# UCCA (yucka) Mountain, Nevada **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 26, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870 "2004-07-26T01:19:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hiding\_Wasp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5e925/32.png) [@Hiding\_Wasp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiding_Wasp)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/1 "2004-07-26T01:19:09Z")
Sixty Minutes is a very resourcefull show to find out what is going on about a variety of things. The program I just watched was how congress and the president want to send all of our radioactive waste to a mountain in Nevada. Of course, many of you people may not have to much of a problem because you don’t live in Nevada. Then again some of you people might have actually thought about how it might get there. They will use railroads. If the shipments are brought in from the east coast Chicago will be heavily effected. If it comes from the south Atlanta, St. Louis, and Kansas City will be effected. The city that will be effected the heaviest will be Las Vegas. We are taking a huge risk having it transported like this. Considering it doesn’ t take to much of this stuff accidentally being spilled and then we’ll have a catostrophic mess on our hands. P.S. For all of you people who think I’m working for Kerry. He doesn’t support this plan. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/2 "2004-07-26T01:34:55Z")
> [@Hiding Wasp](#): > > P.S. For all of you people who think I’m working for Kerry. He doesn’t support this plan. If he doesn’t, then he’s guilty of sacrificing the long-term benefits to his constituents on the altar of short-sighted political gain. Nuclear power is considerably safer than any fossil fuel and the chances of a train disaster such as you describe is rather slim. The visceral “ick” reaction is a pretty piss-poor method of forming an energy policy. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/3 "2004-07-26T02:00:02Z")
> [@Hiding Wasp](#): > > Considering it doesn’ t take to much of this stuff accidentally being spilled and then we’ll have a catostrophic mess on our hands. Radioactive waste is not shipped in tapperware, you know?, it doesn´t spill just like that. I once saw a video of a locomotive hitting a waste container (it was a test), it didn´t break. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/4 "2004-07-26T02:06:30Z")
I guess we’ll just have to leave it all in relatively unsecure “temporary” holding facilities, right next to our nuke power plants, scattered all over the country, and wait for a terrorist to fly a plane into one of them so we can have our own little Chernobyl-size cloud of contaminants. On this one, I’m rather disgusted with Senator Kerry. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/5 "2004-07-26T02:17:35Z")
Do those that oppose the Yucca Mountian facility have a better idea? If there is a viable plan B, let’s hear it. If not, let’s get that waste to Yucca. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/6 "2004-07-26T02:23:06Z")
I am all for a Plan B, if you have one let’s hear it. Otherwise let’s get this stuff underground before it leaks in place. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/7 "2004-07-26T02:28:02Z")
> [@](#): > > UCCA (yucka) Mountain, Nevada (Psst. Actually, it’s **Y** ucca Mountain. They nuclear trefoil on the graphic was supposed to be a “Y”.) > [@](#): > > If he doesn’t, then he’s guilty of sacrificing the long-term benefits to his constituents on the altar of short-sighted political gain. Nuclear power is considerably safer than any fossil fuel and the chances of a train disaster such as you describe is rather slim. > > The visceral “ick” reaction is a pretty piss-poor method of forming an energy policy. So you wouldn’t mind if it was sent to Montreal instead? It’s been several years since I first heard about the proposal to store the waste in Yacca Mountain. Seems to me that I remember something about faults int he mountain that could allow leaking waste to get into the aquifer. This would not be a good thing. > [@](#): > > wait for a terrorist to fly a plane into one of them As opposed to waiting for a terrorist with an RPG to blow a train off the tracks or a truck off the road, as they travel over a thousand miles through virtually unprotected countryside? I would suspect that the waste is currently stored in some-what hardened facilities, and aircraft don’t make very good penetrators. ---
**Author:** ![Hiding\_Wasp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5e925/32.png) [@Hiding\_Wasp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiding_Wasp)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/8 "2004-07-26T03:37:10Z")
You guys should know that i would research this before posting anything. I know that the containers holding the waste are hard to penetrate, but accidents can happen. Machines can malfunction and accidentally put the lid or whatever on wrong. Things can happen. I’m not that stupid, and another plan should be formulated so that we can have a backup because this plan won’t survive for the full 10,000 years that are needed. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/9 "2004-07-26T03:46:34Z")
You guys who are worried about train accidents really need to read up on the containers used to transport the stuff. Before a container is approved for shipping, it must pass the following tests: - a drop from 30 feet onto concrete. - a drop from 1 meter onto a rod 15 centimeters in diameter - A constant fire of 800 degrees - an 8-hour immersion in 3 feet of water Shipping containers can withstand impacts into brick walls at train speeds. They can take RPG rocket fire without breaking open. They can be in a burning train wreck indefinitely without spilling their contents. And if there IS a nuclear spill, it’s not exactly a Chernobyl. We’re talking about solid waste, so it’s not about to kill thousands of people. We’re talking about an expensive HAZMAT cleanup. Not the end of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/10 "2004-07-26T04:08:18Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > So you wouldn’t mind if it was sent to Montreal instead? Stupid response. Canadian reactors currently store their high-level waste on site, but are kicking around the idea of a permanent underground facility somewhere in the Canadian Shield. The Yucca Mountain proposal represents a huge yet vastly underpopulated territory that could be ideal (or the least worst choice) for a permament American repository. I guess _you_ wouldn’t mind putting your fingers in your ears and going “NANANANA” to ignore the more gradual damage done to the environment by fossil fuels, as long as we’re throwing around dumb observations. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/11 "2004-07-26T04:43:04Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > kicking around the idea of a permanent underground facility somewhere in the Canadian Shield. I’ve always been fond of the Canadian shield. It’s a nice big chunk of rock that nothing much has happened to in the last two billion years. In terms of long term stability, it beats the hell out of an earthquake ridden bit of tuff sitting on the edge of a purportedly extinct, caldera-forming supervolcano. I don’t suppose you Canadians would be interested in putting together a _joint_ facility with your friends from south of the border? There might even be a little $$$ in it for you. ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/12 "2004-07-26T04:52:31Z")
> [@Hiding Wasp](#): > > You guys should know that i would research this before posting anything. I know that the containers holding the waste are hard to penetrate, but accidents can happen. Machines can malfunction and accidentally put the lid or whatever on wrong. Things can happen. I’m not that stupid, and another plan should be formulated so that we can have a backup because this plan won’t survive for the full 10,000 years that are needed. But, as several posters have already pointed out, moving the waste to a central location (pretty isolated, I might add) is a _much_ better idea than keeping the waste stored in the current locations, near populated areas and such. As you said, accidents can happen- and better they happen away from residential areas. As for leakage from the Yucca site into an aquifer… I would think that since the area is somewhat isolated, some kind of action could be taken to retard or stop any leakage from getting “too far” (I’m sure the area would be extremely well monitored). I remember talking about this with my wife several months ago (she much more educated about this than I… you know, as a geological engineer), but I don’t remember some of her rebuttals off-hand. She is all for the Yucca Mountain project, though. I am disappointed that Kerry isn’t for it though… I was unaware of that. LilShieste ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/13 "2004-07-26T05:32:53Z")
I’ve heard nothing about ‘leaking into aquifers’…at least nothing real from a credible source. I’ve certainly heard a lot of ranting and hand wringing from the anti-nuclear crowd. If someone has a credible cite for that I’m willing to listen. The only thing I’ve heard is that no scientist will make the absurd statement that they 100% guarentee the site will remain intact for 10,000 years, and thats what has the clueless folks that don’t understand science’s panties in a bunch. Again, lets hear a viable plan B. I’ve yet to hear anything more than “just leave it where it is…its worked so far”. However, I’ve ALSO seen some pretty disturbing things about how the waste is currently being ‘stored’…as well as how its being guarded, and the fact that guarding the stuff in multiple locations makes it an easier target. VERY disturbing. The government has spent literally billions on the Yucca Mtn. project…and will probably end up spending billions more because of the knee jerk reaction of the clueless and the fanatic, who will continue to block this thing while giving no alternatives. And it will be all of us who pay in the end for the nuclear-phobes, because in the end reality will rear its ugly head and we’ll HAVE to do something with the waste. C’est la vie I guess… -XT ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/14 "2004-07-26T13:30:21Z")
[Here](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38751-2004Jul9.html) and [url=]here are articles on a recent court ruling on the Yucca Mt. repository. The court rejected a lot of the arguments against the site; however, they did find that the current standard that the EPA is using is inadequate in being inconsistent with recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences: > [@](#): > > The court dismissed Nevada’s assertion that locating the site at Yucca is unconstitutional and that other measures violate the nuclear waste law. But in a separate section of the 100-page decision, the judges took aim at the EPA for disregarding findings by the National Academy of Sciences, which called for a storage system that would protect against radiation releases beyond the next 10,000 years. Congress in 1992 approved legislation requiring federal officials to take the academy’s recommendations into account. > > The three-judge panel wrote that the EPA “unabashedly rejected NAS’s findings, and then went on to promulgate a dramatically different standard, one that the Academy had expressly rejected.” This isn’t to say that Yucca Mt. won’t ultimately be the best solution to this vexxing problem of what to do with the high-level radioactive waste, but it seems from this court decision (assuming they are reading the NAS conclusions correctly) that there are some legitimate scientific concerns about the current plan. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/15 "2004-07-26T13:31:08Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Stupid response. Ad hominem. > [@](#): > > The Yucca Mountain proposal represents a huge yet vastly underpopulated territory that could be ideal (or the least worst choice) for a permament American repository. I’m willing to concede that this might be true. But Yucca Mountain has been the _only_ site under consideration since 1987. I think other sites should be sought out and considered. > [@xtisme](#): > > I’ve heard nothing about ‘leaking into aquifers’ [Area Unsuitable for a Permanent High-level Waste Dump](http://www.radtexas.org/yuccamountain.html) > [@](#): > > The Department of Energy, NRC and Environmental Protection Agency all have weakened public protection standards in recent years to accommodate the site designation. Yucca Mountain is in what is classified as a “Class-4 Probability Earthquake Hazard Zone” by the USGS. There are 33 earthquake faults in the immediate area, including two that run under Yucca Mountain. In 1992, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain caused $1 million in damages to the DOE Field Operations Center. > > The area also has a long history of volcanic activity- the mountain itself is a “collapsed caldera” and is surrounded by dozens of extinct volcanoes. Cinder cones surrounding it are evidence of relatively recent volcanic activity. The volcanic tuffs at Yucca are highly fractured and faulted, presenting a pathway for gaseous radionuclides to escape into the environment. Such fracture conductivity has already been documented at the Yucca site. > > The origin of calcite/opal deposits at Yucca indicates that water has “upwelled” in the past. These mineralized thermal fluids could threaten the integrity of a repository. Spent Nuclear Fuel also continues to produce thermal energy after disposal. high temperatures will affect the waste packaging and surrounding rock stratas. In 1995, DOE scientists reported that high-level radioactive waste in a repository could reach criticality and possibly result in a nuclear explosion. A chain reaction could occur with an unknown blast yield. > > Groundwater contamination is a major concern and is the most likely means by which radionuclides would be transported to the environment. Southern Nevada’s “carbonate aquifer” extends over 100 miles and flows from the Pahranagat Mountains, past Yucca Mountain into California. Concerns have been voiced about radionuclide pollution infiltrating local Amargosa Valley farming community and Death Valley National Park. “Fracture flow” research confirms short groundwater travel time. Some amounts of tritium and plutonium from nuclear tests are already present in the groundwater. The DOE has claimed that the presence of zeolite clays would retard radionuclides from migrating; but recent work has found that mineral colloides may act to accelerate this process. Further, zeolites pose a direct cancer threat to on-site workers during excavation at the site. > > Finally, the site lies within a belt that has produced oil and other valuable ore deposits making the potential for human intrusion by those seeking natural resources very high. In addition to the 1992 earthquake, there was a magnitude 4.4 in June 2002. No damage was reported at Yucca Mountain from the 1992 or 2002 quakes; but geologically active areas do represent a potential danger. But the biggest danger is not the site itself; it’s getting the waste to it. As has been pointed out, there have been numerous tests that show the containers will stand up to accidents. Trucks do crash, and trains do derail. I think it was the Landers quake (in the desert, a couple hundred miles from Las Vegas) that derailed a train a few years ago. I don’t think that such a crash would breach the containers. But a terrorist who is actively trying to breach them may have more success. The _60 Minutes_ piece seemed to indicate that the containers might not stand up to an anti-tank round. > [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > I guess _you_ wouldn’t mind putting your fingers in your ears and going “NANANANA” to ignore the more gradual damage done to the environment by fossil fuels, as long as we’re throwing around dumb observations. You have come to the conclusion that because I have concerns about this particular site and the movement of the waste to it, that I am anti-nuclear. I’m not. Yes, nuclear power is a viable option to fossil fuels. I’d like to see _more_ nuclear power plants. I’d also like to see other forms of energy developed. (The wind turbines near where I used to live work pretty well, and I’d like to see more solar plants like the experimental one near Barstow developed.) But for now, nuclear power is the most viable. The problem is what to do with the spent fuel. Yucca Mountain are that it is in a geologically active area with numerous faults. Maybe it _is_ the “least worst choice”; but the appearance is that it was chosen for political expediency. I’d like for other sites to have been studied since 1987. I’d like to know what will be done _if_ radioactive materials get into the groundwater. I’d like to know how convoys will be protected from attack by terrorists armed with anti-tank weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/16 "2004-07-26T14:09:36Z")
No it’s a poor choice of comparison when the population denisities are off by a factor of 10,000. Besides, the argument was called stupid not the person making the argument. Montreal Population = 3,426,000 Land Area (sq miles) = 679 Pop/sq mile = 5046 Eureka County Population = 1,500 Land Area (sq miles) = 4,176 Pop/sq mile = 0.4 Stretch it out to compare the State/Province Quebec Population = 7,200,00 Land Area = 601,000 Pop/sq mile = 11 Nevada Population = 2,241,000 Land Area = 109,829 Pop/sq mile = 20 There must have been candidates other than Yucca mountain. Where were they and what argued against their selection? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/17 "2004-07-26T14:34:24Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > There must have been candidates other than Yucca mountain. Where were they and what argued against their selection? > [@](#): > > After passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, Yucca Mountain was named one of nine Potentially Acceptable Sites to be studied prior to selection of three candidate repository sites. The Yucca Mountain site is in bedded volcanic tuff. The other sites were at the Department of Energy’s Washington State Hanford reservation, in basalt; in Texas and Utah, in deeply buried salt beds; and in Louisiana and Mississippi, in buried salt domes. With DOE’s promulgation of its site recommendation guidelines (10 CFR Part 960), pursuant to the NWPA, it was clear that the Yucca Mountain site, the Hanford site, and one salt site would be the three candidates selected for detailed site characterization, unless Yucca Mountain or Hanford were disqualified for technical reasons under DOE’s guidelines. This resulted from the guidelines’ requirement that the three candidate sites represent a diversity of geohydrologic settings and rock types. [here](http://www.yuccamountain.org/archive/nuctome2.htm) (Don’t mind the slant, that site just had the info in the most readable form) I’m a little surprised that the old Iron mines near Soudan in northern Minnesota, or the roots of the Penokean mountains near, say Clam Lake, Wisconsin were not considered. Both regions are old, and geologically stable. I suppose that once a bureaucracy dumps a few hundred million into one possible solution to a problem, they tend to stick with it, regardless of whether it’s the _best_ solution. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/18 "2004-07-26T14:54:18Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Ad hominem. Well, that’s an even _stupider_ response. I make no statement about you personally, except I note that you have the demonstrated ability to say things that seem pat, but are actually stupid. Were you seriously assuming I thought Yucca Montain and Montreal were equally viable sites for a high-level waste dump? > [@](#): > > But the biggest danger is not the site itself; it’s getting the waste to it. As has been pointed out, there have been numerous tests that show the containers will stand up to accidents. Trucks do crash, and trains do derail. I think it was the Landers quake (in the desert, a couple hundred miles from Las Vegas) that derailed a train a few years ago. I don’t think that such a crash would breach the containers. But a terrorist who is actively trying to breach them may have more success. The _60 Minutes_ piece seemed to indicate that the containers might not stand up to an anti-tank round. If a terrorist wanted to cause an environmental catastrophe, there are better targets than the mega-reinforced high-level waste containers. Taking out a train carrying a cargo of simple deisel fuel near a city waterway would be about as bad. If you’re going to postulate a terrorist with an anti-tank weapon (and even _that_ might not be enough to breach one of these containers), there are so many better targets he could choose. Heck, putting a round in the Capitol dome would be a sufficiently bold statement. The spectre of a determined terrorist doesn’t strike me as a sufficiently compelling argument. It too easily leads to other preposterous slippery-slope notions like banning air travel, eliminating private ownership of large vehicles, or restricting gatherings to five people or fewer. > [@](#): > > You have come to the conclusion that because I have concerns about this particular site and the movement of the waste to it, that I am anti-nuclear. I’m not. I hadn’t drawn any such conclusion, nor do I care what your stance on nuclear power is. Your casual dismissal of a single high-level dump on alarmist grounds, though, suggests to me that you don’t favour the proper use of nuclear power. Neither alternative: [ul][li]Keep nuclear, but store waste on site, or[/li][li]Reduce or eliminate nuclear, which will lead to increased demand for polluting fossil fuels[/ul][/li]…is better. > [@](#): > > Yes, nuclear power is a viable option to fossil fuels. I’d like to see _more_ nuclear power plants. I’d also like to see other forms of energy developed. (The wind turbines near where I used to live work pretty well, and I’d like to see more solar plants like the experimental one near Barstow developed.) But for now, nuclear power is the most viable. The problem is what to do with the spent fuel. Yucca Mountain may be prone to minor earthquakes, but there’s always going to be _some_ risk. If the risk is lower than keeping high-level waste on site, good. > [@](#): > > Yucca Mountain are that it is in a geologically active area with numerous faults. Maybe it _is_ the “least worst choice”; but the appearance is that it was chosen for political expediency. I’d like for other sites to have been studied since 1987. I’d like to know what will be done _if_ radioactive materials get into the groundwater. There’s no place on Earth that _isn’t_ geologically active. The political expediency in this issue comes from trying to score points by speaking _against_ the project, rather than for it. After all, if political expediency was served by the Yucca project, perhaps it wouldn’t still just be under consideration 15+ years later. The groundwater concern is a valid one, I’ll admit. Naturally, reasonable precautions should be taken, then tripled. It may simply turn out that there is no site within the continental U.S. which is better. > [@](#): > > I’d like to know how convoys will be protected from attack by terrorists armed with anti-tank weapons. Heck, I’d like to know how passenger jets will be protected from attack by terrorists armed with stinger missiles, but I don’t consider the possibility a valid reason to restrict passenger jets. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/19 "2004-07-26T16:22:52Z")
All in all, we have to go with Yucca Mountain. We really have no other choice. Keeping the stuff in place is a nonstarter. Wishing will not make it go away. Frankly, the best solution would have been not to have produced in the first place. Now we are in a pickle. As I said, if someone has a Plan B, I wold like to hear it. I would propose we open YM and use it for a couple of three years to burry low-level waste. Once we can do that reliably, we can get read of the nasty stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870/20 "2004-07-26T17:47:31Z")
There is no plan B. There should be, but right now, we have no solution to the problem of long-term storage except Yucca Mountain. Thing is, we’re uncertain about the safety of Yucca Mountain on 10^4-to-10^5 year time scales. Fine. Lets use the 5000-or-so years of virtual impregnability we’ve got until then to find a better solution. But the waste we have already is a major problem _right now_. It needs to be consolidated and secured. And like it or not, we still need nuclear power, maybe now more than ever. Anything we can do to reduce our dependence on Middle-East oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions is worth a look. Solar and wind are decades away from picking up a significant portion of the slack. Fusion may never be a viable option (though I sincerely hope it will be). We don’t want to dam more rivers, we don’t want to burn more coal and natural gas, people gripe about giant windmills obscuring their views, photovoltaic cells are expensive, inefficient, and dirty to produce…what’s the solution? I can’t come up with a better short-term plan than nuclear power. We simply must find a place to put the waste that is, at the very least, safer than where it is now. A terrorist attack on one of our current facilities would be devastating, and unfortunately, these facilities are not nearly hard enough to withstand an airplane crash, or even a large bomb. They are prime targets, and always will be so long as they exist. Nothing short of an underground nuclear blast could penetrate Yucca Mountain. If our enemies have such a weapon, they’ll no longer need a dirty bomb. Yucca Mountain, while not perfect, isn’t a bad bet for the next few tens of thousands of years. It may be secure for much longer. The fact is, no one really knows on timescales that large, and I’m not at all convinced better places can be found if the main criterion must be impregnability forever. It may be that no such location exists. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ucca-yucka-mountain-nevada/256870.md?page=2)