A lot, again try the above web site or maybe the US Office of Management and Budget.

That is what everyone would like to know! I don’t know what you are referring to when you say that these glass bottles last for 100 years. My understanding is that the waste (in the USA) will probably be formed into glass spherules and these will be contained in some kind of metal drum. What happens to the radioactive waste after these drums and spherules fail is dependent upon the conditions at the repository site at that time. If the site is dry the radioactive material will probably stay where it is, if not then the amount and direction of water flow will determine the fate of the waste material, and that is one of the big questions surrounding the Yucca Mountain site.

I don’t know about the two heads but exposure to radiation increases the likelihood of genetic mutation and thus can cause some strange effects.

I don’t know the details but exposure to radiation causes cell destruction which if massive enough can kill you right then and there, or it can increase the likelihood of cancerous cells forming. Also some of the materials in high level radioactive waste are not only radioactive but also quite simply toxic, one of these is plutonium.

Not yet, the Department of Energy has yet to submit its license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to proceed with the Yucca Mountain site. They should be doing this in the next couple of years and then its up to the NRC and Congress.

Yes, at a place in Mexico called Pena Blanca. There is s very rich uranium deposit at this place and it shows signs that at some time in the past it spontaneously became sub-critical … not quite enough to cause a large explosion but hot enough to cause changes in the surrounding rocks.

See answer above.

Let me take this point by point.

1. Old and not so old Soviet radioactive waste is of great concern to the US. There has been discussion of subsidizing the development of a Russian waste repository. Unfortunately it will be a tough sell to the American people (taxpayers) when we haven’t even figured out exactly what we’re going to do with our own. Not to mention the sensitivity of Russians to our intervention in their domestic affairs.
2. We need to distinguish military rad-waste from civil rad-waste. Yucca Mountain is not designed for the disposal of military high-level rad-waste, I do not know how the latter is stored currently nor do I know anything of the Pentagon’s plans for disposing of it.
3. Civil high-level rad-waste – that from commercially operated power utility reactors - is not stored in leak proof bunkers, it is in a variety of rather unsafe holding tanks awaiting a permanent resting place. Electricity rates over the lifetime of these reactors have included a surcharge that has been earmarked for the development and oversight of the permanent repository, and the US government and Congress have a legal duty to perform in disposing of the stuff safely.

 Yes, but restrict yourself (at least initially) to high level radioactive waste ... primarily spent fuel rods and the materials used to make fuel rods.

 As far as I am aware, never.

Generally it is the Department of Energy under the watchful eyes of  the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, there are some murky areas where the utility companies may be directly responsible. Also in some cases where there is no one to point the finger at the EPA has to enter the arena and pick up the tab.

 Yes. The site has been used to investigate the rates of movement of radioactive contaminants in groundwater, streams etc. in an arid environment. This is necessary in order to improve the computer models that are essential to the best possible risk assessment of the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain.

This is almost impossible to answer. Generally, areas that are contaminated are not open to normal development. However, there may be places that are contaminated and no one is aware. 

 Yes. Prior to 1983 there were several candidate sites. Ideas being proposed were burial in salt (rock salt that is), ocean floor burial, and there were at least six sites around the country that were under consideration. Yucca Mountain was chosen as the only candidate site for the repository primarily because of its aridity. The water table is about 2300 feet below the ground surface and the repository will be about 1000 to 1300 feet above this.

 I doubt it. The DOE and the government is pinning its hopes on a safe, central repository.

Good question. We (in the US) generate about 20 to 23% of our electricity by nuclear fission and we have done for about 30 years now.  That has produced about 26,000 tons of (civilian) high-level radioactive waste. About 70 to 75% of our electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas).

Yucca Mountain is bounded by several normal faults, some of which have been active in the last 1 or 2 million years. About 15 km west of Yucca Mountain is the Bare Mountain Fault, which may have been active in the last 1 or 2 thousand years. Two questions surrounding the repository site are: will these faults be active in the next 10,000 years and if so how big an earthquake can they generate?

In 1992 the Joshua Tree (magnitude 6.3), Landers (magnitude 7.6) and Big Bear (magnitude 6.7) earthquakes in Southern California triggered a series of smaller earthquakes that defined several previously unmapped faults in southern California. One unexpected event was the Little Skull Mountain (magnitude 5.4) earthquake that occurred within about 15 km of Yucca Mountain at a depth of only 8 km.

Well, I'm not an expert on this, but I have read in many places that plutonium is the most toxic substance we know. Plutonium is one of the elements found in spent fuel rods.

Yes.

Very serious, ask the people of Chernobyl. The actions are problematic, probably everything should be buried somehow.

Well, we are hoping so. The alternatives are not really any better. The idea is that the stuff can be isolated from human interference and endeavor for long enough for it to decay to safe levels. Once the waste is in the tunnels they will be back-filled to seal the whole thing up.

I have no idea, I assume that places such as Hanford in Washington State are used but I don't know for sure. My guess is that if it is not top secret it isn't exactly advertised.

You can get some of this information from this map:

Radioactive waste is like all other radioactive materials, it decays spontaneously from radioactive parent material to non-radioactive daughter material. Different materials decay at different rates and by slightly different means (there are basically three processes). We measure the rate at which a radioactive isotope decays in terms of its half-life. The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time it takes for half of the initially present radioactive atoms to decay to daughter atoms. Most of the material in spent fuel rods has relatively short half-lives (geologically speaking) and after a few (still somewhat controversial, and different for different isotopes) half-lives the material is considered "safe". The current design parameter for the Yucca Mountain repository is 10,000 years although some (e.g., the National Academy of Sciences) think that 100,000 years to 1 million years might be better.

As far as I know there is no fixed distance. Currently there are small communities within 20 or 30 miles of Yucca Mountain. The design parameters are developed in terms of radiation dose over time and so any design that stays within the recommended dose limits is fine.

Not in my opinion. That would be using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut. There is enough high level waste to fill the proposed repository, we shouldn't waste any space with low-level material.

Probably not, the technical problems of getting the waste safely into the volcano's vent are pretty daunting.

There are two points here. First, some geologists think that during an earthquake in the Yucca Mountain vicinity the groundwater would rise by a process called "seismic pumping". This idea has not been confirmed since it was first proposed about 8 or 9 years ago. I personally think that the basic idea is good, but it may not raise the water table enough for long enough to have an effect on the waste packages. The second point is that if the climate of the American southwest becomes wetter, a possibility if global warming becomes more marked, then the water table at Yucca Mountain will rise. This is a problem (and could be exacerbated by the first point) because the repository may have to withstand a much higher water flow-through than was originally envisioned. The models that the DOE are running are supposed to account for the second of these two points.

 Transuranic waste is generated primarily from weapons production and reprocessing. High level radioactive waste should not contain much of this (I amd not sure but there may be a 2% legal limit).

 Permanent storage means that the waste must be isolated from the human population for at least 10,000 years. That means it must not contaminate ground or surface water resources because that is the primary transportation mode of the waste materil. There are some other considerations, however. For example, the geologic repository must be shown to be in an area of little or no mineral potential, so that future generations will not accidentally enter the repository in their search for natural resources.

 Nevada does not use any nuclear power to generate electricity:

This pie chart is for 1998 and came from:

Where they have lots of other statistics.

See question 25 for the first part of the answer. These maps come from a site run by the state of Nevada.

I remember a map that showed routes through San Antonio but I am unable to find it, this is what the state of Nevada claims, however, I can't find the official DoE story.

Because we have several operating nuclear plants around the country that were built before or completed shortly after the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, which effectively killed further development of nuclear power plants in the USA. These existing plants haven't (all) yet reached their maximum operating age limit.

The Little Skull Mountain event in 1992, June 29 Latitude 36.71N, Longitude 116.29W, Depth 8 km, Magnitude 5.60. This is about 15 km ESE of Yucca Mountain.

If it enters their habitat, yes.

Yes. So far the models of the repository proposed for Yucca Mountain indicate that another such earthquake would not affect the performance of the proposed repository. In English (kind of!) this means that such an event (according to the computer models) would not result in people in the surrounding communities receiving a dose of radiation above the maximum stipulated by the regulations governing the repository.

Not that I am aware of. I don't think there are even any reactors in the city.

My apologies, I was low on my estimates in class and you were closer, the depth to the water table at Yucca Mountain is about 700m (about 2300 feet) and the proposed repository depth is 3-400m (about 1000-1300 feet).

No, I don't think we're capable of that.

It is true that once clear of the earth and heading for the sun the waste material is about as safe as it can be. Unfortunately, there are two problems, it costs a huge amount of money to put a rocket into space. We have a lot of nuclear waste, at least 26,000 tons. Ariane 5, one of the most reliable rockets available at present, lifts 6 tons into earth orbit, extra power is needed to push that payload into a sun-intersecting trajectory. If we do the math that's more than 4,300 launches to get the stuff off the earth … a launch a day for 12 years! Even Ariane 5 does not have perfect launch record, some percentage of those launches is going to spray the Atlantic with 6 tons (each) of high level radioactive waste. Not to mention the cost…

To find out more about regular rocketry try: