What are three reasons that Yucca Mountain was chosen to hold nuclear waste?

Yucca Mountain was chosen because it is in a desert location far from population centers, and because it is surrounded by federal land. Republicans and some Democrats in Congress want the project restarted and say that shuttering it wasted billions already spent building the facility.

How is waste stored in Yucca Mountain?

Currently, most of the waste for which the Yucca Mountain repository was designed is stored throughout the country at commercial nuclear power plants; there is a smaller amount of the waste at Department of Energy facilities.

How much nuclear waste could Yucca Mountain hold?

The Yucca Mountain repository would have a capacity of 77,000 tons. In 2003, 46,000 tons of high-level waste was stored around the country. Nuclear power facilities produce an additional 2,000 tons of waste a year.

Why is Yucca Mountain not suitable for nuclear waste?

Besides being sacred land, Yucca Moun- tain has many characteristics that make it an unsuitable place to store highly irradiated nuclear waste. For instance, the people who live near Yucca Mountain, in the Amargosa Valley, depend on the aquifer beneath the mountain for their drinking and irrigation water.

Who stopped Yucca Mountain nuclear waste?

The project was approved in 2002 by the 107th United States Congress, but the 112th Congress ended federal funding for the site via amendment to the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, passed on April 14, 2011, during the Obama Administration.

What was wrong with Yucca Mountain?

These issues include hydrology, inadequacy of the proposed waste package, repository design and volcanism. The Yucca site is seismically and volcanically active, porous and incapable of geologically containing the waste.

How long does nuclear waste last?

Radioactive isotopes eventually decay, or disintegrate, to harmless materials. Some isotopes decay in hours or even minutes, but others decay very slowly. Strontium-90 and cesium-137 have half-lives of about 30 years (half the radioactivity will decay in 30 years). Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.

Are there concerns about using Yucca Mountain as a waste site repository?

The state’s official position is that Yucca Mountain is a singularly bad site to house the nation’s high-level nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel for several reasons: GEOLOGY and LOCATION: There are many unresolved scientific issues relative to the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site.

What happened to Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository?

The project has encountered many difficulties and was highly contested by the public, the Western Shoshone peoples, and many politicians. The project also faces strong state and regional opposition. The Government Accountability Office stated that the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons.

How much did Yucca Mountain cost?

The new estimated cost of $96.2 billion includes some $13.5 billion that has already spent on the project; $54.8 billion for the construction, operation and decommissioning of the repository; $19.5 billion for transportation of the used fuel; and, $8.4 billion for other program activities.

How deep do they bury nuclear waste?

Wastes could also be placed using drilling equipment based on the techniques in use in the deep sea for about 30 years. By this method, stacks of packaged waste would be placed in holes drilled to a depth of 800 metres below the seabed, with the uppermost container about 300 metres below the seabed.