Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository
Yucca Mountain is a flat ridge in the U.S. state of Nevada, the nearly 10 km from south to north extends. The region has a desert climate with little rainfall. The area is located on the traditional land of the Western Shoshone Indians, where the area is sacred.
Use as a site for radioactive waste
Yucca Mountain was selected as the expected location of a repository for spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Originally should be selected from three location alternatives by means of a comparative evaluation of the best location for the further investigations. This procedure was stopped, and Yucca Mountain was determined as the sole repository site to be investigated by the federal government. Plans envisaged a storage capacity of approximately 77,000 tons of radioactive waste before, including 63,000 tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants, the rest being spent fuel from military use reactors and vitrified high- level radioactive waste from military use reprocessing facilities of the Department of Energy (DOE).
The planned storage box between 200 and 425 m below the surface. The host rock is volcanic tuff. After the stopped planning the disposal of large underground cavities should be made with a variety of connecting tunnels, in which the waste is stored. The delivered material is unloaded from the transport containers and decanted into dense final disposal containers. These are horizontally placed in the tunnels. The effectiveness of various technical barriers is currently under investigation by the DOE.
The suitability and use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository is controversial. In particular, future climate changes will apply ( rather than humid climate desert climate ), earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as potential threats to the repository. Politically, all U.S. states - with the exception of Nevada - for a repository in Yucca Mountain. This would have the advantage that especially the eastern states, where the majority of nuclear power plants is, their radioactive waste could get rid of there. For years, the Western Shoshone struggle involved in national environmental organizations to stop the project. In 2002, the government decided, under President George W. Bush set up the repository in spite of numerous negative environmental studies and against the protests of the indigenous. Under the presidency of Barack Obama, the project was stopped for the time being, however, in February 2009, because Yucca Mountain is located in an earthquake zone. In addition, to handle the waste in the U.S. waste quantity is larger than the previously licensed capacity for Yucca Mountain since at least 2011.
The Yucca Mountain was the starting point of an investigation into Atomsemiotik.