NUCLEAR WASTE; Salt domes better than Yucca for long-term storage -- Chu

NUCLEAR WASTE; Salt domes better than Yucca for long-term storage -- Chu

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter 418 words
4 March 2010
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Under fire from lawmakers for abandoning an effort to develop a nuclear-waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nev., Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Senate appropriators today that salt domes might make better long-term storage sites.
The domes, Chu said, "have been stable for tens of millions, hundreds of millions of years."
"People ask, 'Why were these sites excluded in the first place?" from consideration as possible storage sites, he said.
Yucca Mountain, he said, has fissures and could be saturated with water if the climate shifts in the distant future.
"So you say we could maybe add a titanium shield," Chu said. "Then you wonder if you're throwing good money after bad."
Chu faced hostile questioning from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who had harsh words for the Obama administration's decision on Yucca. She said the decision to pull the plug on Yucca could slow the progress of the cleanup at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state and other former nuclear weapons sites.
"I think it's irresponsible for DOE to abandon completely the Yucca site," Murray said. "These sites and the communities that support them have been left in limbo."
Murray also asked Chu for an "impact statement" about how shuttering Yucca will affect nuclear cleanups around the country.
Yesterday, the Energy Department filed its motion to withdraw the license at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the spent nuclear waste repository at Yucca (E&ENews PM, March 3).
Chu reiterated today the administration's plan to convene a commission to review and recommend policies to manage U.S. nuclear waste, and he stressed such a move would not affect future nuclear energy expansion in the United States. Murray said the panels should not have excluded restarting Yucca as an option.
Murray also questioned whether the basis for shutting down the facility was based on science or politics. Chu did not pinpoint a specific scientific study that recommended shutting down the site, but he cited the 25 years of experience working at Yucca as the basis for the decision.
At a hearing last week, John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told the House Science Committee that the years of experience at Yucca had not been wasted as they led to a better understanding of the characteristics of nuclear waste and the changes necessary to best store it.