucca Mountain over millennia.

• How faithfully can a computer model simulate events that haven’t happened?

• The model shows that Yucca Mountain will succeed as it slowly FAILS.

• YES! Yucca Mountain will fail. Hopefully, radiation will not leak into groundwater until several half-lives have passed rendering the leaked material non-hazardous.

• It’s a matter of TIME. If Yucca Mountain naturally fails, the peak dose of radiation would be negligible.

• The model also takes into account misfortunes such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, even drilling by dim-witted humans.

Failure of Yucca Mountain

Pros about Long Term Storage at Yucca Mountain

• Storage in the middle of the desert is far safer for radioactive waste than scattered around the country in temporary holding facilities.

• Yucca Mountain is remote, has a sparse population, and is made of hard-rock formations.

• Yucca Mountain is a compromise between leaving radioactive waste at the surface where it is accessible but exposed and putting it thousands of feet below the surface where it cannot be retrieved.

• Yucca Mountain is the most studied geological formation ever!

Cons about Long Term Storage at Yucca Mountain

• The EPA has ruled that the DOE must demonstrate that Yucca Mountain can meet EPA standards for public and environmental health for 10,000 years. Does that mean radioactivity won’t be a threat after 10,000 years? NOPE! The peak radiation dose to the environment will occur after 400,000 years!

• Yucca mountain is only about 100 miles north of Las Vegas, a major metropolis.

• Scientific studies are incomplete making the decision to use Yucca Mountain “weak to moderate”.

• Scientists cannot agree if Yucca Mountain is watertight. Water could corrode containers and contaminate the surrounding landscape, seeping into groundwater.

• Tests showed that water seeped inside the mountain at a more rapid rate than government computers initially estimated.

• It’s only a matter of TIME before Yucca Mountain FAILS…

Cons Concerning Transportation of Nuclear Waste

• “Mobile Chernobyls” to carry 154 million pounds of radioactive waste through America’s heardland.

• Every year starting around 2010, 175 train and truck convoys filled with nuclear waste would pass through counties where more than a third of all Americans live.

• If an accident occurred en route, the nuclear fallout could kill thousands.

• Traveling convoys may become terrorists target.• Current mishap rates for trains and trucks suggest there would be

nearly 100 rail accidents and one or two truck accidents over the 24 years the Yucca Mountain would be accepting waste. (No harmful radiation is LIKELY to leak in those accidents…)

• About 6.5 million pounds of waste would be hauled 1 million miles by train and 100,000 miles by truck each year for 24 years.

• Waste will travel through 45 states!• Some politicians are in favor of Yucca Mountain only because it will

get their nuclear waste out of their back yard.

Alternative Solutions?

• Today’s inefficient reactors burn only 3% of Uranium. The other 97% is declared “spent,” fit only for Yucca Mountain.

• A new “fast” reactor promises to burn 99.9% of fuel creating a reside that will be harmless in only 300 years!

• Not even Homer Simpson could melt down a fast reactor.

• This solution will take at least 10 years and $2 billion dollars in federal funds!!!

What to do?

• Would you like to make a $2 billion dollar bet to settle this?

• OR… Would you rather build a Yucca Mountain every 50 years or so, jeopardizing the future of humankind.

• Perhaps you want to chuck everything nuclear and put your money on power from wind or solar sources.

Milhouse VanHouten as Fallout Boy

Jiminy Jilickers, Radioactive Man! I think thse X-Rays gave me super

powers! These aren't real X-Rays are they?

Ranier Wolfcastle as  Radioactive Man

Somebody hose me down! My legs are tingling!

Up and at them! We'll have to fight our way out!

Only Fallout Boy can save me now!

Too bad we can’t just ask Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy to come save the day…