Bush puts nuke cart before horse

After highly publicized crises at Chernobyl in 1986 and Three Mile Island in 1979, Americans were, for many years, in no mood to entertain the wide-scale proliferation of nuclear power plants.

Amid growing concerns about finite fossil fuel resources, crude oil prices that have topped $60 a barrel and the political implications of meeting the nation's energy needs, many Americans today concede that other options must be explored. President Bush says nuclear power needs to play a far bigger role in America's future. He has asked Congress to include incentives in the Energy Bill to jump start construction of nuclear power plants. Final passage of the bill could come early this week.

Bush and other advocates of nuclear power say technology has significantly reduced the risks of nuclear power generation. Nuclear power plants produce no emissions that could worsen global warming and they operate efficiently. However, they produce waste that remains lethally radioactive for centuries.

Before Bush takes the country down this road, his administration and Congress have to deal with the issue of nuclear waste storage. The best option — for now — is to store it where it is produced. Yucca Mountain's planned repository remains an option, but its storage capacity is finite. Over the long term, the wisest course may be recycling spent fuel rods. Even then, there is a waste issue.

Spent nuclear waste is, obviously, a big concern for Utahns, considering how a proposal to site an above-ground nuclear waste storage facility in Tooele County is winding its way through federal regulatory processes. Absent a legislative solution, the Private Fuel Storage proposal may very well become a reality.

PFS, a consortium of nuclear power concerns, aims to establish a temporary nuclear waste storage facility on lands owned by the Skull Valley band of the Goshute tribe. With Yucca Mountain mired in political and scientific quagmires, there is a growing concern that a "temporary" storage facility in Utah could readily become a permanent fixture. Any talk about creating yet more waste is an obvious concern for Utahns.

Nuclear power plants wouldn't replace traditional power plants overnight. They are costly to build and they present different security issues than coal- or gas-fired power plants.

Obviously, the United States needs to diversify its energy production portfolio. But the Bush administration must get a handle on the nuclear waste issue before moving ahead with expansion of this form of energy production.