Period 4A
Nuclear Chemistry
Yucca Mountain Repository
Yucca mountain is a site that has been designed and proposed as the nations only nuclear waste repository. A repository is a place or building where something is stored, in this case, it is nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain is 80 miles north of Las Vegas. It has been appointed as the only area to be examined as the repository. Yucca Mountain was one of the sites proposed for nuclear waste containment as part of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Over ten years of prior study and nine sites, by 1987, Yucca Mountain was the only site left for consideration.
In 1987, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was amended, and listed Yucca Mountain as the only site for exclusive study by the Department of Energy. This was the only site left based on several factors, including its desert location and its specific …show more content…
Radioactive waste can also be generated by various nuclear technologies used in research and medicine. Radioactive waste is hazardous to every type of life and especially to the environment. Government agencies monitor this, so they can protect the health of humans and the environment.
Nuclear plants create electricity when they boil water into steam. This steam in turn produces electricity. However, nuclear plants do not burn anything. They use a special fuel, called uranium fuel. This fuel consists of solid ceramic pellets which produces electricity. This process occurs through fission. The Nuclear power plants acquire the needed heat to create steam. The process that occurs is physical. The process described, called Fission, involves splitting the uranium atoms in into a nuclear reactor. The first nuclear reactors ever used on this earth functioned naturally. This occurred in a uranium deposit. Uranium deposits are condensed areas of uranium within the earth’s