Eternity Metal

Paige Knight, Hanford Watch, June 2005

The DOE says the cans it'll stuff in mountains will hold waste for at least
10,000 years. The newest forever metal from which cans will be made was
developed at Lehigh University.
[http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-04/lu-nav040405.php]

I don't have a problem with claims made about the lifetime of can metal. What I
have a problem with is man working inside the mountain repository. Cans will be
smashed into cans, and cans will be smashed against mountain walls. Cans will be
put on top of cans, and the ones on the bottom will spill their contents. Before
the final sealant's applied to close the mountain off for eternity, lethal
uranium and plutonium will already be migrating outward to soil and ground
water. Politicians can talk all they want to about how cans will simply be
retrieved in case high levels of radiation are measured coming from the
mountain, but the fact is no-one's going to do that. If it takes 30 years to
fill a mountain, it'll certainly take no less to empty it, and by that time
it'll be too late to save the area.

We have to remember that Yucca Mountain, for instance, is slated to be stuffed
with 20,000 cans. That job's got to get very boring after a while, which is when
problems will begin. We can all expect the first 100 cans will be entered in the
mountain according to specs, especially with the public and smiling DOE, NRC,
and EPA officials watching. But what worries me is what bored mountain stuffers
will do with can numbers 101 to 20,000.

Whether Yucca opens or not doesn't erase the fact that this will happen in any
repository.

----------------------

Ron Bourgoin
Monday, June 6, 2005

Second to none

Congressman David Hobson (R-Ohio) has begun referring to the second-named
national geologic repository as "Yucca Mountain Two." [see
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/may/13/518752628.html ]
Because Yucca Mountain One is down on the canvas nearing the end of the ten
count, it could very well be that the second-named nuclear repository will be
the first to open.

By law, the second geologic burial facility can be named by Congress the year
after next. In view of the fact that nearly 25 years are required from naming to
opening, it'll be 2030 before a repository opens.

When it was decided to develop only Yucca Mountain in 1987, several people felt
that one of the other two sites on the list of first repositories (Hanford
Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, and a site in Deaf Smith County, Texas)
should be developed as a backup in case Yucca Mountain didn't meet muster. Had
an alternate site been built, we'd be opening a repository in 2010. It's
doubtful Congress will make that mistake again.

In 2007, look for Congress to name not only a second site but also a backup
site. On the list for the second repository and alternate site are the states of
Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Minnesota, and
Wisconsin.