WE鈥橠 almost forgotten about Yucca Mountain. Then a curious statement arrived from the US Department of Energy. 鈥淭here was not an earthquake at Yucca Mountain today,鈥� it began. Readers of Sherlock Holmes will be well aware of the significance of dogs that don鈥檛 bark. We grew even suspicious when the statement went on to record a 鈥渓ight鈥� earthquake at the ominously named Little Skull Mountain not far away.
Why all this fuss about the precise site of a small earthquake? Yucca is the mountain in Nevada beneath which the DoE wants to build a repository for more than 70,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste. Even the slightest hint that the site, which must hold the waste secure for thousands of years, might be prone to earthquakes does not amuse the DoE. Nor does it amuse the American nuclear industry, which says it鈥檚 relying on this mountain. So long as nuclear waste continues to build up at plants across the country, there鈥檚 little chance of the industry鈥檚 revival.
Why pick Yucca Mountain? Well, the DoE likes its isolation. It鈥檚 in a federal area that includes the old nuclear test site in the middle of the Nevada desert, 140 kilometres north-west of Las Vegas. Then there鈥檚 the low rainfall, a mere 18 centimetres a year, which cuts the risk of radioactivity leaching into drinking water. It鈥檚 also made of volcanic tuff, which has stayed reassuringly stable for several million years.
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As for the locals, they鈥檙e not too thrilled. 鈥淥ver my irradiated body鈥� is the catchphrase of the moment. And they weren鈥檛 reassured when geologists discovered three volcanic plugs in the mountain top. One of these last erupted 75,000 years ago.
Any chance of a repeat performance? That鈥檚 what everyone is frantically trying to figure out. Some experts claim the risk is around 1 in 10 million a year. Worth a wager, you might think, but this is no horse race. If the waste is dangerous for the next 10,000 years, even those odds might be too short.
Some people, including most Nevadans, wonder whether the DoE should consider finding somewhere a little more stable. There certainly were alternatives, but in 1987 the then government ruled them out. Many were too 鈥減olitical鈥� 鈥� which means there were too many important people living nearby. The nearest community to Yucca is a truckers鈥� stop featuring a couple of filling stations and a brothel. Not much of interest there for ambitious politicians.
So should we be worrying about the earthquakes? The DoE says the Little Skull quake caused vibrations no bigger than those from a passing truck. Maybe. But Nevada is still one of the most earthquake-prone states in the US, and opposition groups say that any earthquake, however 鈥渓ight鈥�, shows the complete folly of the scheme.
The big earthquakes are going to be political. After decades of battles, President George Bush has just approved the waste site. The Nevada governor has vetoed the idea. Now Congress has until 25 July to overrule him. The final vote is near鈥�