Dear Editor,
Dr. Gordon Edwards (Letters to the Editor, Dec. 17) perpetuates some misinformation.
The status of Yucca Mountain in Nevada is an interesting case where political expediency has been allowed to override solid technical knowledge. Some background is necessary.
In 2002 presidential approval was given to develop a deep geological repository (DGR) at Yucca Mountain. Many billions of dollars have been spent on demonstrating the suitability of this site and initiating construction.
In 2008 Barrack Obama was in a tight race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He made a deal with Senator Harry Reed to kill the project, if Reed helped Obama get the nomination. This is one of the relatively few promises that Obama has kept!
In 2013, the Associated Press reported: “In a rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal appeals court ruled…that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear-waste dump in Nevada.
“By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department’s application for a never-completed waste-storage site at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
“In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was ‘simply flouting the law’ when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear-waste repository, including waste from the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state.”
In a majority opinion, Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote: “The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections.”
So, technically and legally Yucca Mountain fulfills the requirement for a DGR. With the recent shift in power in the US, it can be expected that the saga of Yucca Mountain will continue!
Secondly, Dr. Edwards says “The Ontario Commissioner on Electric Planning concluded in their 1978 report A Race Against Time that ‘all spent fuel should be stored at nuclear generating station sites, either in circulating water storage bays or in dry storage’” and “We prefer on-site (i.e generating station site).”
This document is also known as the report of the Porter Commission. It is easily accessible online.
Dr. Edwards, confusing interim and ultimate storage, is combining quotes from two different areas in the report, but both of his quotes relate to interim storage and are summarized on pages 94 and 95, which compare the findings of the Porter Commission with two earlier studies and relates specifically to the question, “Is a central interim storage facility necessary?” It has nothing to do with long-term storage!
The very next question posed by the report is, “What type of ultimate storage is required?”
The conclusion of the Porter report is in agreement with the earlier studies – namely that the “preferred possibility is disposal in deep underground cavities (about 1 km deep) excavated in plutonic rocks (like granite) in stable geologic areas such as the Canadian Shield where seismic and tectonic activity are very low.”
The NWMO proposal for a DGR is consistent with the Porter Commission Report in terms of both interim and ultimate storage.
Thank you.
