Yucca Mountain Dead - Chu & Reid Agree To Defund License Application Funding

WASHINGTON, DC, July 30, 2009 (ENS) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has achieved his long-held plan of doing away with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Following conversations with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and the White House, Senator Reid today announced that the administration and the Energy Department have agreed to cut off all funding to pursue a license application for the Yucca Mountain Project in the 2011 budget. It had been approved as the nation's only permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and Department of Defense high-level radioactive waste. "This is a major victory for Nevada," Reid said. "I am pleased that President Obama has lived up to his promise to me and all Nevadans by working with me to kill the Yucca Mountain Project. I look forward to continuing my work with the President and his administration to find responsible, alternative solutions for dealing with nuclear waste."

In 2002, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed Public Law 107-200, which approved Yucca Mountain as the site for the repository at Yucca Mountain. On June 3, 2008, the Energy Department submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking construction authorization for the repository.

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The Yucca Mountain project had suffered many setbacks such as the discovery in 2005 that emails sent by a U.S. Geological Survey staffer between May 1998 and March 2000 "indicated that he had fabricated documentation of his work," the USGS said in a statement at the time. The staffer was preparing computer models on water infiltration and climate at Yucca Mountain that relate to the potential for the release of radioactivity from the repository. Reid said at the time that the revelation "proves once again that DOE must cheat and lie to make Yucca Mountain look safe."

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2009/2009-07-30-01.asp

However, if you have an irrational fear of nuclear energy, then standing paralyzed in terror seems like an excellent option.

I don't have irrational fear, just the logical caution of that waste you mentioned.

1) Yucca Mountain is a sacred mountain to at least 13 tribes in North America, including the Western Shoshonee who claim Yucca Mountain as their place of origin. The DOE and NRC violated federally law protecting American Indian sacred sites and the stole the land from the Western Shoshonee.

2) Yucca Mountain is a DORMANT volcano. Sure it may never go off in our lifetime, but it will errupt before weapons grade plutonium and uranium is naturally converted to carbon (between 24,000 and 125,000 years). Putting nuclear waste in a volcano would spread it over the world and beyond at some point and time.

3) Yucca Mountain sits on a major (and active) fault line. Similar to #2 while it may not happen in yours or my lifetime, it is not wise to put radioactive waste on a fault line near a water source (Colorado River, Lake Powell, Lake Mead) that feeds half the Western U.S.

4) Yucca Mountain is no longer in the 'desert waste lands of the Southwest' as Commonwealth Edison claimed in a media blitz. Rather, Yucca Mountain is 90 miles form one of the largest cities in the U.S., Las Vegas, NV. Furthermore, disaster at Yucca Moutain would impact the cities of Phoenix, LA, Denver, Albquerque, and other major cities.

5) The DOE and NRC violated regulations and their own guidelines in finding a 'long term nuclear repository'. Three sites were to be selected, yet political pressures in TN, ID, and other states forced the matter on the poltically weak NV.

6) Shipping radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain would impact more cities in the USA than keep waste on site of source. For example 90% of all waste shipments to Yucca Mountain would go (by rail) through Flagstaff, AZ. The tracks (now approx 1 train every 20 minutes runs the line) run through town. Risk assessment models stated Flagstaff, AZ would see up to 3 major accidents a year as shipment would peak at 50 trains a day carrying waste through the town. Travel routes would impact low income and ethnic minority, often going through tribal lands. While this avoids major cities, it does then create an environmental justice issue over the routes.


A solution. 1) stop nuclear power and weapons till the solution is found. 2) spend the trillions not on a repository but a way to speed up the process of turning radioactive waste into carbon. 3) if your state prodcues waste, then that state deals with it. Why should NV or NM (WIPP storage of low level waste) bear the burden of IL's 13 nuclear power plants? Granted my state (NM) has major nuclear waste issues, but it should be dealt with here. Finally utilize the destroyed landscape of the Hanford Reach. The Hanford Nuclear Facility has destroyed that area of the Columiba River....it will never be 'normal' as it is polluted beyond repair. Why poision another mountain or landscape when we could use a polluted area? But I say just stop nuclear power and weapons.....the end result (the waste) does out weigh the perception of cleaner energy (which is a lie).

which makes me wonder what they'll end up settling for in the end. Assuming we don't just recycle the fuel.

I contend, in fact, I know that there are zero constituents of used nuclear fuel that are worthless.

I had some concerns over the years about a few nuclides, but basically I have figured out an important use for every single constituent of used nuclear fuel.

And by every constituent, I mean ever nucleon, every isotope from mass 75 to mass 160 and every actinide.

I have pointed out elsewhere that there are some very important industrial materials which will soon be more readily available from used nuclear fuel than in any other place on earth:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/10/143946/647

Arguably car cultists will be crying for used nuclear fuel by 2030, since cars - which can never be rendered clean or green or safe, are even more dangerous than extremely dangerous without catalysts.

I have always rejected the idea that repositories are necessary. They are not. They are a function of the puerile and arbitrary and anti-science fantasies of dogmatic anti-nuke cults. I note that there are ZERO people crying about so called "nuclear waste" who are trying to find out when a permanent repository for dangerous fossil fuel will be funded, planned, sited or built.

Same old crap, different day.

Supporters of nuclear energy fail to discuss the entire cycle. Look at the Hopi, Navajo, and Pueblos who have lost a generation of men due to uranium mining in the 40s- 60s. It is well documented. They never talked about the water issues that exist as nuclear power relies heavily on water and often pollutes the water beyond use. Not wise, when water is the thing (like oxygen) that we must have to live. They never talked about the risk of nuclear waste transport. The fact that towns like Flagstafff, Albuquerque, Gallup, and many more will see up to 50 shipments a day of waste to either WIPP or Yucca.