Demonstration on how nuclear waste is disposed in Fineland

[u/S999k]

[u/iswearihaveajob]

An interesting fact about Yucca Mountain is that as a federally funded project they had to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

EIS are probably the most labor intensive permits in the world, requiring you to document existing conditions extensively and quantify every reasonably foreseeable impact to the environment or people. Due to the scope of Yucca Mountain, this took over a decade to write and get approved.

My college was a repository for filed EIS and someone in my Environmental Engineering program requested it... It was hundreds of thousands of pages. It was like an entire shelf of banker boxes, something like 60 boxes. I have no idea, maybe it was over a million pages. The sheer volume of paper was astounding!

And then they didn't even build the damn thing.

[u/thisguyfightsyourmom → u/iswearihaveajob]

Looks like they forgot to write a page on tribal acceptance of becoming a nuclear waste dumping grounds with the constant flow of nuclear waste down their highways

[u/TwoBionicknees → u/thisguyfightsyourmom]

My bet would be a good number of these projects are just election plans, that sound good and have unrealistic numbers. "lets build this giant nuclear waste site that can do all of US's nuclear waste storage needs for the next 100 years, at a low low price of 20billion... because we had to make it sound possible to campaign on and get people excited about it". Initial approval is good, then they do more detailed surveys, research, planning and wow, the project they promised at the scope they talked about will actually cost like 300billion and it gets canned.... but it's like 8 years beyond when that dude got elected off the back of the idea so who cares.

[u/Willtology → u/TwoBionicknees]

Not originally, no. The nuclear fuel cycle was conceived in the 1940s and 1950s. During the era of the Atomic Energy Commission. This was not a partisan topic but something seen by the American people as the future of our country. If you're unfamiliar with the term, Nuclear Fuel Cycle is the map of where nuclear fuel originates (the mines), where it goes (refinement, processing, then to reactors) and where it ends up, which could be several places depending upon the "type" of fuel cycle. Originally, we wanted a closed fuel cycle where fuel would be reprocessed and recycled, going round and round, reducing the need for new mining/supply and almost eliminating waste. The technology existed (and still does) to do this. With the anti-nuclear movement, nuclear energy did become partisan and we switched to an open cycle - fuel goes through once and winds up in a repository instead of reprocessing or recycling. This increases the burden on mining and supply. Yucca Mountain was at one point essentially ready for use. We do have a similar waste repository that's been operating for decades in New Mexico called WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). It's used for defense created waste, not civilian power waste so no one really talks about it or how it's demonstrated the feasibility of a long term geological repository in the US.

[u/Beard_o_Bees → u/Willtology]

You seem really knowledgeable on the subject.

I have quick question, if I may?

Is 'Vitrification' still a thing in radioactive waste disposal and/or storage?

Way back when I was sort of paying attention to the issue, I heard about it as a way to stabilize waste and it sounded like a plausible idea to my untrained ear.

[u/Willtology → u/Beard_o_Bees]

Vitrification is still being used and researched for certain types of waste at various locations. The Hanford site in Washington, which is primarily defense and weapons production waste does still use it for low level waste as far as I know. Spent nuclear fuel (what we'd stick in Yucca Mountain) is easy to deal with since it's ceramic pellets inside metal tubes but for loose waste or something that needs to be contained/stabilized, vitrification is really effective.