LAS VEGAS — Full-scale tests of nuclear waste shipping casks would build the public’s confidence in the Yucca Mountain project, the government’s chief nuclear regulators said.
The Associated Press reported that Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve said “intense public concern over planned shipments to a Nevada repository would justify the tests though less expensive computer modeling could gain needed results.”
But a nuclear waste advisory committee meeting Wednesday in Washington, D.C., questioned the expense of full-scale testing. Railroad casks would cost more than $1 million each.
Tests include exposing full-sized containers to fires, steep drops and water immersion to demonstrate durability.
Engineers are revising a testing plan developed at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico that is to be released by spring, industry officials said.
The revisions were partially prompted by the five-member advisory panel, which maintains the “extreme conditions” in testing are unrealistic and would add little to the project.
Panel member Milton Levenson told Meserve on Wednesday that computer scale modeling would be “significantly cheaper than full testing.
“If you do full-scale tests, the number you can afford to do is very limited; you have very few data points, ” Levenson said.
But commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield drew an analogy with a car buyer.
“You can meet with the best salesmen and automotive engineers to explain how the car is going to work, but to convince a person to buy, it requires them to sit in the car and drive it, ” he said.
Nevada officials and environmental critics contend there are potential safety gaps that raise questions about transporting waste to Yucca Mountain, which was approved by Congress in July as the nation’s radioactive waste dump.
The project recommended by President Bush would entomb highly radioactive waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Shipment of nuclear waste to the desert site could begin by 2010.