Secretary of Energy Rick Perry visits Yucca Mountain and talks with Nevada Gov Brian Sandoval
Yesterday, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry toured the Yucca Mountain site to get a first hand look at the current state of the facility. Following the site tour, Sec. Perry met with Gov. Brian Sandoval. Here is what the Department of Energy press release said about that conversation.
āGovernor Sandoval and I had a frank and productive conversation, where he expressed his appreciation for my visit and reiterated his opposition to the proposed project. We have worked on a variety of subjects over the years. I value his friendship, leadership and look forward to staying in contact on this and other issues in the years ahead.
āI thanked him for the long and storied history the state of Nevada has had in our nuclear and defense industries. I stressed the need for Nevada to maintain its key role as we seek sensible, stable, and long term solutions to fulfilling our responsibility to safely manage spent nuclear fuel.
I hope the site tour guides pointed out how much work and expense remained before the facility would be ready to accept any shipments. I also hope that they reminded Sec. Perry about the limited transportation infrastructure that services the site.
Before any large scale shipments can begin, there will be a need for a specialized rail line that can deliver large used fuel transportation casks to the repository; a decade ago the estimated cost for that system was greater than $3 billion.
Though Sec. Perry met with the Nevada governor, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that members of the state’s congressional delegation expressed consternation that they were not given sufficient prior notice of the visit and were not able to arrange meetings between Perry and the numerous opponents to restarting the project.
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said she was ātroubled that the new Energy Secretary is visiting the site without informing members of the Nevada congressional delegation.ā
Earlier this year, Titus wrote to Trump to request that his administration visit Nevada and meet with experts who have studied the issue. She said reopening the site āimperils our state and nearly every congressional district in the country.ā
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Rep. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., whose congressional district includes the Nye County site, said they were notified over the weekend that Perry would be visiting the facility.
Skilled negotiators can recognize when the best course of action is to start from scratch instead of attempting to push forward with a no-win situation out of pure stubbornness. The Yucca Mountain site is burdened with both political baggage and a fatally flawed regulatory framework that is based on achieving absurdly low radiation release standards over an almost impossible to predict period of time.
There are reasons to hope that Sec. Perry will recognize the nature of the current situation and find a course of action that is less costly, less fraught with controversy and easier to implement. It’s not necessarily a popular statement among my type A, workaholic friends, but sometimes quitting is an option. Taking the easier path to solve a nagging problem can be rewarding, especially when it frees up valuable resources to address more interesting and important issues.
Many issues need to be fixed with the current Yucca plan IF it goes forward. First, of course, is the ridiculous rad levels. The EPA standards need to be scrapped and realistic standards need to be used.
But the most significant design criteria to change is allow the fuel to be retrievable. Not buried for 10,000+ years. That is the non-proliferation side having way too much sway on the game plan. The fuel is valuable now and will be even more valuable in the future. Don’t create artificial barriers for future generations.
“Tuesday’s (Executive Order) initiates a review of the Clean Power Plan, rescinds the moratorium on coal mining on US federal lands and urges federal agencies to “identify all regulations, all rules, all policies … that serve as obstacles and impediments to American energy independence…”
“Before any large scale shipments can begin, there will be a need for a specialized rail line that can deliver large used fuel transportation casks to the repository; a decade ago the estimated cost for that system was greater than $3 billion.”
How many miles long would this railroad be? 100 miles?
I found a map of proposed routes:
http://www.yuccamountain.org/map06.gif
A hundred miles would give $30,000,000 / mile. Why would this railroad have to be engineered beyond any railroad that carries other hazardous waste, i.e. chemicals? I see tank cars on railroads all of the time carrying bad stuff. Wouldn’t this cargo actually be safer than most? It is heavy stuff that won’t blow away in the wind. I presume they will use similar casks to those designed years ago that withstand high impacts.
Would they be using golden spikes?
With low natural gas prices, unnecessary requirements should be stripped from nuclear.
It’s a fair question, Eino. SNF fuel casks are designed for conventional rail transport, having been thoroughly tested and used without incident for that purpose for fifty years.
Still, one must allow the possibility that a combined freight manifest of SNF casks sandwiched between multiple tanker cars of diesel interleaved with flats of fertilizer might derail and catch fire in a hypothetical tunnel, much like the 2001 Howard Street train tunnel fire in Baltimore. š®
Wow.
If taken literally, that would shake up a LOT of long-established regulations, rules and policies.
For example, the Linear No Threshold assumption (as it is incorporated into regulations, rules and policies) certainly serves as an obstacle and impediment to American energy independence.
The BTU content of a “spent” fuel assembly from a light water reactor is worth 4 times its weight in gold at current natural gas prices. Moving the fuel from all corners of the country and burying it is a huge waste of resources.
There’s a very large educational piece on spent fuel canisters that would need to be taught to the masses on why safe transportation is essentially a non-issue. Too many people, including the politicians, are flat out ignorant on the science behind the robustness of these casks. My bigger issue with this whole thing is, why is it okay to not follow the law? In our line of business, if I deliberately choose to violate procedure, I can go to Federal prison. Procedures are the law in nuclear power operations. Why is it okay for our “leaders” in this country to violate the law?
Much, much more could be done to support nuclear power in America by streamlining regulations and supporting advanced nuclear reactors than reopening Yucca mountain. Heck, Generation IV reactors can do Yucca mountain’s job for it. Nuclear batteries are being designed that feed directly off of nuclear radiation
http://www.atlasenergysystems.org/technology.html
I would like to see the Trump administration look into developing regulatory support for advanced nuclear reactors and hopefully rescind unnecessary regulations like the baseless Linear No Threshold.
The long term solution for the spent fuel produced from commercial reactors in the US is to recycle its fertile and fissile uranium content and its fissile plutonium content.
Demonstrating that this can be safely and continuously done– sustainably and economically– for even a tiny portion of the spent fuel that the US has accumulated over the decades would be a game changer for the industry, IMO.
Marcel
It was so demonstrated at EBR-II. Which is why the Integral Fast Reactor had to die.
If it must be buried, use salt domes. The facility near Carlsbad, NM, will do.