Your editorial "On-site nuke storage only logical" (Dec. 16) so badly misses the mark on technological realities of used nuclear fuel management that it does a disservice to your readers.

An underground repository like the one envisioned at Yucca Mountain, Nev., will be needed for disposal of some of the byproduct material of nuclear power generation under any fuel management scenario, even one that includes advanced reprocessing techniques that are decades away.

A bill introduced last week by Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign and supported by Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch ignores progress toward development of a national repository to satisfy Nevada's not-in-my-back-yard stance on this issue. It is the wrong policy for the nation, which receives one-fifth of its electricity from nuclear energy.

The Reid-Ensign bill simply leaves fuel at nuclear power plants and ignores the government obligation under law to move it to one location where it is better secured 1,000 feet underground. In short, it defers the issue to future generations. Despite his endorsement of the bill, Hatch understands this reality, since he continues to voice support for the planned Yucca Mountain repository.

Research and development into advanced reprocessing technologies should not delay progress on Yucca Mountain — a site endorsed overwhelmingly by Congress in 2002 after some 20 years of scientific study.

The growing need for secure, emission-free sources of electricity at stable prices is leading to an era of new nuclear power plant construction. It is important that the nation's used-fuel management policies match this reality rather than the head in the sand approach advocated by your newspaper.

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Scott Peterson is vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C.