Expert Panel Finds Flaw in Yucca Mountain Design

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is preparing to tell the U.S. Energy Department that its plan for storing nuclear waste at the planned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada could lead to corrosion of the waste storage containers and possible leaks, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 15).

Energy has planned to use the heat generated by nuclear waste to keep the containers dry by packing the storage containers close together, resulting in the tunnels heating to almost 300 degrees in the first decades of storage, according to the Times. The board has said in a drafted letter, however, that any water within the mountain would be mixed with salt, making the water harder to boil away as planned and thereby resulting in corrosion.

“We basically raised a flag and said, ‘If you’re going to do this, you’ve decreased the possibility of your container being a real barrier,” said board member David Duquette, head of the materials science department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Oct. 21).

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