MARK WAITE / PVT Three members of the fact-finding trip to Scandinavia included, from left, consultant Cash Jaszczak, Nye County Commission Chairman Gary Hollis and Darrell Lacy, director of the Nye County nuclear waste project office. Advertisement

A recent trip to Sweden and Finland confirmed the viability of using a geologic repository to house nuclear waste, consultant Cash Jaszczak, from SRS Technologies, said.

Three of the four Nevada officials who went on the U.S. Transport Council fact-finding trip to Scandinavia from Aug. 25 to Sept. 1 briefed Pahrump reporters Monday. The trip was paid for out of nuclear waste repository oversight funds.

Nye County Commission Chairman Gary Hollis, Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Office Director Darrell Lacy, Bob Gamble, Nye County's on-site representative at the U.S. Department of Energy office in Las Vegas, and Jaszczak went along.

There were some differences in the repository plans:

The nuclear waste to be stored at the Scandinavian facilities is about one-tenth the 70,000 tons that will be stored in Yucca Mountain, the panel said.

The nuclear waste is shipped by barge in Scandinavia, not by a rail line or by truck. Both Scandinavian locations are on the Baltic Sea, the Swedish location south of Stockholm, the Finnish location northwest of Helsinki.

Instead of figuring out how water can be kept out of the repository in Yucca Mountain, the Scandinavians plan to flood their nuclear waste repositories after they're full.

The nuclear waste at Oskarshamn, Sweden, will be buried in a shaft over 1,500 feet deep; at Yucca Mountain the waste would be buried at the same level as the entrance, Jaszczak said.

The Scandinavians will use copper canisters to house the waste in cavities filled with bentonite; the Americans will use a stainless steel alloy for the canisters.

The Scandinavian repository will be in bedrock granite; the Yucca Mountain site lies in volcanic tuft.

The Swedes and Finns won't take the nuclear waste back out of the repository for reprocessing; the Americans are looking into that possibility.

"They're making commitments to expand their use of nuclear power. It has to do with the availability of electricity," Jaszczak said of the Scandinavians.

The Swedes and Finns don't have supplies of coal and gas as alternatives, Hollis said.

"They have the same issue we have in America. There's an environmental consequence for any type of electrical power they get," Jaszczak said.

An important difference in the two programs is the acceptance of the repositories by the local community and different levels of government, of the repository, Jasczcak said.

The communities that will house the waste actually requested the repository; in fact two communities in Sweden are both vying for it, Jasczcak said, describing something like a community out of "The Simpsons" television show, where people already work close to nuclear power plants and interim storage facilities.

They feel an obligation to dispose of the nuclear waste they created, he said.

"They're not afraid of the technical solutions they found and they'll work, they have confidence in that," Jaszczak said. "They're confident they've resolved the issues and they'll deal with anything that comes along."

Probably more important politically, members of the tour said Swedish and Finnish government officials support the geologic repository project.

"The one thing we have a problem with in Nye County, we have a congressional delegation that is against it and is not working with Nye County to make anything happen on the economic side," Hollis said.

Jaszczak said the Nye County community protection plan has three objectives: to protect the health and safety of Nye County residents; to see the repository succeeds and is "not just some dump in the desert," and the transportation program used to move the waste provides economic development.

Jaszczak said the U.S. Transport Council includes representatives of companies like Duke Energy, Energy Solutions, General Electric, Northrop Grumman, companies that are going to have business with the Yucca Mountain repository. Jaszczak said those companies believe the best location for their businesses would be in close proximity to the repository.

"Unlike the Nevada Test Site, where the great majority of the federal largesse associated with the test site migrates to Clark County, Nye County would like to have the opportunity for the people who work at Yucca Mountain to live in Nye County and for the business and industries associated with Yucca Mountain to be located in Nye County. Those things aren't going to happen overnight," Jaszczak said.

Tour members stayed in Stockholm at the Victory Hotel, with an advertised on-line special of $264 per night.

It was a round of talks and speeches Monday, while Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in Oskarshamn, before catching a ferry to Turku, Finland. The delegation visited the Finnish facility planned in Olkiluoto. After the Olkiluoto tour Thursday, they had a day of talks with Finnish officials. They spent two nights at the Scandic Marski Continental Hotel in Helsinki, where the cheapest rooms are advertised on-line at $230.

"We can't spend nuclear waste oversight money on roads, wages or benefits, anything other than stuff associated with Yucca Mountain," Hollis said.