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Nuclear challenges

Public opinion is the greatest barrier to finding a long-term solution for spent nuclear fuel, argue Max Dobson and Dennis O’Leary

16 May 2022

Yucca Mountain proposed nuclear waste depository

The demand for the reduced use of fossil fuels has stimulated calls for increased nuclear power. However, that enthusiasm does not extend to managing the growing volume of spent nuclear fuel – the inevitable result of generating carbon-free nuclear energy. The search for a low-risk permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel remains one of the great challenges of our age, and probably the one with the greatest public resistance.

England and Wales are currently exploring the option of deep geological disposal, whilst Finland is in the final stages of commissioning tunnels in what may be the world’s first spent fuel disposal facility. Yet, the country with the most nuclear power plants, the US, is at a social and political impasse concerning any plan for spent nuclear fuel.

Until 2009, the US was on its way to achieving a national nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. However, progress halted largely because of political and social objections. This cautionary tale from the US exemplifies the geological and social complexities involved for any high-level nuclear waste disposal site, and may help concentrate the minds of those involved in the UK’s disposal effort.

The plan was to place the waste in specially designed canisters, install these by rail in tunnels excavated in the mountain, and to leave the mountain without a permanent seal for at least a century (a “pre-closure phase”) and to seal it permanently thereafter. Thus, the repository would start as a monitored repository and then become a sealed-and-forget type.

Characterisation of the site involved a thorough vetting of every geological phenomenon, past and present, within a 100-km radius of the proposed repository. Whatever hazards that could be anticipated in the pre-closure and post-closure phases of operation were considered, including groundwater infiltration, earthquake damage, and volcanic intrusion (e.g. Stuckless & Levich, 2007).

The investigation proceeded slowly, partly due to bureaucracy and partly because of the exceptional care and detail required for
a never-before-achieved goal of safety and longevity. The main constraint on time was quality assurance, a system of protocols designed to ensure that every step of the work was documented and each collected sample was retrievable, accurately located, and precisely measured. This approach was meant to ensure a transparent path of accountability and data quality, with no shortcuts or untraceable work. Independent staff continually reviewed the protocols, and revised the technical definitions and work procedures. Detailed study plans for every aspect of research were essential. Geologists were required to carry up-to-date documents in the field and prepare for field audits to ensure they followed the correct procedures and document retention. This was science in the regulatory environment.

In practice, the documentation associated with site work threatened to overwhelm actual results. Most notably, in 2004, a one-million-year outlook became a court-ordered licence requirement. The original timeline for repository performance was for a 10,000-year outlook. How could a geologist confidently predict what might happen a million years on, when meaningful prediction depended on the extrapolation of a highly varied, 15-million-year geological history?

Another impediment to progress was public opinion. The primary concern was that surface water would infiltrate the repository, shorten the life of the waste canisters, and release radioisotopes to the ‘accessible environment’.

The search for a low-risk permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel remains one of the great challenges of our age

From the geological viewpoint, we argue that Yucca Mountain is as acceptable a site for radioactive waste disposal in the US as is likely to be found –the potentially adverse aspects are well understood and constrained by sound science. The cost of characterising and developing an alternative underground repository site in the US would take decades and cost billions of dollars. However, despite a proposed trillion-dollar US Infrastructure Law (The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 2021) that lists extensive support for more nuclear power, there is no mention of a national mined repository, so this seems out of the question.

The 2012 Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future that dismissed Yucca Mountain as a repository site recommended deep borehole disposal as an alternative. However, they stipulated that any progress required cooperation and permission from residents in the affected areas. The commission was keen not to repeat the Yucca Mountain debacle; public buy-in would be essential. In countries including Canada, Finland, Spain and Sweden, instituted procedures ensure that local communities consent to the location of a nuclear waste facility. A consent-based approach may be feasible in Western Europe, where the populace typically has a relatively high regard for societal cooperation. In the US, however, concern for private property rights and suspicion of the federal government would likely defeat such an approach.

In reviewing the history and travails of obtaining a geological repository for nuclear waste in the US, we see that science – geology – faces a barrier that wasn’t properly considered in the decades of planning and research: public opinion. No amount of analysis, modelling and research can overcome this resistance, and scientists are poorly prepared to deal with it. Public attitude remains the last and most important barrier to finding a long-term solution to the problem of nuclear waste. This presents an astonishing irony, as public acceptance of nuclear power is counterweighed by the public’s refusal to deal with the residue of creating that power. Perhaps the situation is analogous to the pollution of the Thames during the 1850s – if it gets bad enough, a remedy will be found. Unfortunately, one cannot smell gamma radiation.

Further reading
• Stuckless, J.S. & Levich, R.A (Eds) The Geology and Climatology of Yucca Mountain and Vicinity, Southern Nevada and California. GSA Memoir 199; doi.org/10.1130/MEM199

Maxwell Dobson
Professor Maxwell Dobson was Head of Geology at Aberystwyth University (1988 – 1993) and Head of Geology at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (1999 – 2001). Now retired, Max is a long-time collaborator with Dennis O’Leary.  maxson007@yahoo.com

Dennis O’Leary
Dr Dennis O’Leary was a Senior Geologist with the US Geological Survey working on the Yucca Mountain Project. As part of the project, he was tasked with assessing the geological stability of the mountain and its surroundings, including hazards posed by earthquakes, faults near the mountain, and volcanic eruptions. Dennis passed away in October 2021.

 

The full version of this column appears below. Editor.

Nuclear challenges in a hostile world

Yucca Mountain proposed nuclear waste depository

The demand for the reduced use of fossil fuels has stimulated calls for increased nuclear power. However, that enthusiasm does not extend to managing the mounting volume of spent nuclear fuel—the inevitable result of generating carbon-free nuclear energy. The search for a low-risk permanent disposal site for spent nuclear fuel remains one of the great geological (and environmental) challenges of our age, and probably the one with the greatest public resistance. Apart from the vexing political and social objections, the prospect of finding and securing an environmentally safe geological repository site that would be stable for at least tens of thousands of years is a daunting challenge.

England and Wales are currently exploring the option of deep geological disposal, whilst Finland is in the final stages of commissioning tunnels in what may be the world’s first spent fuel disposal facility. Yet, the country with the most nuclear power plants, the US (currently 99 in operation), is at a social and political impasse concerning any plan for spent nuclear fuel.

Until 2009, the US was on its way to achieving a national nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. However, progress halted largely because of political and social objections. This cautionary tale from the US exemplifies the geological and social complexities involved for any high-level nuclear waste disposal site, and may help concentrate the minds of those involved in the UK’s disposal effort.

Yucca Mountain

The Department of Energy began studying Yucca Mountain in 1978. The plan was to install waste by rail in specially designed canisters, to leave the mountain without a permanent seal for at least a century (a “pre-closure phase”) and to seal it permanently thereafter. Thus, the repository would start as a monitored repository and then become a sealed-and-forget type.

Characterisation of the site involved a thorough vetting of every geological phenomenon, past and present, within a 100-km radius of the proposed repository. Whatever hazards that could be anticipated in the pre-closure and post-closure phases of operation were considered, including groundwater infiltration, earthquake damage, and volcanic intrusion (e.g.Levich & Stuckless, 2007; O’Leary, 2007; Stuckless & O’Leary, 2007).

The investigation proceeded slowly, partly due to bureaucracy and partly because of the exceptional care and detail required for a never-before-achieved goal of safety and longevity. The main constraint on time was quality assurance, a system of protocols designed to ensure that every step of the work was documented and each collected sample was retrievable, accurately located, and precisely measured. This approach was meant to ensure a transparent path of accountability and data quality, with no shortcuts or untraceable work. Autonomous staff continually reviewed the protocols, and revised the technical definitions and work procedures. Detailed study plans for every aspect of research were essential. Geologists were required to carry up-to-date documents in the field and prepare for field audits to ensure they followed the correct procedures and document retention. This was science in the regulatory environment.

In practice, the documentation associated with site work threatened to overwhelm actual results. Most notably, in 2004, a one-million-year outlook became a court-ordered licence requirement (Senate Hearing 109-523). The original timeline for repository performance was for a 10,000-year outlook. How could a geologist confidently predict what might happen a million years on, when meaningful prediction depended on the extrapolation of a highly varied, 15-million-year geological history constrained by the probability limits of geological events that might be hazards to long-term repository performance?

Another impediment to progress was public opinion. The primary concern was that surface water would infiltrate the repository, shorten the life of the waste canisters, and release radioisotopes to the ‘accessible environment’. Studies of opal mineral fillings at the repository horizon showed no substantial variation in growth rates due to deposition from passage of water during the last 300,000 years, suggesting that water fluxes are low and buffered from surface variations (Paces et al. 2010). However, an isotope of chlorine and tritium created by atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site for nuclear devices and weapons was discovered at the repository level, showing that water could, in fact, reach the repository within 50 years (Paces, 2006). Most of the bomb-pulse chlorine samples were found near known faults and in bordering fractured rock. Thus some faults, at least, clearly provide fast pathways for infiltration.

A geological viewpoint

From the geological viewpoint, we argue that Yucca Mountain is as acceptable a site for radioactive waste disposal in the US as is likely to be found.  Characterizing and developing an alternative mined repository site in the US would take decades and cost billions of dollars. However, despite a proposed trillion-dollar US Infrastructure Law (The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 2021) that lists extensive support for more nuclear power, there is no mention of a national underground repository, so this seems out of the question.

The potentially adverse characteristics of the Yucca Mountain site are well understood and constrained by sound science, and we believe that the license application deserves review. However, even if public and political opinion supported this, the project would face major challenges associated with construction, transportation and cost. Additionally, the volume of spent fuel accumulated in the decade since the project ended exceeds what could safely be stored there.

Public buy-in

The commission that dismissed Yucca Mountain as a repository site recommended deep borehole disposal as an alternative (The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, 2012; www.energy.gov). This approach avoids some of the perceived problems presented by Yucca Mountain, such as volcanism, earthquake damage, erosional exposure and human access to the waste packages. The use of deep disposal at sites near at least some power plants also alleviates the problems and expense of, and the public objection to, cross-country transportation of radioactive waste to a central repository site. Concerns about water contacting and corroding the waste packages are allayed by emplacement in a reducing environment – one that is deep enough that the metal cladding and waste content would not be subject to solution and transmission into shallow groundwater. Unlike the fixed volume of a mined repository, any number of boreholes could be created to accommodate an increased inventory of spent reactor fuel.

However, the commission stipulated that any progress required cooperation and permission from local residents in the affected areas. The commission was keen not to repeat the Yucca Mountain debacle; public buy-in would be essential. In countries including Canada, Finland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK, instituted procedures ensure that local communities consent to the location of a nuclear waste facility. A consent-based approach may be feasible in Europe, where the populace typically has a relatively high regard for societal cooperation. In the US however, concern for private property rights and suspicion of the federal government would likely defeat such an approach.

For example, in 2013, the Sandia National Laboratories created selection guidelines for a deep borehole demonstration site, but attempts to drill a test borehole in both North and South Dakota were met with public rejection (www.osti.gov). In contrast, the UK has embarked on a programme to identify suitable sites for deep burial, beginning with public consultation, and has also begun testing an engineering system aimed at sealing deep boreholes at the ‘Magnox Harwell site’ in Oxfordshire (www.gov.uk).

In reviewing the history and travails of establishing a geological repository for nuclear waste in the US, we see that science – geology – faces a barrier that wasn’t properly considered in the decades of planning and research: public opinion. No amount of analysis, modelling and research can overcome this resistance, and scientists are poorly prepared to deal with it. Public attitude remains the most important barrier to finding a long-term solution to the problem of nuclear waste. This presents an astonishing irony, as public acceptance of nuclear power is counterweighed by the public’s refusal to deal with the residue of creating that power. Perhaps the situation is analogous to the pollution of the Thames during the 1850s – if it gets bad enough, a remedy will be found. Unfortunately, one cannot smell gamma radiation.

 

Authors

Maxwell Dobson

Professor Maxwell Dobson was Head of Geology at Aberystwyth University (1988 – 1993) and Head of Geology at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (1993 – 1996). Now retired, Max is a long-time collaborator with Dennis O’Leary.

Email: maxson007@yahoo.com

Dennis O’Leary

Dr Dennis O’Leary was a senior technical geologist with the US Geological Survey working on the Yucca Mountain Project. As part of the project, he was tasked with assessing the geologic stability of the mountain and its surroundings, including hazards posed by earthquakes, faults near the mountain, and volcanic eruptions. Dennis passed away in October 2021.

Further reading

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