Monday, April 8, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
A new study has further discredited the theory that nuclear wastes stored inside Yucca Mountain could explode.
Released by nuclear engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, the study finds that the theory advanced by Charles Bowman is not credible.
The theory has also been attacked by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Bowman, a physicist with the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, gained national attention last year with his theory that Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, could someday erupt and pose danger to millions of people if used as a nuclear-waste repository.
If nuclear waste leaked into the volcanic rock, it might concentrate, form a "supercritical mass," and explode, Bowman said in a report authored along with colleague Francesco Venneri.
The Berkeley report dismisses the theory because it could find no evidence to support it. The report, however, does not rule out danger from a chain reaction.
Wastes from highly enriched uranium or plutonium removed from nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out as a risk, study leader William Kastenberg said.
Bowman, replying to a report on the study appearing in Science magazine, said the conclusion vindicates him because it doesn't eliminate any possibility of a nuclear eruption. He said he welcomes further discussion with Berkeley on possible safeguards.
The Berkeley study suggests design changes in storage methods.
Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary told a congressional subcommittee last week that the Department of Energy will not be ready until 1998 to decide if Yucca Mountain can safely keep the highly radioactive wastes intact for a million years.
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