Unit 4: The Waste Management System

Yucca Mountain, located in southern Nevada, is being considered as the first repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States.

Over the last several decades, the United States has been engaged in a complex undertaking that will affect not only the present generation, but also generations to come — developing a system for managing highly radioactive wastes that will protect the health and safety of current and future generations.

Yucca Mountain (red star) is located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada in a dry desert environment along the western border of the Nevada Test Site (yellow) that is surrounded by the Nellis Air Force Range (blue).

The waste management system involves processes for safely handling radioactive waste, preparing it for disposal, and for permanently isolating it from people and the environment in an underground repository. Developing such a system requires extensive scientific knowledge.

After more than two decades of scientific study, in 2002, Congress and the President approved the development of an underground geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The next step is to obtain a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct a repository there.

In previous units you learned about what nuclear waste is and about radiation. You also learned about the U.S. government’s plans to deal with the nuclear waste that has accumulated in our country. In this unit, you will learn about Yucca Mountain and more details of the waste management system itself.

Specifically, this unit

• Describes the scientific tests performed at Yucca Mountain
  
  
• Explains Yucca Mountain’s natural environment, including its geology and hydrology
  
  
• Describes how nuclear waste will be prepared for repository disposal and placed underground
  
  
• Describes the proposed design for a repository at Yucca Mountain and how it will work to isolate waste for tens of thousands of years