Earth Sciences Commons^™

Basic Research Needs For Geosciences: Facilitating 21st Century Energy Systems, U.S. Department Of Energy, Office Of Basic Energy Sciences, Donald J. Depaolo, Franklin M. Orr Jr.

Publications (YM)

Executive Summary

Serious challenges must be faced in this century as the world seeks to meet global energy needs and at the same time reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Even with a growing energy supply from alternative sources, fossil carbon resources will remain in heavy use and will generate large volumes of carbon dioxide (CO₂). To reduce the atmospheric impact of this fossil energy use, it is necessary to capture and sequester a substantial fraction of the produced CO₂. Subsurface geologic formations offer a potential location for long-term storage of the requisite large …

Geostatistical And Stochastic Study Of Radio Nuclide Transport In The Unsaturated Zone At Yucca Mountain, Ming Ye, Amy J. Smiecinski, Raymond E. Keeler

Publications (YM)

The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board [Cohon et al. 1998] evaluated the technical and scientific validity of activities undertaken by the Secretary of Energy to characterize Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for its suitability as an underground repository in which to store high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. In the report, the Board pinpointed that the study on groundwater flow and radionuclide transport in the saturated and unsaturated zones below Yucca Mountain should, over the next several years, focus on reducing prediction uncertainty. In its 2002, the Board repeated this concern by stating, “… hydrogeologic processes that affect radionuclide transport …

Determining The Redox Properties Of Yucca Mountain-Related Groundwater Using Trace Element Speciation For Predicting The Mobility Of Nuclear Waste, James Cizdziel, Amy J. Smiecinski

Publications (YM)

The objective of this task is to determine the principal oxidation state (redox) species of select elements in samples of groundwater in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain (YM), which is being evaluated as a site for geologic storage of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste. Samples to be analyzed include, but are not limited to, groundwater from wells of the Nye County Early Warning Drilling Program. Elements to be studied include arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), selenium (Se), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo), vanadium (V), tungsten (W), rhenium (Re), and uranium (U). The …

Influence Of Lithophysae Geometry And Distribution On Mechanical Properties Of Topopah Spring Tuff, Mohammad Shahidul Islam, Justin Fenton, Moses Karakouzian, Jaime Gonzalez, Amy J. Smiecinski, Raymond E. Keeler

Publications (YM)

The current Site Recommendation study for the proposed high level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain locates the repository emplacement drifts approximately 81% within the lower lithophysal unit of the Topopah Springs Formation (Tptpll), 4% within the upper lithophysal unit of the Topopah Springs Formation (Tptpul), and roughly 15% within the middle, non-lithophysal unit (Tptpmn) of the same formation. A major geomechanical issue facing the Yucca Mountain Project is to understand the thermomechanical behavior of lithophysal tuff, which comprises roughly 85% of the repository host rock.

Yucca Mountain Climate Technical Support Representative, Saxon E. Sharpe, Dick Reinhardt, Eric Smistad, Don Baepler, Amy J. Smiecinski

Publications (YM)

The principal investigator (PI), Saxon Sharpe, for Task ORD-FY04-012, DOE Cooperative Agreement DE-FC28-04RW12232, will serve as Yucca Mountain Climate Technical Support Representative for the Department of Energy (DOE) in a series of activities related to past, present, and future climate for the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) climate program.

As stated in the Viability Assessment of a Repository at Yucca Mountain: “Climate and its changes over time directly affect system performance at Yucca Mountain.” Currently, information from climate studies is used in models that support the Total System Performance Assessment and Licensing Application. It is a model component of all key …