Prepared by Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Washington, D.C. on May 22, 2002 (Kevin Kamps also serves as a board member of Don’t Waste Michigan)
Detroit Edison’s letter to East China Township claims that Michigan’s nuclear reactors could have to shut down if Yucca doesn’t open. That is flat out false. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has made it very easy for Michigan’s, and other state’s, nuclear utilities to “re-rack” storage pools to cram in ever more waste, as well as to build on-site, outdoor “dry cask” storage facilities, with virtually no limit on the number of storage containers that could be filled. The only reactors in the country that might face shut down due to lack of storage space for high-level nuclear waste are the Prairie Island reactors in Minnesota. A state law there limits the number of on-site storage containers to a maximum of 17, which will be reached in the year 2007. But no other state in the US has any limit on the number of dry casks that can be stored on site at reactors. Thus, Detroit Edison is telling elected officials an outright lie, using scare tactics by falsely claiming that 20% of Michigan’s electricity will simply go out without Yucca Mountain.
Detroit Edison’s letter also claims that Michigan electric utility customers have paid over $800 million into the Nuclear Waste Fund. But Consumers Energy’s sample pro-Yucca resolution says that Michigan electric customers have paid $405.8 million. Where did the other $400 million go? Consumers Energy’s “Yucca Mountain Quick Facts” also says that $7 billion has been spent on Yucca already. But Energy Secretary Abraham testified before Congress recently that $4 billion has been spent. Where did the other $3 billion go? Maybe Arthur Anderson would know? The simple truth of the matter is that the U.S. government should stop throwing good money after bad at the geologically unsuitable Yucca Mountain site. The Dept. of Energy most recently admitted that Yucca’s price tag would be $58 billion. Chances are good that that figure will increase as time goes on. Does it make any sense to spend that much money to bury high-level nuclear waste in a very active earthquake zone that DOE’s own science has shown would be guaranteed to leak radiation into the drinking water supply below?
Both Detroit Edison and Consumers Energy claim that 20 years of DOE scientific study have proven Yucca to be scientifically suitable. But in Dec. 2001, the U.S. General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that 293 technical studies at Yucca are incomplete, cannot be finished until 2006, and thus any site recommendation decision should be postponed indefinitely. In Jan., 2002 the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a presidentially-appointed panel of scientific and engineering experts charged with overseeing the quality of DOE’s studies, reported that DOE’s analyses of Yucca’s suitability are “weak to moderate” and that the level of uncertainty in DOE’s predictions is too great to declare the Yucca site suitable.
Detroit Edison’s letter argues that the country’s high-level nuclear waste must be consolidated in one location to defend it against terrorist attack. But the waiting list to ship waste to Yucca is many decades long. In fact, by 2010, US reactors will have generated the 63,000 metric tons that Yucca could hold under law. Thus, Fermi Two, because it was one of the last reactors in the country to come on-line, would not ship any of its waste to Yucca in the first decade of Yucca’s operation. DOE has admitted that, even if Yucca opens and fills up, in the year 2036 there would still be nearly as much waste at reactor sites across the country as there is today, due to newly generated waste. Thus, those operating reactors, and their on-site wastes, would still be terrorist targets in Michigan. But on-site wastes can be bunkered against terrorist attack behind concrete, while waste shipping containers on the roads and rails are vulnerable and cannot be fortified.
Under the DOE’s Yucca plan, many hundreds if not thousands of high-level atomic waste trucks and trains would roll through Michigan’s major cities, and would travel on Lake Michigan on barges. The transportation containers are vulnerable to terrorist attacks with armor piercing anti-tank missiles or high explosives, not to mention their vulnerability to severe transport accidents. Waste shipments would be potential “dirty radiological bombs” rolling through Michigan’s major cities and population centers.
Consumers Energy’s “Quick Facts” claims that if Yucca is not approved now, there is no alternate plan, and Michigan’s temporary storage sites would become de facto permanent storage sites. This is again false fear mongering. The alternate plan is clearly spelled out in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, that the Secretary of Energy would report to Congress six months after Yucca Mountain is disqualified for further Congressional guidance. An independent, presidentially-appointed blue ribbon review commission should be established to replace the raw politics driving Yucca Mountain with sound science and a democratically and socially acceptable process, to seek real answers to the nuclear waste dilemma. Michigan’s environmental and safe energy organizations are opposed to the “illusion of a solution” that is Yucca Mountain, but are certainly also opposed to high-level nuclear waste remaining on the Great Lakes shorelines forever.
Consumers Energy’s “fact” sheet claims 45 years of experience and 3,000 successful shipments of high-level nuclear waste. But 72 incidents involving high-level nuclear waste transportation have been documented, as well as countless additional “low” level radioactive waste transport accidents. The industry “fact” sheet claims casks can withstand an 80 mile per hour crash, but cask design criteria actually only meet a 30 mile per hour crash. Casks are designed to withstand a 1,475 degree temperature fire for thirty minutes, but a train tunnel fire beneath downtown Baltimore in July 2001 burned out of control for several days, and for many hours at temperatures higher than 1,500 degrees. If high-level nuclear waste had been aboard that train, the transport container would likely have breached, resulting in scores of resultant cancer fatalities and a $13.7 billion clean up bill.
The Potterville, MI train derailment brought such dangers home to Michiganders. Had nuclear waste been aboard, a catastrophe could have resulted. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of propane were aboard and was at risk of catching fire or exploding. That’s why Potterville’s entire population of 2,200 was evacuated for a week, until the very dangerous situation was brought under control (emergency responders feared a lightning storm that rolled through during the recovery operation was going to ignite the propane). The propane aboard burns at much hotter temperatures than the 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit nuclear waste transport container design criteria (Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a University of Michigan trained nuclear physicist, reports that propane burns at over 3,400 degrees Fahrenheit in his book on nuclear waste transport, “The Next Nuclear Gamble”). Given that hundreds of thousands of gallons were aboard, the fire could have burned for much longer than the 30 minute fire design criteria. Had the propane exploded, such a massive explosion could also have challenged the integrity of the shipping containers. The US NRC does not require a propane explosion design criteria for nuclear waste transport casks.
Documentation available upon request. Phone Kevin Kamps at 301-270-6477.