Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump by Sam Rebecca

Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump by Sam, Rebecca, Emily, and Evan

What is Yucca Mountain? Yucca Mountain is the proposed U. S storage facility for spent nuclear reactor fuel and other radioactive waste from all across the country. There is an argument whether or not it should be put into use.

Why do we need a nuclear waste dump? • • The radiation cause diseases such as cancer and Leukemia and even a low level of radiation provides danger. It can cause diseases which can be genetic and affect future generations. A nuclear waste dump was proposed because if it were all buried deep in one place than it would take a much longer time for the radiation to affect the country as a whole. They wanted to put the waste in a remote place where the radiation wouldn’t harm many people in so many different areas.

What elements would be put in the dump? • Elements such as plutonium, uranium, cesium, strontium and all other elements that end in –ium would be put into the dump. They would emit either tiny alpha, beta particles or gamma rays. The elements could be radioactive from a matter of seconds, to billions of years-the longer the half life, depending on how intense the radiation.

Why Yucca Mountain? • Since Yucca Mountain was made from a caldera volcano, it contains material called tuff, which comes in many different forms. Tuff has physical and thermal characteristics that make that the land suitable material for holding radioactive waste for thousands of years. • At Yucca Mountain, nuclear waste is stored using dry cask storage. This storage has been used for numbers of years. Dry cask storage was one of the most practically options for the storage because the device is made of two large cylinders that hold the waste.

How will this affect people living near the dump? • Southern Nevadans will benefit from the Yucca Mountain dump site because it adds 3, 650 new relatively high paying jobs; it adds an extra $131 million to their economy. • Nevadans lose because the material at the dump is a health hazard. One in 125 get cancer if they get sick from radioactive material and one in 250 die. It is a greater risk especially if one lives there for long periods of time.

Timeline Of Yucca Mountain • 1978 - US department of energy study Yucca Mountain to see if it was suitable • Jan. 3, 1998 - Department of Energy supposed to accept fuel for Yucca mountain. They didn’t because of legal problems, concerns about transportation of waste, and political pressure because of there not being enough funding • Sept. 3 2008 - process of checking over & docketing application finished • Now: time limit of 3 -4 years to finish public hearings and safety analysis • 2017 - earliest estimated date of construction

What do politicians say? • Representatives and senators from Massachusetts, including Representative Barny Frank and Senator John F. Kerry, have in the past opposed burying radioactive materials at the Yucca Flats Nuclear Dump.

What Does Our Group Think? • As a group, we all think that Yucca Mountain has its pros and cons. There needs to be a place for keeping the dangerous radioactive material, but it also is harmful to the environment.

Are There Other Nuclear Waste Sites in the United States • There is another nuclear waste site in the United States called Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in Idaho. It is not as ideal as Yucca Mountain because the nuclear waste is farther underground than at the Idaho site.