Decades ago, I spent a month in a geology field camp mapping the Johnnie Formation in Panamint Range just outside Death Valley. One of my graduate advisors was on the technical advisory committee for Yucca Mountain and we were able to tour the site--including the large corkscrew tunnel meant to be the actual repository. I recall a number of reasons this site and the studies were questionable: * Scientists were given a very limited time window to evaluate the geology of the tunnel before the walls were cemented over for stability, meaning that there was no way to replicate studies if outstanding questions persisted. * The regulations require that a site be capable of safely housing nuclear waster for 10,000 years. No one can predict what geologic and climatological changes (i.e., more rain, perhaps) will occur between now and then. * There is a line of cinder cones trending toward the tunnel, the closest of which happens the be the oldest, and therefore most statistically likely to erupt.
Revisiting this site and ramping up nuclear is all about providing for the outsized power demands of cooling centers for AI and the other endeavors of the tech bros.
Decades ago, I spent a month in a geology field camp mapping the Johnnie Formation in Panamint Range just outside Death Valley. One of my graduate advisors was on the technical advisory committee for Yucca Mountain and we were able to tour the site--including the large corkscrew tunnel meant to be the actual repository. I recall a number of reasons this site and the studies were questionable: * Scientists were given a very limited time window to evaluate the geology of the tunnel before the walls were cemented over for stability, meaning that there was no way to replicate studies if outstanding questions persisted. * The regulations require that a site be capable of safely housing nuclear waster for 10,000 years. No one can predict what geologic and climatological changes (i.e., more rain, perhaps) will occur between now and then. * There is a line of cinder cones trending toward the tunnel, the closest of which happens the be the oldest, and therefore most statistically likely to erupt.
Revisiting this site and ramping up nuclear is all about providing for the outsized power demands of cooling centers for AI and the other endeavors of the tech bros.