David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 12/4/2008 3:21 PM dpb spake thus:

Oren wrote:

What about earthquakes at Yucca Mt.?

Just yesterday Vegas had a small quake.

What about them? If worst were to come to worst, it will simply bury
the waste underground. Meanwhile, the facility is designed to
accommodate seismic activity. There are far more real dangers and
boogey men to worry over in this world.

You obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about.

One of the requirements for any high-level nuclear waste repository
(such as Yucca Mountain) is that the waste be both monitored and
retrievable. They don't just chuck it in there willy-nilly and figure
"out of sight, out of mind". Mind you, these are DOE's rules, not those
written by some granola-munching tree hugger.

So earthquakes do pose significant risks, and you can be sure that the
DOE is paying attention to the reports they get from the USGS.

You didn't read or at least pay attention to what I wrote upthread. I
had already talked of there being seismic criteria for the design and
construction of Yucca Mountain. I was simply saying that in the
extremely unlikely event of a seismic event even greater than the design
basis plus the overdesign that something did happen it would _still_ not
cause a nuclear disaster.

A design for a high-level waste repository only requires it be both
monitored and retrievable _IF_ that is the goal and design criterion.
It does so happen that that is the criterion for Yucca Mountain, true.

The reason for that is, of course, owing to the fact that the
reprocessing option had previously been removed from the table leaving
this as the only way forward at the time the decision was made.

I reiterate that there are far more serious boogey men to worry over in
the world than a postulated seismic event at Yucca Mountain. That is
true in large part to what I do know has been included in the design of
the facility and what I know from 30 years commercial nuclear power
experience of the nature of spent nuclear fuel.

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