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Geology, Technology and Policy: Finding Faults and Moving Forward with Nuclear Power and Waste Disposal

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Geology, Technology and Policy: Finding Faults and Moving Forward with Nuclear Power and Waste Disposal Geology, Technology and Policy: Finding Faults and Moving Forward with Nuclear Power and Waste Disposal Caitlin Lippincott Science, Technology and Society Department Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster, Pennsylvania STS 490 - Independent Study: Honors Thesis Dr. James Strick, Advisor 29 April 2005 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: The Political History of the U.S. High Level Waste Repository……...2 Postscript…………………………………………………………………23 Chapter 2: The Geologic Debate over High Level Waste Repositories………….27 Survey of Other Nations………………………………………………….36 Chapter 3: Earthquake Hazards and Public Opinion……………………………..46 Earthquake Hazard: Finding Fault………………………………………..46 Bodega Bay……………………………………………………………….50 Diablo Canyon……………………………………………………………55 Evacuation Problems……………………………………………………..58 Chapter 4: The South Korea Case………………………………………………..63 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..72 Appendix: Quick Outline to Nuclear Energy and Waste Disposal………………74 Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………...80 1 Introduction This project began in South Korea, when two geologists, Uechan Chwae and Sung-ja Choi, asked me if they could suggest a topic for my senior thesis. They were interested in knowing the history that lies behind the United States’s siting strategies for nuclear power plants and for its proposed waste disposal site. From that moment the project took off and expanded into the following thesis. I decided to explore the political side of many case studies as well as the geology since the outcomes were often clearly related to both aspects. I attempted to unravel the often very complicated network of agencies involved in the U.S. nuclear program, relying heavily on personal interviews. I also tried to touch on other countries with prominent nuclear programs. With over fifty years of nuclear power history the U.S. is an active guinea pig for nuclear power and waste disposal. This knowledge is valuable to many countries and I hope that it can be used to build upon what has been successful. My dearest hope for this project is that it can be used as a tool to understand what has worked in the past and where the problems emerged; helping other countries learn from past mistakes, and not repeat them. 2 Chapter 1 - The Political History of the U.S. High Level Waste Repository Currently 20% of the nation’s electrical energy comes from nuclear power; however, the United States fuel cycle produces the largest amount of nuclear waste, both by volume and radioactivity, of all civilian activities involving the licensed use of radioactivity.1 Because of the lack of a permanent long-term storage facility, most of the spent fuel, which is the largest amount of radioactivity but not the largest volume of nuclear waste in the fuel cycle, is stored in large pools or in dry casks at 78 sites across the country. Most of the reactors are near large cities, since they are providing power, and near a large body of water that is needed for cooling the core of the reactor. The majority of the waste is stored on site near the reactors. Thus it is also near large populated cities and close to a large water supply. In addition to reactors, 640 metric tons of spent fuel which was stored at the closed West Valley, New York site, formerly the Nuclear Fuel Services reprocessing facility, has been transported to Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to await disposal.2,3 As soon as nuclear reactions became an energy source, the civilian power industry realized that it needed a way to dispose of the waste created. As early as 1955 the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to study disposal methods for the waste from the nuclear weapons created in the United 1 League of Women voters, The Nuclear Waste Primer (Lyons and Burford, Publishers: New York, 1993), pp. 35-36 2 West Valley Demonstration Project Status, http://www.nyserda.org/programs/westval.asp [accessed April 2005] 3 The Eternity Problem: Nuclear Power Waste Storage. Duane Chapman, Contemporary Policy Issues Vol. VIII, Western Economic Association International. July 1990. pp. 84 3 States.4 In 1957 the first civilian reactor went online, and shortly afterwards the NAS reported that geologic burial was the best recommendation for the country’s transuranic and high-level radioactive waste.5 Salt domes were thought to be a possibility as disposal sites and further studies were carried out to determine their effectiveness. Throughout the 1960’s there was a massive expansion in the nuclear power industry, and many plants were built without a disposal plan for the waste. In 1970 the AEC tentatively selected a salt dome near Lyons, Kansas to be the nuclear waste repository, but within two years studies showed that the salt dome’s integrity might have been compromised due to nearby drilling.6 The AEC had been in charge of promoting and regulating nuclear power since the start of the industry. In October 1974, however, the AEC was abolished and two independent agencies were formed to remove the inherent conflict of interest in the system, which involved trying to promote the industry while simultaneously trying to regulate its safety.7 The Energy Research and Development Authority (ERDA), which was eventually absorbed into the new Department of Energy (DOE) in October 1977, was created to promote and enhance the nuclear power industry, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was formed to regulate the civilian nuclear industry. The ERDA was charged with the task of creating a facility for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste from civilian power plants. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an Executive Order, which banned the reprocessing of nuclear fuel from U.S. reactors. He 4 15 November 1999, Nuclear Age Timeline, 1999. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environment [online]. Available from: http://web.em.doe.gov/timeline. [Accessed 17 October 2004] 5 January 2002, Yucca Mountain Timeline, 2002, Reno Gazette-Journal [online]. Available from: http://www.rgj.com/news/printstory.php?id=5740. [Accessed 17 October 2004] 6 January 2002, Yucca Mountain Timeline, 2002, Reno Gazette-Journal [online]. Available from: http://www.rgj.com/news/printstory.php?id=5740. [Accessed 17 October 2004] 7 15 November 1999, Nuclear Age Timeline, 1999. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environment [online]. Available from: http://web.em.doe.gov/timeline. [Accessed 17 October 2004] 4 was trying to lead other countries away from the reprocessing of waste for nuclear weapons and to decrease the amount of weapons-grade material in circulation worldwide. This was an idealistic decision; reprocessing nonetheless continued in the U.S. weapons program and in many of the leading nuclear countries.8 In early 1982, President Ronald Reagan rescinded Carter’s Executive Order, which allowed consideration of reprocessing in the U.S. But by that time, expansion of the nuclear industry in the United States was coming to a halt, and there has not been any serious consideration of reprocessing to date.9 France and the United Kingdom are the only countries that have been truly successful with reprocessing, on a smaller scale. The Soviets carried out large scale reprocessing, but little is known in the West about their safety record. The main problem with reprocessing, beside the fact that one must dissolve the fuel in nitric acid, creating liquid acidic radioactive waste, arises because uranium is inexpensive. Fresh processed fuel costs approximately $100 a kilogram; to reprocess that fuel would cost about $1000. Some day the price of uranium will go up, and the disposed spent fuel will become a valuable resource. The accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania marked a shift in the American nuclear industry. The partial core meltdown, which released a minimal amount of radioactive material, greatly increased public fears about the safety of the industry and promptly established an unfavorable public view on nuclear power. No new nuclear plant construction authorizations were approved after the accident and some plant construction projects already underway were halted. The incident led the nation to 8 Personal interview with Paul Dickman, DOE, 19 October 2004. 9 Presidential Actions, PBS and WGBH/Frontline [online], 1998. Available from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/rossin1.html. [Accessed 25 October 2004] 5 focus more rigorously on waste disposal before proceeding with any further propagation of nuclear power. The Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980 made it the states’ responsibility to dispose of their low-level nuclear waste.10 The goal for high-level waste was that there would be two separate disposal facilities, the first one to be built in the American West and the second one to be built in the East, and a monitored interim storage facility. This would prevent one state from carrying the burden of the entire nation’s radioactive waste.11 A central storage facility for the nation’s high-level waste was still proving problematic; some sites in Tennessee were being considered, although nothing went further than site characterizations. Once again, almost twenty years after the NAS’s report stating that geologic disposal of high-level waste was the best means of disposal, the DOE issued the Record of Decision of 1981 supporting the geologic disposal of civilian waste.12 In January 1983 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 was signed, authorizing the development of a high-level nuclear waste repository, the search for a second repository site and the investigation of a monitored retrievable storage facility.13 Under the Nuclear Waste policy Act of 1982, the DOE was charged with selecting the sites for the repository. Nine sites were originally studied for the primary repository facility (Table 1) with 17 additional sites, mostly in the east and northeast, investigated for the second repository.
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