Yucca Mountain

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how Yucca Mountain, located in Nye County Nevada, is the result of The Nuclear Waste Policy Act that tasked the U.S. Department of Energy with finding, building, operating, and maintaining an underground facility for the storage of nuclear waste that has been piling up since the 1940s. The paper discusses how the geological makeup that makes Yucca Mountain desirable is ignimbrite created by several eruptions of a now extinct volcano and how the ignimbrite (tuff) has special characteristics that scientists believe will contain the radioactive material for hundreds of thousands of years. TSpecifically, the paper makes the argument that the United States Government should continue to research, develop, and eventually use the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility because doing so could increase economy for the state which would include more funding for school, roads, and emergency services.

From the Paper:

"The second major argument made for the stop of the storage facility is that the site won't actually maintain the radioactive material. The facility is located 1000 feet below ground and 1000 feet above the water table and the waste will be stored in several layers of stainless steel and nickel alloy material that will act as a container and as a rock shield should a major earthquake occur that would collapse the stone tunnel. Even if the containers should be damaged or break down, tests show that by the time the radioactive material reached the water table it would be inert. Although Nevada is ranked the third highest state in seismic activity there is no evidence that continental plates meet in the area. The risk of volcanic activity has also been pushed as a reason to shut down the site since the area was formed by volcanic activity but science shows that last minor eruption in the area occurred over eighty thousand years ago and the last large eruption that formed most of the mountains in the region occurred over 12 million years ago. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Lando, Ben "Analysis: Reid's Yucca and Nuke Waste Plan." 2007. United Press International. March 15, 2007. http://upi.com/Energy/view.php?.
• "EPA's Proposed Public Health and Environmental Radiation Protection Standards for Yucca Mountain." October 2005. United States Environmental Protection Agency. March 15,2007. http://www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca.
• "Nuclear Waste: Deadly Nuclear Waste Transport."2007. Sierra Club. March 15, 2007. http://www.sierraclub.org/nuclearwaste/yucca_factsheet.asp.
• "Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipping Cask." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 5 December 2006. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. March 17, 2007.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel_shipping_cask.
• "What's Wrong With Putting Nuclear Waste in Yucca Mountain?". 2003. The Agency for Nuclear Projects, State of Nevada. March 23, 2007. http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2003/pdf.

More papers on Yucca Mountain:

• Persuasive Essay # 110065 : "Yucca Mountain"
• Essay # 137538 : "Transport of Hazardous Waste from Oak Ridge Tennessee to Nevada for Disposal"
• Argumentative Essay # 65291 : "Nuclear Waste"

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